A homebaked semla in hetvägg fashion

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Semla i hettvä

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!
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Weekend indulgence: roast turkey dinner with Sandeman Port gravy

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Roast turkey with red currant jam and port gravy

Roast turkey served with red currant jam and dark gravy laced with port.
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson, Cheryl Cordeiro-Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro © 2009

Growing up in the Eurasian tradition in Singapore, it was my family’s tradition to have a variety of meats especially during the festive seasons. Roast turkey was one for serving on New Year’s Eve. The smell of a roast turkey wafting from the kitchen is indescribably decadent and something I’ve always looked forward to come New Year’s.

Since being in Sweden, I have had little opportunities to bring over a lot of my food traditions, partly because I spend so much time exploring the new and traditional of Swedish cuisine. Come this weekend however, we decided to put turkey on the table!
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A little avocado luxury

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Avocado with shrimp entrée, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Avocado with shrimps, an au naturel entrée
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson for Cheryl Marie Cordeiro © 2009

Crisp and refreshing, this avocado entrée with shrimps provides a filled with natural goodness, creamy but not too heavy entrée to any dinner party. Most alluring about this dish is that all ingredients can be homemade without preservatives with little time and effort.

The avocado seed is removed with a twist of the knife.

Remove the avocado seed with a slight twist of the knife.

What you’ll need for this are equal parts of crème fraiche and mayonnaise, a dash of black and white pepper, pinch of salt, some fresh dill that is chopped finely, and a squeeze of lemon juice. If you don’t wish for the slight sour tint of flavour that comes from the crème fraiche, you can substitute that with whipped cream instead. Mix all the ingredients till the flavours are well incorporated, then add the shrimp, stirring again. This can be prepared the night before, which I find a real time saver for dinner parties.

Mayonnaise, crème fraiche and dill before the shrimp go in

Mixing the ingredients.

I’ve really only come across eating avocados with shrimp when in Sweden a few years ago. Because of its simple luxury – quick and easy to prepare, something that looks decadent without the extravagant prices, plus it’s as eco-friendly as cooking can get with all natural ingredients – it’s been one my favourite things to eat when living in Sweden since.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Fudge

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Old fashioned chocolate fudge 1, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Smooth and melts in your mouth!
Photo Cheryl M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2009

It was late in the evening and it had been a long day of reviewing papers for an upcoming conference. I didn’t feel a need for a full meal but needed a sugar rush fix of sweet chocolate. I thought I could reach into the cabinet for that packet of chocolate coated Daim bits but alas! Someone else had gotten to them before I. So I settled to make chocolate fudge.

Chocolate fudge or fudge in general is not for the faint of heart calorie counters because it is by definition, a sugar bomb. It’s fairly easy to make because it doesn’t need that much looking after (like kaya or bernaise sauce) and it takes about 30 minutes cooking time.

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Amaro Montenegro Tiramisù

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Amaro Montenegro tiramisu with shaved chocolate topping

Tiramisù with Amaro Montenegro.
Photo JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2009

It was in Venice slightly more than a year ago, that I really fell in love with Tiramisù. It came as a wobbly cake served in a backlane restaurant of the labyrinth of Venice that would have been difficult to locate, if not for the recommendation.

Although many would today experience Tiramisù in the form of a cake slice, this Italian dessert had its beginnings during the 17th century in Siena, a northwestern Italian province of Tuscany, when the Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici III (1642-1723) had a somewhat similar dessert during his visit there in a custard consistency.
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Chocolate gyllenmust

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Swedish gyllenmust, Vahlrhona cocoa powder, gingerbread cookies

Chocolate gyllenmust (oatmeal drink) with gingerbread cookies.
Photo Cheryl Marie Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2009

As with the United Kingdom, Sweden is experiencing some harshly cold weather these days, averaging a -10 deg C outside with strong winds.

What I find quite comforting for the weather is an oatmeal based hot drink that in Sweden is called Gyllenmust. The finely ground oatmeal once cooked, gives a wonderfully thick consistency that fills the stomach.

Milk in a pot, on a stove with cinnamon, ready for gyllenmust making

A dash of cinnamon into the warming milk starts the process.

Traditionally, Gyllenmust is made with milk and sweetened with raisins dropped in during the cooking process. I like to have mine unsweetened, with a hint of cinnamon and a more generous helping of cocoa powder. A cup of this chocolate oatmeal drink and some gingerbread cookies can make most anyone snug in the cold.

