more bali

ever since i got a few epic cookbooks on my last visit to the states, i've been itching to make another balinese feast! i invited two friends over the see the new flat; the perfect excuse to cook up a storm.. as if i need an excuse. eating this food makes me feel like i am somewhere warm, even though the weather is pretty crummy outside. clockwise from the top is masi kuning (yellow rice), be siap base kalas (chicken in spicy coconut milk, serosop (braised banana flower and jackfruit), urab bali (bali-style mixed vegetables), and in the center is berkedel jagung (corn fritters) and fried tempe.

be siap base kalas / chicken in spicy coconut milk
adapted from the bali cookbook by lonny gerungan
serves 4

1 chicken, about 1.3 kg
1 lemongrass stalk
3 tbsp vegetable oil
spice paste
3 salam leaves (if you don't have them, leave it out)
400 ml thick coconut milk*
1 tbps melted palm sugar (corn syrup is an acceptable substitute)
salt to taste

separate the legs and breasts of the chicken and cut the carcass in half. trim the lemongrass, bruise the stalk, and tie the leaves together in a knot. heat the oil in a wok and fry the spice paste for about 3 minutes. add the lemongrass, salam leaves, and chicken pieces, and then stir-fry for about 2 minutes. add the coconut milk, melted palm sugar, and season with salt. simmer the chicken for about 35 minutes, until the juices run clear. serve the chicken in the sauce with rice.

*if you want to take this dish to another level, you can make the thick coconut milk yourself. grate the flesh of a coconut, mix with a cup of lukewarm water and soak for 15 minutes. squeeze and knead the soaked coconut in the water. strain, pressing out all the liquid through a fine strainer set above another bowl.

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spice paste for chicken
9 candlenuts
½ tsp white peppercorns
½ tsp black peppercorns
5 shallots, peeled and finely sliced
3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
5 bird's eye chilies, sliced
5-cm piece of fresh galangal, sliced into coins
3-cm piece of fresh turmeric, peeled and finely chopped

use a mortar and pestle to pound the candlenuts and peppercorns into a fine paste. you may be tempted to use a food processor, but the taste and texture is definitely different. add the shallots, garlic, chilies, and turmeric, and pound again to a paste. add the galangal and bruise it a bit, leave it in larger pieces so you don't accidentally bite into one...

masi kuning / yellow rice
adapted from the bali cookbook by lonny gerungan
serves 4/6

500 g white rice (i used jasmine)
1 lemongrass stalk
1-cm piece of fresh turmeric, peeled and grated
100 ml thick coconut milk*(see above)
3 salam leaves
1 tsp salt

trim the lemongrass, bruise the stalk, and tie the leaves together in a knot. put the rice in a pan, add the coconut milk and enough warm water to cover by 2 cm. add the lemongrass, turmeric, salam leaves, and salt. bring to a boil and cook uncovered for 8 minutes. stir the rice with a wooden spoon, bring down to a simmer, and cook until the water has evaporated. transfer the half-cooked rice to a steamer, ensuring it rests above the water. i put the rice in a fine-mesh strainer in a pot with water at the bottom. cover and steam until tender, about 15 minutes. you may have to add more water to the bottom after a few minutes if it all evaporates.

it was a pretty risky setup, as i'd only made the long bean and sprout salad and the yellow rice before. everything was good except the occasional bite of supremely bitter galangal, which my indonesian friend suggested leaving in larger pieces, and *gasp* under-cooked chicken. i was really embarrassed about the latter, especially since i wasn't the one who got that piece. though i have come a long way with cooking, i haven't really been practicing on animal proteins so much. luckily at least one of my friends was brave enough to come to dinner at my place again.. well, you win some and you lose some. ^^;

hunan eggplant

every time my friends and i go to our favourite local chinese restaurant, magasasa, one of us almost always orders the pork and aubergine plate. the texture is incredibly velvety from the veg and there's a nice chew from the pork belly. sweet, salty, spicy. i know it's not good for me but i love to soak up all the chili oil that the aubergine is swimming in with white rice. at home i eat brown rice so i can allow myself to indulge once in a while! today is a very rainy day and i've got a sore throat and runny nose, so i wanted something really spicy to clear it all up. i tried my hand at making the beloved dish but with a vegan twist.

