Sage salsiccia sausage

I have finally taken the time to make sausage again.
After doing some more spicy sausages previous I thought it was time to try something more low-key. It became a simple sage salsiccia.

Sage salsiccia sausage.

Ingredients for 1000 g of meat:

• 1000 g of pork
• 16 g salt
• 100 g of water
• 3 g of coarsely ground black pepper
• 2 g of garlic
• 2 g of fresh sage
• 100 g of breadcrumbs

Spices.

After talking a little about sausages and perhaps mostly about ground beef with my friend Henry, I got a really good tip from him. I feel a bit sad about not having recognized it myself earlier.

Instead of making cubes of meat and press down into the mill, cut strips which will feed them self down the mill.

The picture below shows the shreds. This time I used pork neck and a little pork belly.

Shreds of meat.

When all meat has passed through the mill, add the spices, water and breadcrumbs and mix it all together.

Mix everything.

Check the taste and satisfy some of your hunger with a small piece of the sausage mix.

Taste the spice mix.

If it tastes good then it is time to fill the sausage casings.

The hogs casing, ready to be filled.

There was no sausage casserole or any other advanced to dinner directly after. Just a hot dog and a little salad.

A simple dinner.

Ricotta and spinach ravioli

I made a batch of pasta in a previous post, and with it ready you just roll it out and make small rectangles of the pasta dough. It is the first step to getting the ravioli.

A ravioli with friends in the background.

Ingredients for the filling:

• Ricotta
• Spinach
• Garlic
• Honey
• Salt
• Pepper

Mix the filling.

It is very easy to add too much filling. This makes it difficult to close the ravioli making the filling run out when the pasta is cooked.

Visible and hidden filling.

Apply a little water on the edge of the pasta rectangle to keep it together when it is folded over to enclose the filling. You can also pinch it a bit so that it fits tightly.

More half done ravioli.

Below are the ricotta and spinach ravioli served with a browned butter sauce with lemon juice in it, very tasty.
The sauce is butter browned so that it turns brown but not burnt. When it has the right color the lemon juice is added.

Ravioli ready to eat served with a burnt butter sauce.

Chanterelle toast

I have always had difficulties with mushrooms . I never thought it was something wrong with the taste, it's the taste of the forest and autumn, but the consistency. I thought it was like chewing on a pencil eraser. But now, apparently something has happened. I eat mushrooms without problems. Although happy with anything that has a crunchy texture, but still. My previous so big problems with consistencies seems to fade away. Am I getting old? Probably, but it apparently opens up for a lot of yummy things to eat, so who cares?

Chanterelle toast

1 cup chanterelles

½ cu cream

butter

garlic 

salt and pepper

grated cheese

bread

Heat the oven to 200 degrees C. Slice the bread and toast them in the oven for about 5 minutes. Fry the chanterelles in butter in a frying pan and pour the cream over the chanterelles, let simmer for a couple of minutes. Season with garlic, salt and pepper. Take the bread out of the oven and put the chanterelles on top. Grate some cheese over it and put in the oven again for another 5 minutes.

 

Baguettes

It's been so damn cold here this week so I have not dared to bake any bread. I baked these baguettes before the cold spell got here. Now it has become a bit warmer again, at least if I turn on the oven in the morning so that the bread gets a really cozy environment to ferment in. I'm gonna take this opportunity and bake some more bread today. 

Baguettes 

10 g yeast
500 g strong bread flour
10 g salt
350 g water

Crumble the yeast into the flour and work it into the yeast, like you do when working the butter in to a crumble. Then add salt and water and work the dough. When everything is well mixed, turn out the dough on a worktop. Work the dough by stretching it with your palm. Press your palm in to the dough and press the dough back and forth. Gather the dough at regular intervals using a spatula. When the dough begins to release from the baking table by itself, shape it into a ball and place it in a lightly floured bowl to rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

 
Divide dough into four parts and shape them into baguettes. Place them on a lightly floured linen cloth and fold up a piece of cloth between the baguettes so they do not stick together when they ferment. Let them rise for 45 - 60 minutes. set the oven to 250 degrees C. Spray the oven with a little water before putting in the loaves. Bake the baguettes in the center of the oven for 10 - 12 minutes. Let cool on a bread rack.

Pasta from scratch

Having made some pasta from scratch, I have found a recipe I like better than the previous one I used. This recipe is approved by my Italian friend Paolo's grandmother.
Since it only contains regular wheat flour and not durum wheat, so you can use something that is locally produced.

Halfway to pasta.

Ingredients for one serving:

• 100 g of wheat flour
• 1 egg

If it is enough for one serving or not depends on how central the pasta is in the dish which it is used in.
Measure the flour. Here I do a double batch for a ravioli that will come in a later post.

The second half of the pasta.

Add two eggs.

Pasta for two persons.

 Break the eggs and mix them with the flour.

After slight blending.

Pour the dough out onto a table and knead it for 5 minutes until it feels elastic. As the picture below shows, I did not get to all the flour in the dough. The eggs were perhaps a bit too small to be able to tie up all the flour but it does not matter.

After kneading for about 5 minutes.

Wrap the dough in some plastic and let it rest for 15-30 minutes. It will change color and texture a bit.

After resting for 15-30 minutes in plastic.

Now the pasta dough is ready to be rolled out to the pasta you need.

Lemon curd and elder mousse

On our date night when we did tuna tostada we just had to have a dessert too. A date night must surely include a dessert, right? I made a mousse with lemon curd and elder. It was so nice to just stand in the kitchen together and cook good food. I believe that a relationship needs such occasions, times when one decides to just do something together that does not involve sitting on the couch or washing, but instead doing something you love together.

