Macha Muffins 抹茶マフィン

Muffins or cup cakes has been a favourite of Axel and Naoko for quite some time. Axel learnt the basic muffins recipe from his older brother and has since made numerous variants. One early variant is a basic muffin flavoured with macha - Japanese green tea. In addition to the subtle but great taste the macha gives that wonderful, strong green colour.

Mach muffins (12)

• 2 dl sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 1/2 dl flour
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 3 tsp macha
• 1 dl milk
• 50 g melted butter

 Beat the eggs and sugar until fluffy. Add all dry ingredients and mix gently. Lastly add milk and butter and again mix gently. Use some of the butter to grease the form if you are using a muffin form. Bake the muffins in the oven for 10 minutes at 200°C.

Pasta frutti di mare

Pasta frutti di mare is a big favourite of ours. It's delicious and very quick to make. Axel had a very particular taste in mind when he started making this dish and the recipe below has been tested many, many times to make sure the proportions are correct =). We hope you will find this a good base recipe. But of course feel free to play around with the ingredients, a little more flour for a thicker sauce or extra wine for a sharper taste etc.

Pasta frutti di mare (4 portions)

• Spaghetti for 4 portions
• 2 finely chopped shallots
• 2 cloves of garlic (crushed)
• 50 g butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 dl white wine
• 3 dl cream
• 4 dl fish stock
• salt & pepper
• ~500 g fish or seafood

Stir fry the shallots (onions will work as well) and garlic in the butter until translucent. Spread the flour over the shallots and mix. Add wine, cream and stock and stir until the sauce is smooth. This particular order works well as the wine should hit the hot pan to reduce quickly; the cream can then be added and the stock used to rinse the decilitre cup. Once the sauce has simmered for a while the fish can be added. Fish in bite sized pieces only need about 5 minutes to be ready. Shrimps or crayfish should be added just before serving.

The selection of fish and/or seafood is quite up to the your own taste. We most often use one salmon filé and about 150 g crayfish, the latter really give the right taste for pasta frutti di mare. The choice of wine also influence the flavour, though most white wines that are not too sweet do the job nicely. One favourite of ours is Santiago 1541 from Chile. Buon Appetito!

Scrambled eggs with tomatoes 西紅柿炒鸡蚤

In China, those who are not so good at cooking might say "I can only make scrambled eggs with tomatoes" (according to our Chinese cooking book). This dish is thus deemed to be very basic, but we find it, none the less, to be an excellent side dish for many Chinese and Japanese courses.

Today we made Gyouza or in Chinese Jiaozi (餃子) a kind of wheat dumplings, but those will have to wait for another entry because the main character this time is the side dish.

Scrambled eggs with tomatoes

• 3 Eggs
• 3 Tomatoes
• 2-3 spring onions (scallions)
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 pinch of salt

To prepare, mix the eggs and cut the tomatoes into small pieces.
Take part of the green side of the spring onions and fine chop and leave aside for decoration. Slice the rest into 3 cm long "diagonal" pieces. Put spring onions and tomatoes together, add salt and sugar and blend lightly.

Heat up a pan with some oil (sesame oil can be used if you like it) and scramble the eggs, leave them to form bite sized chunks. Take the eggs away from the pan and add a little more oil. Pour off the excess liquid from the tomatomix and add it to the pan. The pan should now be quite hot so that most of the water from the vegetables evaporates. Keep stirring until the tomatoes become completely soft. Put the eggs back in and blend the mix then add all to a serving plate and sprinkle the fine chopped spring onions on top.

Italian Mojito

The last couple of weekends we have tested a new drink we really came to like. The recipe is taken directly from a campari advertisement but very pleasantly summery none the less. Inspiration also came from our healthy mint plant giving us an abundance of raw material.

An Italian mojito uses campari instead of rum for this classic Cuban drink. The result is an irresistible mix of Italian seduction and Cuban temperament (according to the pamphlet at least). But it really is a very refreshing drink and fun because it becomes layered. The mint and lime acts as a filter so the campari only slowly seeps into the sweet soda giving a nice touch of bitterness.

Italian Mojito (1 glass)

• Fruit soda (or sprite/seven up/Kirin lemon)
• 2-3 cl Campari
• 1/2 Lime
• 8-12 Mint leaves
• Ice

First cut the lime into a few smaller pieces. Grind the lime and mint leaves at the bottom of the glass. Fill the glass loosely with ice. Pour the campari first and then fill up with fruit soda.

Mediterranean soumen 地中海風素麺

Inspired from the NHK cooking book we developed our own Japanese-western fusion recipe. Many ingredients unique to Japan are hard to come by in Sweden. But shiso (紫蘇) is one plant/herb we are able to grow ourselves and we feel there is no better quality of shiso to be had even in Japan. In celebration of this beginning of our shiso harvest season we made this super simple, but amazingly delicious dish.