hunan eggplant with quorn
adapted from this recipe at appetite for china

2 dried wood ear mushrooms (if in small pieces, a handful)
2 medium sized eggplants
70mL vegetable oil
85g quorn
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 small red chilies, minced (optional)
1 tbsp chili bean sauce
2 tbsp palm sugar, chopped in small pieces
60mL vegetable stock
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
salt to taste
3 scallion stalks, thinly sliced

pour boiling water over the wood ear mushrooms and let them soak for about 10 minutes. if not already in small pieces, cut up in strips.

cut the eggplant into quarters along the length and slice them a little over 1 cm thick. heat the oil in a wok over high heat until just beginning to smoke. add the eggplants and stir-fry for 4-5 minutes, stirring often, until the outsides turn golden brown. remove the eggplant with a slotted spoon and set aside to drain on paper towels.

turn the heat down to medium and add the quorn, garlic, chilies and mushrooms and stir-fry for a minute. add the chili bean sauce and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. add palm sugar and return the eggplant to the wok. pour in the vegetable stock, soy sauce and sesame oil. simmer for a few minutes while the flavors penetrate the eggplants. don't be afraid to be generous with the salt because there is no bacon in this dish. serve hot over rice.

the verdict? hmmm, not exactly like what we order from magasasa. way less oil and even tastes healthier. of course quorn and wood ear mushrooms can't take the place of the wonder that is pork belly, but the bite of the mushrooms was very satisfying and of course i love the texture of eggplant. the spiciness cleared up my nose almost immediately! to veganize this dish, you can replace quorn with textured soy protein that's been soaked in vegetable stock. next time i will maybe add a few generous glugs of chili oil.

the immigrants are taking your cake and juice

if you read danish news (if you don't, i don't blame you), you'll know that something smells good at the post office. according to a political party here called dansk folkeparti (danish people's party), public hospitals and doctors' offices had to take the complimentary cake and 'juice' out of their waiting rooms because of immigrants. now, df has never been bosom buddies with the immigrant population, but this is a new low. they're blaming large foreign families for taking advantage of the free food and 'juice' in waiting rooms. i put the quotes because, more often than not, what's served is some sort of concentrate that loosely resembles juice (or at least it did at some point). as for cake, in the time i've worked at hillerød and frederiksberg hospital, i have never seen cake laid out for visitors. to say nothing of all the hospitals i've visited for job applications in the copenhagen area! fruit, yes. coffee and 'juice,' yes. but never any sweets to clog your arteries in the waiting room. the public hospital doesn't want to make MORE work for itself. private hospitals, however, i'm not so sure about. :P

a hospital director, named ib steen mikkelsen, was a little confused by the announcement: "everyone who has worked in the healthcare system knows that immigrants have more visitors than ethnic danish patients. but that doesn't need to be a negative thing; it just means that they get more visits, which is of course nice for the patient." as a sort of protest to dansk folkeparti, a couple facebook groups were made but the ideas were the same: send a citronmåne to df. a citronmåne is a lemony spongecake that you can find packaged in almost any supermarket. and now these cakes along with a couple hundred others are flooding this nationalistic political party's office. many of the packages came with sarcastic notes like "i have just heard about your terrible crisis and hereby send the closest thing to a cake i could find. take care of it, you never know when a muslim will come by and steal it with their long, black fingers!" i got a good laugh out of it. (:


though i support this sort of sweet, frosted protest, the cake pictured at the top has definitely not gone to dansk folkeparti. pia kjærsgaard will have to come by our apartment herself and have a little chat with me if she would like to try my preserved ginger drizzle cake. i made it, along with some tea sandwiches, for two friends of mine who are going back to england. i thought teatime would be nice, even though they are heading for the land of tea. i made it using ingredients from my friend R, and this is the first time i've even seen preserved ginger, black treacle, or golden syrup! the cake was fantastically moist and very gingery. and the top crust was just barely hardened, so that there was a slight satisfying crunch when we cut into it. a wonderful cake!

so for any dansk folkeparti members or supporters out there; if you want to eat my cakes, cookies, brownies, etc., you'll have to ask nicely and sit with me and my other non-danish friends. otherwise i hope you like packaged citronmåner. (;

tebirkes

these are two of the better-looking tebirkes in a batch i made one morning for breakfast. i know my husband really likes them (and also was aware that he was hungover) but to my surprise, he didn't seem overjoyed to see them. i'm pretty sure it didn't have to do with the fact that most of the rolls tipped over in the oven and didn't look bakery-perfect. of course my husband was impressed but stated that he was not in the mood for the poppyseed rolls. he did end up eating one out of principle though, and said it was good. but when he saw that i cut mine in half and spread olive tapenade and mozzarella inside, he was shocked.

