Dark ginger orange stollen – a variation of the Swedish julbröd or vörtbröd.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2012

Stollens are one of my favourite festive foods at year end, together with the British inherited version of dark brandied fruitcake / fruit pudding mainly because I find so exotic and comforting at the same time, the blend of flavours from the butter, the spices and dried fruits.
Continue reading “Dark ginger orange stollen” →

For anyone with an adventurous mindset, I would like to share my take on a rustic version of the Eurasian Almond Sugee Cake, made with unblanched almonds, topped with almond-vanilla icing.

My vesion of the Eurasian almond pastel de sémola de rústica, served with the grated zest of a lime atop the almond-vanilla icing glaze.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

As a little Eurasian girl growing up in Singapore, I can remember Almond Sugee / Semolina Cake from a very early age. In my family it was also my father who carried the Eurasian heritage forward and who had baked the cake in the family well before I was born.

My grandmother, Dorothy Yap, and me in 1978.

To all appearances this cake might well have a long history stemming from Medieval Europe where we can find numerous variations of similar semolina cakes today. Some googling around, shows that in the Middle Eastern countries, they have variations of Revani (an orange semolina cake), Namoura (without eggs) and Basboosa (with coconut and yoghurt). In south Europe, Italy has its own variations of torta di semolino made with lemon or orange, and from India to Southeast-Asia, there are variations of the sugee / sooji cake made with essence of rose or rose syrup poured over the cake after baking and cooling.

The recipes also vary with regards to the use of semolina, with some recipes using pure semolina flour and others calling for a mix of semolina and plain flour.
Continue reading “A rustic version of the Eurasian Almond Sugee Cake” →

Coconut Cookies
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

I grew up with colourful homemade coconut candy and have been so accustomed to the thought that the recipes for most coconut related foods would contain Asian influences, I was surprised to have found a coconut cookie recipe in the Swedish cookie book, Sju sorters kakor that was labelled a “traditional” Swedish recipe!

Of course Sweden already began trading with the Far East since the 1700s, and would have had access to a variety of tropical spices and food types, so on hindsight, it was perhaps the realization that these coconut cookies were a favourite sort of the household that came as a pleasant discovery.
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This exquisite creation makes divine just about any chocolate fix need! Nero Nero or Double Black 99% cocoa chocolate bar from Pasticceria Muzzi with origins from Foligno in Perugia, the Umbrian region of Italy.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2012

There’s no excuse for chocolate addiction. And I’d be fibbing if I said it was because of the summer scorch in Sweden that I’m craving chocolate ice-cream since I still crave chocolate ice-cream even in the cold Nordic winters.

The more bitter than sweet of a high content cocoa chocolate bar varies from brand to brand, most a variation in taste akin to the native Indonesian black nut known as buah keluak (pangium educe). This particular chocolate bar from the well established Pasticceria Muzzi in Italy is less bitter than some other more than 90% cocoa organically produced chocolate bars, perfect for those who prefer a softer / milder taste to high content cocoa bars.

Muzzi confectionary has a long history in Italy that began in the small town of Foligno in 1795 by Mastro Tommaso di Filippo Muzzi. With plenty of fantasy and passion for the product still reflected in the Muzzi tradition of today, Tommaso di Filippo Muzzi began by producing small confetti hearts infused with star anise, a delicacy that had been a celebrated favourite of the town and perhaps even the region since the fifteenth century. Foligno is situated in central Italy in the province of Perugia, in the region of Umbria that borders the beautiful Tuscan region to its west. The town has an important railway station, Stazione di Foligno that opened in January of 1866, as part of the line between Rome and Ancona. This railway line helped set the Muzzi family’s distribution possibilities for products early on, where today, their outlet in Rome stands testament of their history in the trade.

In accordance to family tradition, generations of fathers and sons have produced candy confections of all sorts, the first born son of the family continue to this day, to be named Tommaso or Filippo.

Packaged and wrapped beautifully in a textured black envelope – a seductive invite to touch and open in itself – you’ll find the texture of this central Italian made chocolate bar in contrast to its envelope. Soft and smooth, this bar of decadence threatens to melt between the fingertips in the process of unwrapping, the beginnings of the making of this home made chocolate ice-cream.
Continue reading “Muzzi’s Nero Nero chocolate ice-cream” →

These ‘rock cookies’ were made lightly compressed in paper cupcake forms.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2012

My first encounter with the Rock Cookie – if it wasn’t also the first thing I learnt to bake – was actually in Singapore in a cooking class in the all girl Convent in which I grew up.

The name of the cookie derives from the appearance of the cookie itself, the roughened shape resembling a rock. In line with going back to basics and using the simplest of ingredients, the original recipe for this cookie contains just five ingredients – flour, sugar, eggs, raisins and a pinch of baking powder.

Traditionally, butter and sugar are beaten till smooth in consistency, eggs added into the mixture and then flour and baking powder, with raisins following last. The cookies are then spooned onto baking sheets, with not too much fuss about the form of it, since part of its charm was for them to look artfully misshapened.

