Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

After work and back home, pear picking in the garden this autumn, 2011, where they sat happily bathing in the autumn rain just a few weeks ago.
Photos © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2011

Pears. They never featured prominently in my repertoire of non-tropical fruits when growing up in equatorial Singapore. In the markets they were often pushed aside, their presence at supermarkets and fruit baskets overwhelmed by the lush appearances of its more juicer alternatives such as sun ripened mangoes, mangosteens, chikus or creamy custard apples etc.

In Sweden the situation is different, the tone of voice among the fruits are calmer and everyone gets their say during the autumn harvests. While the apples this year were far from abundant, the plums and for the first time, the pears came along very nicely. While I have had my eyes directed towards finding someone having quince – kvitten in Swedish – in their garden and being at a loss about what to do with them (fat chance), our own pears were a more viable option for today’s harvesting.
Continue reading “Ten minutes in the life of a pear” →

Making Swedish Mazariner.
Photos © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2011

A while back in May 2011, I spent the weekend putting together some Swedish signature Almond Tarts / Cakes called Mazarin (mazariner for plural), giving a brief description of the Italian-French heritage and etymology of the word, the tart made popular in large part to Cardinal Jules Mazarin (1602-1661).

Today, these attractively shaped morsels, usually round or oval, capped with a white icing lid are a standard staple on the tea biscuits menu in just about any café in Sweden. If there is a café, in Sweden, there are Mazariner. Simple as that.

It was at the time interesting to discover the stunning difference in the flavour between the homemade ones and the sad samples usually offered for sale in the cafés. The ready made ones are just nothing near in fullness of texture and flavour to what you could produce yourself at home in just under an hour’s efforts. To make your own Mazariner is like reviving a lost art, giving life to a tradition in Sweden that perhaps not many think about these days. Consistency, flavour well the whole idea with the cake is different, if you make them yourself.
Continue reading “Mazariner rustico – Swedish almond tarts, country styled” →

Swedish pancakes, with homemade lingonberry jam.
Photos © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2011

I believe Swedish pancakes served with lingonberry jam, a dish now made globally popular by Ikea, to be one of the first few dishes I was introduced to when I landed in Sweden for the first time, about twelve years ago. Yet, it was only yesterday that something said click! in the learning process and for the first time, ever, I managed to make the perfect Swedish pancake, the ones with little bubbles in the middle and a crisp brown frilly edge.

Swedish pancakes are much like French Crepes though I believe the proportions of the milk to flour and eggs would be slightly different. From what I gather, you’ll have more eggs and less milk to flour in French Crepes compared to Swedish pancakes.

To get these pancakes, it was 500 ml milk to 150g (or 2.5 dl) flour, just one egg and a pinch of salt to taste. A brisk stir and you’ll have the batter ready in a zip! Finding the combined aroma of warmed cinnamon and cardamon intoxicating, I added to this batter a dash of both spices. Traditionally, these pancakes were fried in lard. I used butter in this case, and lots of it!

As for the jam, it was simply to boil the fresh berries together with castor sugar, the proportions of which are half sugar in weight to the total weight of the berries. The boiling process should take no more than twenty minutes, let cool and pour into jars for keeps. Lingonberry jam was the single Swedish import I found in the Singapore grocery shelves long before I had even arrived in Sweden. I grew to love this sweet-tangy jam after a couple of tries, having it mostly with filmjolk or the Swedish version of ‘sour milk’. After a decade or so being here, I find it highly rewarding to finally be able to make my own lingonberry jam from fresh berries, almost ribboning the red berried jars as they go into the fridge for storage.

Cooking this dish on my part, has taught me that perhaps learning processes take time in themselves and are best left, unhurried. When you live and breathe the environment, the food, the culture and the people, things will somehow, one day fall in place. And like the last piece of jigsaw puzzle that slides neatly into the larger picture, after much experimentation, pondering and fixing, you get… perfect lingonberry jam and pancakes. A classic for lunch or dinner, or why not with a dash of whipped cream or ice cream for that afternoon fika.

Enjoy!

Hazelnuts… the beginning of some decadent comfort in the kitchen.
Photos JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro Nilsson © 2011

In the overlapping realm of academia and education management, time to reflect on daily activities and events, makes a large part of the learning process. Whether on your own or in a group, this time aside is specifically to encourage the exchange and innovation of ideas. And for me, I find spending time in the kitchen, in the process of cooking – chopping, pounding, stirring – most therapeutic and self-pertaining to the extent that it gives me that much needed reflection time, sometimes admittedly, at the cost of the final dish. But in academia, it works.

It’s weekend and the household would decidedly look more inviting with a few jars of chocolate hazelnut spread complementing the dark oiled kitchen counter. And in the midst of chopping, grinding, melting and stirring some of the most decadent chocolate bars into a smooth molten concoction, I pondered the varying values management in organizations through glasses tinted Swedish blue and yellow.
Continue reading “Processes behind a Chocolate Hazelnut Spread” →

Depending on your heritage, this kueh / kuih is known as Pulut Serikaya (Straits Chinese – Nonya), Kuih Seri Muka (Malaysian) or Kuih Salat (Indonesian). It’s a two layered dessert common in Southeast Asian cuisine, made of coconut milk custard that’s flavoured with screwpine leaves known as ‘kaya’, atop glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk. Sweet and creamy in consistency.
JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro Nilsson © 2011

Low summer sun on the horizon… in the kitchen along the Swedish Westcoast… sitting on some pandan leaves is a bit of Pulut Serikaya, cooled and sliced from its earlier steaming in the day.

If someone had told me that one day, I would be putting Nonya desserts such as this one on the table made with what feels like little effort, I would not have believed them. But then again, I never thought I would end up in Sweden either, ABBA being the only thing Swedish I knew of when growing up in Singapore.

From a Swedish or indeed a general western perspective, this small delicate delight is a complete unknown, from ingredients that are just barely available except through specialist Asian food stores in the big cities, to its history and tradition. Yet most anyone – given the chance to try it – sways to its alluring fragrance, and to place it with more familiar Nordic desserts, find themselves thinking of it as textured ice cream or warm pudding (if eaten immediately after steaming) for lack of closer references.

Today’s small afternoon tea treat of this kueh is the result of years of dialogue in the kitchen with my mother. From extracting the green juices of fresh pandan leaves to the making of kaya over a firewood stove, and pouring the custard over white polished glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk… the smell of it all coming together in the kitchen was pure heaven!

Through conversations with my mother, come information that in time turns to knowledge, maturing farther in time to a certain wisdom. Today’s tip from her was simple… “Next time you do this, don’t put so much coconut milk to the pulut.”

I smiled, looked at her over the now empty plate, and nodded.