"you can't do that, tebirkes are meant to be eaten alone."

does anyone else think it's terribly ironic that denmark houses the best restaurant in the world, which is famous for innovation, but almost every dane is a sandwich nazi? i have been living here over 2 years but i still get taken aback when someone says you can't do that regarding what i have on my plate. apparently the 250 possible combinations of ingredients that one can arrange atop rye bread is set in stone. but i've never been one to obey food laws, so i ate my rogue sandwich. and it was good.

tebirkes
adapted from maduniverset
yields 8 rolls

1.5 dl soyamilk
25 g fresh yeast
1 egg
1 tbsp sugar
0.5 tsp salt
5 dl all-purpose flour
60g margarine

milk or egg for brushing
poppy seeds

mix the yeast into room temperature milk. add the egg, sugar, salt, flour, and mix thoroughly. cover and let rise in a warm place for 20 minutes. punch the dough down and roll it out to roughly 25x40 cm. thinly slice the margarine and spread it over half the dough. fold the un-buttered half over. roll out the dough again and fold it in thirds. repeat twice. roll out the dough to about 30x70 cm and fold in thirds, lengthwise. cut slices about 5cm thick. let rise for about 15 min. brush with egg and sprinkle some poppy seeds over each roll before baking at 200C for 15 minutes.

enjoy these rolls with whatever you like!

oh, and if anyone knows a proper substitute that could replace egg here, please let me know so i can make them vegan!

a proper chicken sandwich

my first day at work was a blur. it ended early, which was lucky, because my boss had just signed my work contract that morning and the immigration office closes at noon on mondays. and the rules state that i can't submit my work permit papers any later than the first day of work. yikes! i made it a half hour before closing to take my number. 199. now serving 132. o_o

[photo of nasty-ass burger not included. i like to keep this blog work-safe.]

now, i rarely eat junk food, at least the stuff that isn't homemade... but i realized i was really hungry! it was 11:30 and i hadn't had anything besides a cup of coffee. maybe some of you can run on that kind of fuel, where i get incredibly cranky if i'm not fed properly; my husband knows that better than anyone. there was an 'italian' takeakway around the corner and i ordered a chicken burger. when i came back and opened the container, my appetite nearly flew out the window. the patty was a dark brown fried disc with mayonnaise peeking out from between both top and bottom slices of bread. i hate mayo!! why i didn't think to ask about it was beyond me. but i was still hungry and they were already locking the doors to the office to deal remaining with the number-holders. i was left with no option but to face this disgusting beast.



so the next day i made a revenge sandwich. chicken breast covered in dijon mustard and then dredged in panko breadcrumbs, parmesan, and s&p. baked at 175ºC for 40 minutes in a bit of olive oil. some nice crusty bread schmeared with sambal oelek plus tomatoes and lettuce and you got yourself a respectable sandwich with not a drop of mayo to be found! by the way, if you have any respect for chicken, don't get a chicken burger from that place by the immigration office. =_=

the v-word

it sucks being a vegan in denmark.

well, at least i'm assuming. two of my (unsurprisingly non-danish) friends are vegans and i can't imagine how they don't go nuts living in a country that is famous for its pork and dairy products. the meat section in a supermarket here is usually larger than the fruit/veg sections combined; it seems like it's almost next to grains in their food pyramid. sorry for the poor image quality, but that photo above was taken by my cellphone in stockholm. do i spy (with my tiny eyes) two types of kimchi? and multiple varieties of non-dairy milk? denmark... you have a long way to go.



what with all the barbecues at summer parties, or at least attempts at them despite lack of sunshine, there is usually several kinds of you-know-what sitting on the grill. i often think of my vegan friends getting their daily nutrition at these parties from just beer. and some potatoes, if they're lucky.

sometimes i eat vegan for a day, just because i'm bored or even too lazy to make something. the photo up there is a vegan stuffing i made from leftover homemade (duh) bread and rescued celery. who says you gotta wait 'til thanksgiving? anyway the branching-off from traditional cooking and especially baking methods genuinely interests me and i can certainly stand by the ethics standpoint of being vegan. but i can't bring myself to give up cheese and fish forever. sorry, guys. ):

baggage and bento

after enjoying constant temperatures above 15°C in california (in december!) it's almost refreshing to come back to a snowy winter in denmark. however, the cold will still take a bit of getting used to. especially since the nice coat i just bought in america is in my suitcase, which is still swimming around somewhere in heathrow. at least i hope so.


