Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Filled with just apples and cinnamon, Apfelstrudel.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

Apples are generally a late summer harvest in Scandinavia, where in west coast Sweden, Signe Tillisch and the Red Ingrid Marie are varieties that can be found in plenty of home gardens.

There are many recipes to apfelstrudel in cookbooks and the internet on what goes into such an excellent creation, where finding your favourite combination of recipes for your perfect strudel is a matter of search and retrieve at your fingertips. This here is mostly a photo blog on the making of apfelstrudel with, just apples.

The trick to Phyllo pastry is to get it paper-thin. This here is almost there, with more stretching of the dough to come.

I contemplated between using puff pastry or phyllo pastry, where in this making of apple strudel, I tried with phyllo. It was a single large sheet of unleavened flour dough that was subsequently rolled around the apples to create layers.

The apple sauce was made with at least two varieties of Swedish apples. On top of the apple sauce, some green Granny Smiths dusted over with cinnamon.

A cheese cloth or linen helps in the rolling.

Brushing over with butter, to help in the browning.

Vents, to help in the baking and the decorative look of the strudel.

Once baked and out of the oven, a dusting over of icing sugar.

For afternoon tea.

This strudel was baked for about 45 minutes in a Bertazzoni at c. 175C. I wanted time enough for the cut apples to soften and the apple sauce a little of a smother over the phyllo when served.

A completely different palate of taste compared to the phyllo pastries for triangularly shaped curry puffs back in Singapore, but there again it was those curry puffs, these days sold only in spsecific coffeeshops in Singapore, that had first led to my love of phyllo pastries, the result of which was this prelapsarian apfelstrudel.

Creamy west Swedish blue mussel soup laced with Vermentino an Italian white wine – a toast and celebration of the friendly relations between Sweden and Italy – whether at a Swedish Royal gala dinner for trade or in more politically shared interests regarding developments in the Middle East organized at the Second Aspen Bosphorus Dialogue Conference by the Aspen Institute Italia, 2-3 March 2012.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

It was after work and I had my mind on the topics covered at a recent seminar held at the Aspen Institute Italia on Leadership, Globalization and the Quest for Common Values held earlier in March 2012 in beautiful and panoramic Cernobbio nonetheless, where ideas were exchanged on leadership for the twenty-first century. Just 40 km north of Milan, Cernobbio is the city that is home to the luxury hotel Villa d’Este that sits along the shores of Lake Como. The city was also host to a seminar that allowed for various interpretations to be heard on the complexities of leadership in the modern, globalized world and how tensions in leadership could be addressed.

Half absent in mind at the wet market, I scanned flittingly over the different types of raw seafood that west Sweden is so well known for when my eyes came to settle on some very lovely blue mussels.
Continue reading “From west Sweden to northwest Italy: Swedish Mussel soup with a touch of Italian Vermentino from Liguria” →

Long, smooth and in the intense colour of the gem olivine – extra virgin olive oil from Marina Colonna of Italy, over fresh basil, Langherino and cherry tomatoes.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

The idea of a ‘fantastic meal’ often conjures images of a decadently large dish of warm, juicy cuts of meat with an appropriate full bodied red wine.

But take this plate of sun ripened cherry tomatoes laid with a generous slice of Langherino from Piedmont Italy, a cow and goat milk cheese that matures into a creamy softness. On top of the cheese in golden olivine, an award winning olive oil from Marina Colonna. Continue reading “From ground up – the basics of cream and olivine” →