Super salad

Spinach salad with blue cheese crumble, cranberries and walnuts

When I was an intern in the States, I lived on spinach for week at a time. One night, when some colleagues and I had gone out to dinner, I had a wonderful spinach salad with blue cheese, cranberries and walnuts. And I thought to myself: hmm, I can make this too! So off to Walmart!

This salad is really simple, easy to make and so very delicious. Here's what you need:

1 handful of chopped walnuts

1 handful of dried cranberries

1 handful of crumbled blue cheese

3-4 handfuls of fresh spinach

Wash your spinach really well and dry with a kitchen towel. Take all the other ingredients and mix in a bowl. Then pour on top of your fresh spinach. Voila!



Enjoy!

London baby!

I went to London this weekend - my first holiday since the winter of 2010 and one of my absolute favorite cities. I mean, who can't spend a weekend in London?

Some weekend highlights:

Lunch at Gordon Ramsey's Maze- try their tasting menus with delicious bite-size dishes that are to die for!

Goat's milk ice cream with macha dust and fresh Kent strawberries with cream at Borough Market (my very first visit there, but definately not my last!)



Traditional afternoon tea at Brown's Hotel. We had the detox-version (tea-tox): a healthier, but certainly not less scrumtuous or delicious, version of the classic afternoon tea.



Afternoon tea at tea, right behind St. Paul's Cathedral, my absolute favorite tea place in the world.

Sea vegetable bread rolls

I love baking bread. There's something therapeutic to it, almost: you get to work out aggressions - and get a tasteful result. What's not to like?

This recipe is for bread rolls with lots of seeds - and sea weed. I went to a Japanese cooking class last week and was so inspired by our Japanese teacher, who served some wonderful small bread rolls with sea vegetable. Sea weed, or sea vegetable, is high in protein, so it's a good addition to your diet, if you don't eat a lot of meat.

For this recipe, I've used Clearspring's organic Green Nori Sprinkle.

Ingredients
400 gr. flour
100 gr. spelt flour
25 gr. yeast
One handful of pumkin seeds
Half a cup of mixed seeds and grains
Half a cup of oatmeal Half a cup of olive oil
One and a half cup of water
Two teaspoons of sea weed



These bread rolls don't rise over night, but only for a few hours - hence the large amount of yeast.

Put your mixed seeds and grains in a pot and cook until soft. Let it cool before your mix it with the other ingredients.



Mix your flour together in a bowl with the other dry ingredients. Mix your yeast and water in another bowl. Then mix all of it together along with your cooked seeds and grains.



You can knead your your dough in two ways: put it all in a dough mixer - or do it by hand. I've not yet invested in a dough mixer, but it's definately on my to-get list. So I still knead the dough by hand. I recommend that you spend a good 10 minutes on it. Take breakes if you need to. When your dough looks smooth and doesn't stick too much to your bowl, it's done.



Here's great tip I got from Danish chef and master baker Claus Meyer himself at one of his baking classes: when you've kneaded your dough, put it in another bowl that you've put some oil in. That way the dough doesn't stick to the bowl, when you need to get it out later. Pretty clever! It's a very simple and small thing, but it's the small things that make a great difference.

When your dough has risen, put some flour on your kitchen counter. Simply slide your dough out of the bowl and throw a bit of flour on it. Then (and here's another good tip from Meyer) cut off pieces of your dough with a knife and put them on your baking tray. At the baking class, we were told that the less you touch the dough, the better the bread. Why? Because the more you handle the dough, the more air you let out of it and the less moist and fluffy it will become when it's done baking.

Bake in the oven for about 25-30 minutes at 190 celcius/374 fahrenheit degrees.



Enjoy!

Copenhagen Chocolate Festival 2011

The 2011 Copenhagen Chocolate Festival took place this weekend at TAP1 in the old Carlsberg compound.

The old Carlsberg gates


This was my first time at the Chocolate festival and I made sure to be there at 11 a.m., when the doors opened. But so did many others. Quite a crowd had turned out from the moment the festival opened to sample the many different chocolates, learn more about how to use chocolate in recipies, hear lectures about the process of making cocoa beans into chocolate and see chocolate experts in action in the open kitchens. The program included:

- Demonstrations by A XOCO's Jesper Rahbek and Strangas Conditori & Cakeaway's Nikolaos Strangas
-Lectures on the process of making chocolate
- Free samples from the country's best chocolate makers

The winners of the day were:

- Rikke Gryberg took home the award for Best Nordic Fusion and Umami
- Strangas got the award for Best Newcomer
- Xocolatl received the Best Bar award for their Version 3.0 chocolate bar

Unfortunately, I never made it to any of the lectures, but I did try out some of the samples at the open kitchens.