Knäck – the classic Swedish Christmas candy

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Julgodis, knäck, Swedish toffee, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Swedish classic Christmas candy – knäck.
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson © 2009

Not too complicated to make, always appreciated, but demanding of your patience is the Swedish classic Christmas candy – knäck. It’s similar to English toffee but still not quite. Nothing sets the Christmas mood as well as a full tray of knäck. Here is how we made it this Christmas:

Julgodis, knäck in pot, Swedish toffee, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

To use a large pot and to stir all the time is an essential trick of the trade. Possibly more failed candy are eaten straight out of the pot then actually perfected ones. But no worries, as it’s all part of the fun.

You can make knäck with or without nuts. Our batch this year was smooth, without the crunch.

Swedish classic Christmas candy – knäck
3 dl cream
3 dl sugar
3 dl light syrup
2 tbs butter
2 dl sweet almonds peeled and chopped (optional)

1. Chop the almonds. Lose the smallest particles.
2. Mix all ingredients minus the almonds in a large pot.
3. Boil while stirring until it reaches 125 centigrades, don’t even look away.
4. Add almonds
5. Fill the paper tins (ca 100). Don’t let the pot get cold.
6. Store on an open tray.

Julgodis, knäck filling up in paper forms, Swedish toffee, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Find a small good suitable spoon for filling the paper tins or they will topple.

Some useful tips when making knäck:

Use average, not too hot a flame. Stir absolutely all the time. Find a small good suitable spoon for filling the paper cups or they’re prone to toppling over by the weight of the seductive goo. Avoid stacking the filled paper cups since they will stick together. There is a “drop test” in water that you can use to see if the temperature is right.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Mousse and Peppermint Chocolate drops

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Chocolate mousse with brownie in the middle, strawberries on top and white chocolate, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Chocolate mousse with shaved white chocolate and strawberries on top.
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson for CMC © 2009

The Swedish julbord or Christmas Table is not complete without its array of sweet desserts. In this blog are two of what we had made at home, the first is a Chocolate Mousse cup, filled with a rum soaked brownie in the middle, topped with sliced strawberries and white chocolate shavings.

Chocolate mousse takes very little time to make, though you do need to put aside some time for it to set. What I like about this particular dessert is that you can put this together hours before guests arrive, even the day before, so on the evening of the party, all that is left to do is glide over to the refrigerator and bring out these gorgeous things for serving.

A good chocolate mousse recipe can be found at The Joy of Baking website.

Peppermint and chocolate drops, julgodis, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Chocolate Peppermint Drops – a Swedish Christmas classic!

A candy classic found in many Christmas markets in Gothenburg would be Peppermint Chocolate Drops. You’ll recognize it by a white, sometimes near translucent peppermint base with a drop of dark chocolate on top. Chocolate coupled with peppermints, like After Eight mints, are always popular with guests.

We made ours by whipping together 300 g of icing sugar with about 3-4 egg whites and a squeeze of lemon juice. After the whipping is done, we dropped in about 3-5 drops of Japanese peppermint oil because it contains 85% menthol. If you don’t wish for the peppermint flavour to be too pungent, you could try using English peppermint oil with 60%-70% menthol or American peppermint oil, with about 50%-60% menthol. You could rather also use less peppermint oil in the mix altogether.

The chocolate drops came from unsweetened cooking chocolate with about 70% cacao. We used them as is, with no sugar added, to counter balance the sweetness of the icing peppermint base.

Enjoy!

Swedish Christmas ham

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Julskina recept Christmas recipe, Swedish westcoast, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Honey mustard baked ham.
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl Marie Cordeiro for CMC © 2009

Baked ham is perhaps what Sweden and Singapore share most in common at the Christmas table, the difference being that in Singapore one could easily order it over the counter at the shops, whilst in Sweden, each household is more likely to bake their own.

Boneless gammon in pot, Swedish Christmas ham, julskinka

Salted gammon in the pot.

What you’ll need if you’re going to do a homebaked ham is to purchase cured ham or boneless gammon that is readily available at the grocer’s. In Sweden, a little recipe follows each netted packaging of salted, raw ham.

The entire boneless gammon goes into a pot of water and simmered for about 3 hours. We dropped bay leaves, peppercorns and some carrots in our pot. Most recipes recommend that the inside of ham should reach between 70 and 74 deg C, you could go higher or lower, depending on how cooked you want your ham.
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Pickled beetroots for the Christmas table

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Beetroots after boiling, Swedish pickled beetroots

Beetroot’s natural rich vibrant burgundy color adds festive culinary cheer to the Christmas table.
Photo Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl Marie Cordeiro for CMC © 2009

Christmas is typically one such time of the year when you risk letting your general enthusiasm go completely overboard and you start looking into age-old things that more sensible relatives gave up decades ago – like making your own pickled beetroots. It was Asta, my Swedish mother-in-law, who used to make this, so how we’re doing it here is as she used to do it. The entire project takes just about a few minutes once the beets are boiled. Continue reading “Pickled beetroots for the Christmas table” →