also in that suitcase are some new ingredients that i bought to help kick off my new bento lunches. by the way, the bento boxes are in the suitcase too. ):


so the first 'bento' is pretty boring. kale which was first blanched and then stir-fried in some soy and sesame oil with plain brown rice. YAWN. well, it's healthy anyway. hopefully my luggage will arrive tomorrow so i can make my lunch on monday a bit more creative.

vegetarian pho

i tried making vegetarian pho the other day with soba noodles. this version of a southern california lunchtime favourite was tolerable, but nowhere near the intended taste. hot soup was nice on a cold, rainy day... but wished i had eaten something else. ):

oh well, i'll have the real thing in my hot little hands in just a few days! the dane and i will be in california for the holidays and i intend to take every opportunity to eat cheap asian food. :D

to kale or not to kale

sadly, it was kind of a struggle for me to eat this. i guess the 'wasabi sesame drizzle sauce' is what makes all the difference. also, the texture was a bit too tough for me. i ate all the shiitake mushrooms greedily and pushed the greens around on my plate until i guilted myself into finishing it. i bought a bag of organic danish kale on a whim but it had to be taken care of. but it looked pretty!


however, the success did come eventually. leftovers plus more leftovers apparently equals awesome! only slightly daunted by the rest of the kale sitting in the bag, i took the water saved from soaking the shiitakes and dumped them in a pot with some water and crushed garlic. once it was boiling, i added the unthawed dumplings from the back of the freezer. when i assumed the dumplings were un-iced i laid kale on top and covered the pot so they could steam. i added soy sauce and a bit of sesame oil after the kale was a little tenderized.


too bad i don't have a recipe down because it smelled and tasted so much of the kitchen of my childhood. even the dumplings were pretty good despite the terrible wrapping job i did. this soup made me miss my mom and grandmothers' cooking so much! i can't wait to visit california in december. (:

so-so salmon

i made this recipe with some fresh salmon filets that i got from nørreport fiskehus a few days earlier with the intention to make sushi. unfortunately i put in the peas too early and too little salt for it to be too interesting. yes, i did use carrots instead of parsnips but i'm sure that didn't make much difference. lemon only made it slightly better. and i am always a bit disturbed by the white gunk that oozes out of salmon whenever i cook it. anyway, should have pan-fried it.

the vegetables were good, anyhow. and it's good practice for me to actually cook fish once in a while.

another blank week

apparently the reason why my first weeks at work were so slow was because media had advised the public not to go to the hospital during summertime due to understaffing. also, there have been some new(?) laws implemented that require patients to get an echocardiogram within 24 hours if they are having chest pains, some more hours if they have a murmur upon auscultation of the heart, etc. so my list of people to see every day is getting longer and longer. and now i am working together with a nurse to teach her the basics of echocardiography, which slows me down a bit. but i still enjoy my job and coworkers very much and there's a party for our department coming up. looking forward to it! (:


so this is mostly what i've been eating during the busy week. fresh fruit and lightly cooked vegetables. luckily the end of summer in denmark has been churning out some awesome produce and i can't really be bothered to do anything else. though i did manage to make some pretty good (hand-chopped!) pesto, i couldn't even muster the energy to 'style' it enough for photographing. oh well, there's still some left. maybe later. today all i did was sliced beetroot with olive oil, balsamic, and s&p. the kitchen looked like a crime scene. (:


this weekend was supposed to be fun and relaxing for me but it turned out to be stressful. as i was heading to the shopping street with my friend, someone stole my wallet. they just reached right into my backpack and took it. i felt something shift around but i thought nothing of it and didn't look; obviously something i deeply regretted once when checking out at the tiger store and discovered something missing. the next day a shawarma shop found it and i got it back with all my cards but minus the cash, of course. it was easy to close the danish card but the american debit and credit cards took almost an hour on the phone to close. it was just endless transferring and holding only to find out i needed to have the account number of the card to close it. ugh. fix yourself, america!!

i am pretty mad about the whole situation but there's nothing i can do about it now and at least i got my awesome wallet (a gift from the dane) and my california drivers license back. the good news i have for this week is that we found a decently-priced apartment! and it's close by! and it has a yard!! soon i'll be grillin' like a villian just like in california. ^^

lost: mojo. if found, please call...