What I’ve done here in this variation of mine was to cut in the butter into the flour, drizzle sugar thereafter without having the sugar thoroughly mixed into the dough, leave out the baking powder instead adding a pinch of sea-salt. This mixture was then lightly pressed into paper cupcake forms and baked for about 15 minutes on 175C, where the melting butter and sugar are left to naturally bind the mixture together whilst baking.

What results is a light crumbly version of the original Rock Cookie, the surface shape of the cookie resembling pebbles on sand.

The ingredients are:

300g plain flour
120g butter
80g brown sugar (add more if you wish for the cookies to be sweeter)
2 eggs
pinch of salt
80g raisin

The cupcake forms help keep the shape of the cookies if you need to transport them to a picnic outdoors. Otherwise, they can just well be removed from the paper forms and served as is, with coffee to that Swedish summer’s afternoon.

Enjoy!

The first ice-cream of the household for 2012 in Spring – Raspberry Cardamom.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

If there ever were a reflected change in values from one generation to the next, in my life, I can find no better example than that of the attitude towards cooking.

In the hierarchic familial structure of the Asian society, the activity of cooking was invariably bound to the social pecking order in the family. Either the eldest, the youngest or the ‘least favoured’ of children was often given the task of cooking for, the usually, large family. Cooking could also be parceled out as a kind of punishment to children, to be ‘kitchen bound’, instead of being allowed to go outdoors to play with your friends after school or worse, on weekends.
Continue reading “A personal luxury – Raspberry Cardamom ice-cream” →

To oblige your senses – a batch of El Pedregal Porcelana Venezuela chocolate ganache muffins.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2012

It was meant to be a rudimentary mid-week chocolate fix, where this batch of chocolate ganache filled chocolate muffins were made from what I had in my kitchen pantry for chocolate.

But as the kitchen filled with the aroma of the fruit tones of the melting Porcelana chocolate and the swirled spices of cinnamon and cardamom, I soon realized not all chocolate muffins are created equal.

As a crowning sensation of the senses, this batch of muffins were filled with Valrhona El Pedregal Porcelana for chocolate ganache.
Continue reading “El Pedregal Porcelana Venezuela, chocolate ganache muffins” →

Oven baked chicken liver pâté served on toasted white bread, with cornichons and a slice of orange.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2011

Part of our Christmas tradition in Sweden is to prepare and subsequently feast upon, the many dishes that go into our the traditional Swedish Julbord or Christmas Table. In reality the dishes are so numerous that it would be impossible to sit down and enjoy them all in one sitting as a grand jultide smorgasbord as intended. So, we have found it better to start well in advance and use the dark months ahead of the mid-winter celebrations for various cooking experiments.

One of those many dishes that just came to mind was various pâté to be served with a wonderfully fruity cumberland sauce. When it comes to liver pâté there are lots of recipes on line. The traditional ones ask of you to mince and mix the ingredients first and then bake the pâté in a water bath in the oven. The more modern ones if one might say so suggests that you can fry the ingredients first and then just put all of it in a blender and voilá, pâté. Both methods work and the blender method is of course faster. It also gives the benefit of better control of how much you cook the liver, since liver doesn’t benefit from over cooking. Really tasty and flavourful liver should hardly be cooked at all or at least as little as possible. Then again the slightly browned crust you would get from oven baking is also delicious so, I have done both and if I have the time, prefer to bake the pâté.
Continue reading “Chicken liver Pâté and Cumberland, a precurse to Julfika” →

Making your own tapenade – the French Italian classic olive paste – is quick and easy.
Photos © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2011

Weekends are the time when I read, plan for the work week ahead, and cook. Besides all other good things that could be said about preparing your own food, I find the sometimes long winded and perhaps monotonous preparation of food very calming. It lets your mind wander in any direction it might, encouraging the formulation of new ideas, where you find yourself combining familiar things in creative ways both in your mind as well as in your pots.

By what you cook, you can also revisit places you wish to see again that right now are inaccesible for such mundane reasons as that your work lets you travel, but to a different continent.

This weekend I revisited the South of France and the North of Italy by means of a black olive tapenade and a generous slab of home made ‘Ciabatta’ style bread.
Continue reading “With a penchant for olives” →

Paper petal.
Photos © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2011

In a busy and often complicated adult life, I often wonder if happiness and bliss can’t sometimes come by the simplest means with little need for preparation and effort. Like a wish to embrace the moment in childhood for example, where happiness is a collection of colored stationary, some really cute erasers and a whole set of pens and pencils in all the colors of the rainbow.

So in all the rush of things to do, people to meet, events to plan and execute… sometimes what I really want are just plain – unembellished – raisin muffins. No fuss. The simple dough, stirred in with good handful of plump raisins and voila… a little bit of magic in a tiny petal paper cup. Perfect to round off the day!
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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!