Mediterranean soumen (2 port.)

• Soumen (2 port.)
• Crushed tomatoes (~250 g)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Lots of shiso leaves

Start boiling the noodles according to the package. Heat up some oil in a pan and cut the garlic into fine flakes and stir fry. When the garlic turns golden brown put the noodles into the pan and mix so that the garlic is well distributed. Pour the tomatoes into the pan and mix well. Put on plates and serve with cut strips of shiso leaves on top.

Tip 1! No salt or pepper are really needed for this dish as the strong tastes of the garlic, shiso and tomato are the main attractions.

Tip 2! This dish can be eaten both warm and cold depending on feeling/weather/season etc.

Tonkatsu 豚カツ

Tonkatsu is another dish introduced from the occidental kitchen (supposedly by the English) during the Meiji period. Over time though the dish has become completely Japanese and is eaten together with rice and soup. An integral part of any tonkatsu dish is the accompanying, finely graded cabbage (whether this is from western influence or of Japanese origin we don't know).

Similar to sukiyaki, tonkatsu is a good dish with which to introduce foreigners to Japanese cuisine. When Axel's parents got somewhat tired of the Japanese food in Kyoto we brought them to a tonkatsu restaurant and they took an immediate liking to it.

The recipe below is almost completely taken from RunnyRunny999 who made an excellent video on how to make tonkatsu.


Tonkatsu

• Pork cutlet
• Wheat flour
• Beaten eggs
• Panko (bread crumbs)
• Salt and black pepper
• Cooking oil

First the preparation of the cutlet. If the cutlet has a rim of fat this need to be cut into sections to prevent shrinkage during cooking. Then tenderise the meat with a meat hammer (if available) or pierce it all over with a fork. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides.

The easiest way to handle the coating/breading of the cutlet is to have three separate plates, one for the flour, one for the beaten egg and one for bread crumbs. Coat the cutlet in flour and then dip into the eggs and finally cover the cutlet in bread crumbs. We use bread crumbs as we have not been able to find panko (which is somewhat larger bread flakes) in Sweden.

Instead of deep frying, which can be laberous, messy not to mention smelly to do at home we simply stir fry the prepared cutlet in a large amount of oil (we use cold pressed rapeseed oil). For an even more low fat version the cutlet can be baked in the oven according to RunnyRunny999's video.

Serve with fine shreds of cabbage, rice, miso soup and tonkatsu sauce (such as Bull dog sauce).

Semla

Semla is a Scandinavian pastry with old traditions. It is closely connected to "fastlagen" which can be translated to "the eve before (Easter) fasting". The Easter fasting is a Christian commemoration of the temptation of Christ, but before the fasting commences there is traditionally a three day period of festivities. As a part of this comes the bun with cream and almond paste we know as semla or fastlagsbulle depending on where in Sweden one asks. This pastry is also eaten in Norway, Finland and the Baltic states with minor variations.


Semlor (30-40)

• 150 g butter
• 5 dl milk
• 50 g yeast (sweet)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 dl Ssugar
• 2-3 tsp cardamom
• 1.6 dl wheat flour

Start by melting the butter in a pot. When melted, take the pot off the stove and pour the milk and mix. Make sure the temperature is about 37°C.

Put the yeast in crumbs in a big bowl and pour the milk and butter mix over it. Add salt, sugar, cardamom and the mixed egg and stir. Add about 2/3 of the flour and work with the dough until its smooth. Add flour until the dough lets go from the edges. Leave it to rise (until double size) for about 45 minutes with a towel over the bowl.

Work the dough down a little after the fermentation and add some more flour if the dough is sticky. Put some flour on the baking table divide the dough into four parts. Work with one part a time and put the rest under the towel. Divide each part into bun-sized bits and roll them into balls. Put the buns on baking paper on a baking plate and let them rest for about thirty minutes under a towel. Spread some mixed egg on top of the buns before put into the oven. Bake in 225°C for 9-12 minutes (depending on size). Let the buns cool somewhat before eating.

These buns can be eaten in numerous ways but to make them into semla just cut them in half and add a small chunk of almond paste in the middle and fill up with whipped cream. Sprinkle some flour sugar on top of the lid. Axel doesn't like almond paste so he skips that part and in Finland semla is eaten with whipped cream and jam. We are also rather modest with the amount of cream, in a bakery you would get two to three times more =).

The cup in the background is made by Naoko's cousin Takashi who is an illustrator. You can find more of his cool stuff at his site.