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

this week has certainly not been treating me well in the kitchen. for my worklunches i've mainly been steaming or lightly pan-frying vegetables with mild seasonings. of course that's easy and reliable. but when i've attempted to stray from the norm, it's failed miserably. take august's daring bakers challenge, for example.


quite hideous. tasted pretty good though. but certainly not worth the time and effort... now that i have work and danish class (and obviously homework), i don't get a chance to slave over stews all day. but i do still have energy and i was hoping 3 hours would yield something brag-worthy. thank GOD for roommatesor else it wouldn't have been mostly eaten. i couldn't finish it myself, even if i wanted to. :/


but tonight was the opposite; it looked promising but fell flat in the taste department. ever since the dane and i watched gordon ramsay's cookalong, we wanted to try the chicken tikka masala recipe. serves me right for using an indian recipe from an englishman. i added a lot of spice but it still spelled chicken in tomato sauce. the only thing i left out of the recipe was the coriander, which was probably my downfall. i'm crazy about the stuff but the dane isn't a fan... if there's a next time, this chicken tikka is SO getting hit with a boatload of coriander. (:


it wasn't very time-consuming nor were the ingredients expensive. but i was expecting more. maybe i should just lower my standards.

..but they're beautiful inside! kind of...

uhh, i made this mandu over a month ago but i haven't written about it because, well, it sucks.

after folding all of the dumplings, i just froze them. a few days later, i tried steaming a couple of them and it turned out to be a huge, soggy mess. so i tried to forget about them at the bottom of the deep freezer... but i am not going to become my mother (you should see her refrigerators) so i decided to eat them eventually, out of principle. i fried some last week and though the wrapper consistency was a lot better, i can't say i'll be making these with whole wheat again. ):

at least the filling is good.

leverpostej replacement?

as much as i love smørrebrød and its many toppings, there are some i try to avoid. liver pâté being one of them. it just makes me feel really heavy and gross after eating it; somehow so different than the thin smear of pâté in the banh mi i enjoyed in california. so when a soya spread appeared in netto this week, i knew i had to try it. on sale at 15kr for 150g, it was a little more than i wanted to pay for something that wasn't cheese made from real animals. worth a try, anyhow.


though the spread tasted good, it wasn't much more than the sum of its parts. besides the soya it pretty much tasted everything listed in the ingredients mashed together; tomato paste, carrot, potato flakes, garlic flakes, etc. a substitute for leverpostej, this is not. it would probably work better as a dip. however, i do appreciate organic soy products coming from germany (or was it austria..?) so here's hoping that they keep sending things like this over the border!

mandu

stegosaurus modern art? nope, sloppy korean dumplings. i've made 'em a handful of times with my mom. even when using store-bought wrappers, assembly wasn't easy and this effort was usually reserved for a big gathering. each dumpling would be stuffed, sealed, and folded up individually; there was no dumpling press in our house to my knowledge.


so... my homemade mandu wrappers didn't exactly make this task a walk in the park. a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat flour made for a tough little dumpling. and it didn't help that they were frozen and defrosted. not to mention they were not rolled into thin and perfect circles. i'll definitely pass on the whole wheat next time.


yeah, most of them looked pretty retarded. gonna have to mark this a fail.


though the bulk of my mom's mandu filling is usually pork and the edges are sealed with a beaten egg, i passed on it for a vegan version. for healthy eating and also because meat is expensive, hah! drained and pressed firm tofu, scallions, shiitake and wood ear mushrooms. the seasoning was just soya and sesame oil with a couple cracks of pepper. the best thing about not using meat and eggs in the filling is that you can taste it raw without a care. sealed with a dab of water.


i found that the round shape was a lot easier at about 10 wrappers left, but then i ran out of filling. whoops. quickly chopped up some kimchi, tossed it with scallions and shiitakes, and seasoned with soya and sesame oil. these would have been a lot better with tofu, unfortunately i didn't have any more. so most of the round mandu are really spicy. (:

they are now sitting in the freezer and waiting their turn in the steamer, frying pan, or maybe even mandu guk...

summer rolls

growing up in california, one of my favourite things to eat was summer rolls. of course mom and grandma's cooking has taken precedence over vietnamese food since i moved, but there's still a soft spot in my heart for those rice paper parcels. every asian in orange county knows that the best place to get those rolls is brodard, though i prefer fresh shrimp over their bestselling nem noung cuon (grilled pork paste). but it's all the way over yonder and their prices have been rising lately anyway...