Lobsterbisque with chocolate infusion and guacamole with chocolate


Chocolate Champions

Of course, some booths were more popular than others. The Summerbird venue was continually crowded and so were the Strangas place and Meyers Bageri. That, however, should not come as a surprise. Summerbird is securely established as one of the chocolate champions in Denmark and Meyers Bageri is a Copenhagen stable at any Copenhagen food event. Their brownies and chocolate mousse went like hotcakes. Strangas had brought gorgeous mini-versions of his delicate cakes and macaroons. I personally had to make two trips to get all my samples.

Samples 1 and 2: tea from Teselskabet (the Tea Company) with chocolates from Madagasgar and Papouasie and Strangas mini chocolate mousse with sea-buckthorn. Yummy!


Chocolate with a Conscience

One venue that was especially interesting was ScandChoco. Here you could find information on American chocolate producer Askinosie Chocolate, founded by a criminal defense lawyer in the late 1990's. Another stand that you simply couldn't miss was Simply Chocolate's, whose chocolates are available at Illum. I love their design, which modern, simple and tight, focussing instead on the massive flavours. And how can you not love their attitude and word play?



Samples 3 and 4: Valrhona Celya hot chocolate with Anthong Berg pistachio and lime easter egg and variety of Callebaut chocolate sprinkles, and Strangas panna cotta, Meyers brownie and Anthon Berg strawberry chocolate.


The Loot

I came away the following treats:

- Simply Chocolates Dusty Hazel, Powder Pecan and Undercover Almonds. I only just discovered this company yesterday and am already thinkin this might be a favorite among preferred chocolate brands. The Dusty Hazel tube contains small balls made of chocolate, hazelnuts and blueberries. The combination of the flavours is fresh and you're able to taste each individual ingredient. The sweet blueberry goes very well with the cruchy hazelnut and full flavour of the dark chocolate.
- Strangas Rasberry Marshmellows. These marshmellows is simply irresistable. Plain and simple. And loaded with flavour.
- Blend tea from Friis Holm. This is the first tea I've tried from Italian Blend tea. I got the Vento D'autunno, a black tea, which has a sweet, but strong scent. The flavour is mild and soft. It certainly goes well with chocolate, but I would also use fo breakfast on a Sunday morning or at night, when curdled up with a book.
- Askinosie Chocolate Nibble Bar. Being an Americanist, I just had to try out some American chocolate. I've yet to try it, but am definately looking forward to it.

The loot

Breakfast - just add water

Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day. I simply cannot function without it. One of my friends made breakfast for us one morning not so long ago and gave me a great tip on how to make a quick, bur healthy breakfast.



Don't we all have enough to do in morning? There's never enough time and what if you get out of bed to late because you were out all night with your friends?

Here's a tip: just add water!

Here are some suggestions for a quick, über-tasty and healthy breakfast - with oatmeal

Ingredients:

One cup of oatmeal
Half an apple, deseeded and finely or roughly chopped
One handful of raisins/cranberries/dried cheeries or other berries
Big pinch of cinnamon
Some agave nectar (syrup)

Put your chopped apple in the bottom of your bowl. Put your oatmeal on top and sprinkle your berries over it. Top the whole thing off with lots of cinnamon and some agave nectar.

And finally - just add hot water. Stir the ingredients together for a minute or two and voila - delicious, healthy oatmeal porridge.

Tip: if you want to bring it up a notch, try mixing in some dried dates or figs. They add a wonderful sweet flavour that goes really well with the cinnamon. And while you're at it, put in some chopped almonds.

Danish Food Champion

Rasmus Kofoed, owner of restaurant Geranium here in Copenhagen, won the highly acclaimed title as the world's best chef at the international competition Bocuse D'or a few days ago. His win places Danish cuisine and gastronomy at the top of the international food scene.

2010 was a good year for Danish food, with Noma winning the coveted title as the world's best restaurant in April. With the Kofoed's win and new title as the world's best chef, 2011 appears to continue the stride.

A visit to Geranium this year is definately on my wish-list!

Pesto

A good way to spice up a pasta dish or sandwich is to add a little pesto. You don't need any fancy tools or that much time - just a couple of minutes, actually.

Ingredients

Basil
Olive oil
Pine nuts
Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano if you want to be really specific)
Garlic (1 or 2 cloves depending on how strong you want your pesto)

Nip a big bunch of basil leaves from the plant and chop them briefly, before adding them your kitchen mortar. Throw in a handful of pine nuts, olive oil and grind some cheese on top. Finely chop your garlic and add as well. Mix all the ingredients together with your pestle until you have lovely, smooth paste. Voila!