Lemon curd and elder mousse

1 cup cream

2 tbsp elder flower lemonade

1 gelatin leaf

1 cup lemon curd

blueberries

Add the gelatin in cold water and let soak for 5 minutes. Mix the lemon curd with the elder flower lemonade to a smooth pulp. Heat half of the mixture in a saucepan and add the gelatin sheet. Whip the cream and fold into mixture. Pour into serving sized forms and place in the fridge for a few hours.

Tuna tostada with chipotle and avocado mayonnaise

We were in Mexico this December and when we were there we decided to get married. It was a wonderful ceremony, it was a Mayan shaman who married us at the beach. We got married on a beach club with a wonderful beach and a wonderful restaurant. Immediately when we sat at the table after the ceremony the waiter came and asked us, "Tequila?" We toasted in tequila instead of champagne, which perhaps is customary. The tequila was nice, not at all the same thing as what we will be served with lemon and salt here in Sweden, but the best was probably the starter, as the waiter recommended us. Tuna tostada. It was like heaven on a small nacho chips, the tuna melted in my mouth. So we just had to try it again at home, on a  date night. Although we unfortunately did not get it exactly as the one we got in Mexico, it was really good anyway. I do not think we got a hold a tuna of as good quality  that they had at the restaurant in Mexico, or that's what I choose to blame anyway.

 

Avocado and habanero mayonnaise

1 tbsp lemon juice
1 large egg
1 pinch of salt
120 ml olive oil
½ habanero Cilli
1 clove of garlic
1 avocado

 

Mix together lemon juice, eggs and salt in a bowl or in a blender, depending on how persistent you are. If you use the mixer, like I did, start the mixer on the lowest level and add oil a little at a time, if you use a hand whisk, do the same thing. Mix until the mayonnaise has begun to thicken, then add the finely chopped garlic, habanero and avocado and blend some more.

 

Tuna tostada

200 g fresh tuna
½ tsp salt
½ teaspoon finely chopped chipotle
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon tequila
½ tsp cumin
½ avocado
Tortilla Bread

I cheated a little when I did this dish. I did not do the tostada from scratch. This time, it felt easy to just buy soft tortillas and brush on a little oil and toss them in the oven at 200 degrees C and bake them for about 5 minutes. The preparation for the tuna isn't that difficultt. Slice the tuna as thin as possible. Mix together salt, chipotle, lime juice, tequila, and cumin. Lay the sliced ​​tuna in the mix and let marinate for a few minutes. Add a spoonful of avocado and habanero mayonnaise on the tostada and then some tuna slices. Top with sliced ​​avocado.

Loaf with honey

Now, 2012 is finally over. It has been a tumultuous year with both positive and negative events and I am confident that 2013 will be a good year. Or that's the way to think about anyway. It actually feels very nice that Christmas and New Year is over so I can finally get back into my routine, several red days in a row is not something that is beneficial to my work Now everything begins to return to its normal trot and I have time to bake and be in the kitchen again.

Loaf with honey

500 g flour

10 g instant yeast

10 g fine salt

1,25 cups water (warm)

2 tbsp honey

 

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Mix in remaining ingredients and work together. When you have a finished dough turn it out on a surface and knead for about 10 minutes. Stretch out the dough well by keeping it at one edge, put down your palm in the other and stretch the dough. This helps to get the gluten working. Put the dough in a floured or oiled container and let rise until doubled in size, it can take between 45 minutes and 1 ½ hours. When the dough has doubled its size, turn it out on the work surface again and deflate it. Shape it to the shape you want and let rise again, until doubled in size. Set the oven at the highest heat, my is 250 degrees C, and set a plate in the oven. Remove the plate when the dough is fermented and ready,  put the loaf on the plate. Spray a little water in the oven just before you put in the bread. When the bread has baked for 5 minutes, lower the heat to 200 degrees C. Let the bread bake another 20 minutes, it's ready when you hear a hollow sound when you tap on the bottom. Remove the bread and let cool on a rack.

The sausages of 2012

Now it has already been a few days of 2013. I thought that I should list the sausages I did last year and rank them.
It's clear that I'm hooked on making my own sausage. I did not think it would be so fun and especially good and tasty to eat sausages that has more spices and character than baby food.

The best tasting sausage of 2012, a cumberland style sausage.

Here is my highly individual list of how I think the sausages were in flavor.

1. Cumberland
2. Merguez
3. Chaurice
4. Anduoille

As everyone noticing I cheated a bit in December and had some time of instead of making a Christmas sausage.

Maybe the best looking sausage 2012, a merguez.

The most important point I learned this year must be to have as part of breadcrumbs as fluid. This year I will experiment more with how much bread crumbs to included compared to meat.

Hot raspberry and vanilla smoothie

To get started and do more different, for me anyway, things so I have decided to start making smoothies. My thought is that they should function well for breakfast and lunch and also perhaps as a supplement to a dinner.

Finished and served smoothie.

Ingredients for 1 glass of smootihe:

• 1 dl of raspberries, I used frozen ones
• 1 dl of vanilla yogurt 0.5% fat
• 1 tsp of honey
• 0.5 ml habanero sauce

The amount and kind of habanero sauce to use is a long discussion. I currently have a few tasty ones that is not that strong from Mexico home. Which makes it possible to be a little generous.

The point is not that the smoothie should be strong but just a little hot and it is very individual so the only way to know your amount is to try. Start with a lower amount. 

Broadly an equal amount of raspberries as vanilla yogurt.

 Pour the measured raspberries and yogurt along with the honey in a blender.

Some honey for extra sweetness.

There is 1 ml of habanero sauce the picture but it is just because I made a double batch, 2 glasses of smoothie.

Even less habanero sauce to counter some of the sweetness.

Mix everything in the blender and then pour into a suitable and nice glass.

Decanted with garnish.