Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

T-bone steak in Bistecca alla Fiorentina, Sweden.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

One of our favourite ways of collecting travel memories is to bring back food ideas and inspirations. Its a nice way of revisiting your favourite spots without even leaving the comfort of home. I think the most memorable meal of our visit to Florence (2008) was at Trattoria Quatro Leoni that served up one of Florence’s best Bistecca alla Fiorentina. The steak came with spinach and fried potato wedges and a bottle of local red. The meal made for a most marvelous evening spent under the full moon of Tuscany, Italy.

Seeing a gorgeous T-bone meat slab weighing in at about 8 lbs (4 kg) in total at Svenskar Gårdar’s stall at the recent Food Fair Passion för Mat 2010, we couldn’t help but want to have T-bone steak, Tuscan style!
Continue reading “T-bone Bistecca alla Fiorentina in Sweden” →

Pineapple tarts with a pinched pastry base.
Photo © JE Nilsson and Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson 2010

Every year, it is with mixed feelings that I begin looking around for ripe pineapples for the annual Christmas batch of pineapple tarts. All things considered I think this is one tradition I grew up with in Singapore that I would consider giving up if my northern Swedish husband had not grown an unexpected liking of them. As it turns out, he loves pineapple tarts and most other exotic fruits including durians.

Done in the traditional way it is a very, very time consuming task to make pineapple tarts. The failure rate is also high and the rewards questionable, except the fact that however criticized your delicate small masterpieces would be, any number of them still finish within minutes!

When it comes to pineapple tarts, as with other traditional food such as American apple pies and Swedish meatballs everyone’s an expert and we all have our own favourite method of making it – which by definition is the best – and it is not before all have been tasted that you can decide which your favourite flavour, size, crust, color of jam, with or without “crown” etc., is. Personally I love it when the jam turns out crisp and caramelized on the outside and moist on the inside when sitting on a lightly golden browned pastry base.

Anyone in Singapore – Malays, Peranakans, Chinese and Eurasians – will have a ready answer exactly on how a perfect pineapple tart should be. And they will all be different. For the true fan it is worth the effort trying all varieties, because both pastry and jam do have different consistencies and tastes. It’s like wine. Nobody would settle for just “red”. Depending on who made them, they are all different.

Today pineapple tarts are available at some bakeries all year round in Singapore and Malaysia, however tarts are still most abundant during festive seasons. In my culinary background I inherited the Eurasian Sugee Cake from my father’s side, while my mother taught me how to make Pineapple Tarts.
Continue reading “Pineapple Tarts, a daunting tradition” →

Apricot and raisin bun – one of my favourite fruit buns!
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

Fruit filled buns have always been a favourite of mine ever since I was a little girl bouncing from bakery to bakery around the neighbourhood with my mother in Singapore. The heartland bakeries in Singapore where the likes of the Bengawan Solo bakery chain has sprung, produce some of the simplest yet most flavourful cakes and buns for Sunday afternoon tea. It was always convenient to grab a small box of your favourite cakes on display that cost next to nothihng at all, to have with the family at home.

With Easter upcoming only a few weeks away, I thought I’d share a variation of the hot cross bun recipe, one that has been adapted from traditional Swedish cookbooks to my liking.
Continue reading “Apricot and Raisin Buns” →

Award winning Best Meat Chef of the Year 2009, Fredrik Andersson, at Råda Säteri, was one of today’s celebrity chefs at the public cooking school organized at the Passion for Food Fair. After the demonstration we were all invited to sample the results.
Photo © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson
for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2010

Today was spent alongside the harbour front at Eriksbergshallen in Gothenburg Sweden. This hall was a part of the old Eriksbergs shipyard that was located here from the late 19th century. It has been given a face lift and been turned into a modern medium sized exhibition hall for specialist events that will not kill your feet or take days to cover. This time the hall was filled to the brim with the best locally produced, first class gourmet food that Sweden could muster. The fair is aimed at professionals, gourmet chefs and restaurants, and basically anyone with a serious interest in first class food.

If you’re a food enthusiast with a sincere interest in the culinary field, you’ll not be disappointed. This is the third consecutive year that this fair is held in Gothenburg and with the best stalls thus far.

It wouldn’t be too far fetched a guess that this food fair will soon create a niche for itself as a ‘must do’ event on the Scandinavian culinary scene. So I’d suggest that you take a look in the calender for next year if you are heading this way and try to make it to this event if it fits with your other plans and general interests.
Continue reading “Passion för Mat 2010: for food enthusiasts 26-28 Feb., Gothenburg, Sweden” →

A semla, eaten in hetvägg (in hot milk) fashion.
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson, Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro © 2009

Eaten previously only on Shrove Tuesday, one of the last festive meals before the period of Lent leading up to Easter, it was not five days after the twelfth day of Christmas that in this time of mass consumerism that the shops in Sweden began selling some gorgeous looking semlor fully stuffed with whipped cream. As eyebrow raising as it was, I wasn’t one to complain finding ready made semlor in the shops because, I love these!

So decadent is the semla that it seemed to have contributed to the death of King Adolf Frederick of Sweden (1771) after topping off his already heavy meal with 14 of these buns!
Continue reading “A homebaked semla in hetvägg fashion” →