lettuce, cilantro, daikon, carrot, cucumber, and shrimp. no noodles. my rolls came out clumsy. hey, it's been a while! but they still tasted as fresh and delicious as brodard's. the only thing missing is their infamous peanut sauce, addictive as cocaine. but tyler florence's sweet chili sauce can make anything taste good. it was easy to make and i like it a lot better than the cloyingly sweet stuff that comes in a bottle. i'll have to work on the peanut sauce another day.


the stars of the summer rolls were these sweet, wild-caught greenland shrimp. on sale this week, still in their shells. i notice almost all shrimp sold in danish supermarkets is pre-peeled and cooked. what's up with that?

...nuts!

though the weather doesn't show it this week, my body feels like summer is here and only wants chilled food with minimal prep. the perfect solution is dotorimuk, a savoury jelly made from acorns and the ultimate chopsticks challenge. if you can pick up a slice without dropping/breaking it, you've proven your 'chops.' badum-chh~


the acorn starch is made from only pounded acorns (hopefully). it needs water and a bit of boiling, then setting in a mold as if you were making a wiggly dessert. but as soon as i turned my back on the bubbling pot, the mixture congealed! i did my best to whisk it smooth but it didn't get very far...


the recipe i found online is probably not the best to follow, or maybe the electric stove is too hard for me to control. in any case the texture came out very differently than the kind i usually buy from the store. more like a firm-ish chunky pudding than a jelly. i doubt my mom could offer any help via email since she buys blocks of ready-made dotorimuk from the korean supermarket for as little as $2. why would you need to make it yourself with prices like that? however, my abomination tasted just as nice so i got my salad after all.

acorn jelly salad (dotorimuk muchim)
serves 2 as a meal, 6 as banchan

1.5 cups prepared acorn jelly
3 'leaves' of kimchi
½ big cucumber
3 tbsp soya
1 tbsp sesame oil
romaine lettuce
sesame seeds

slice the jelly into cubes, paralellograms, whatever your heart desires. thinly slice the cucumber and leaves of cabbage kimchi. toss the solids with the liquids and serve on a bed of romaine with a sprinkle of sesame seeds.

my absolute favourite muk (pictured center) comes from morangak in garden grove. this version is made from mung beans instead of acorns, so the taste is even milder. they mix it with bean sprouts, julienned cucumber, and bits of pepper. not only is the crunchy-to-soft ratio perfect, but the seasoning is heavier on the sesame oil than most restaurants serve. if only i could place an order of just that muk as my whole dinner. some recipes for dotorimuk add garlic and ginger, but since i added kimchi i'm already covered as it contains both. of course this chilled salad is all up to you. add apples, asian pear, toasted seaweed, eel sauce... wait, did i say that out loud?

birthday sweets

at least the pie was perfect! and it was my first try baking one from scratch, crust and all. i used this recipe with a lot less sugar and no zest. it was so delicious and i got to have a slice for breakfast the next day! mmm...

the cake, however.

i wanted to make a round cake but couldn't locate the bottom of the second springform round. so i tried to make the best of a rectangular pan. upon removal, the cake decided that 57% of it wanted to stay put and it broke. ughhh. in a panic i tried to cut and stack without any sort of planning and ended up with a lopsided, 3-layer cube which i tried to mask in chocolate ganache.

welp. it looked pretty ridiculous. my first attempt at a frosted cake from scratch was foiled. but the dane saved the day and showed up with raspberries, danish flags, and candles. the packaged contained 24 candles, coincidentally my current age!

obviously it looked even more comical than before but my guests and i got a good laugh out of it and i didn't hear anyone complaining about the taste. i will definitely be using the recipe again. it was some rich chocolate-on-chocolate action, with solbær marmelade between the layers. unfortunately there was none leftover so i couldn't add more calories to my pie breakfast the next day. (;

the baker is back B)

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.
whew, i finished the daring bakers challenge on time! for a while it was looking like i might opt out of the second challenge i've been presented with... that would have been sad; considering how cheap the ingredients are and how easy the recipe (which can be found on many blogs, including the two hostesses courtney and linda) is! so here it is, my savoury strudel!


er... yeah. that. being the idiot i am, i closed the filling into the pastry on the table and then just kind of stood there. staring and wondering how i was going to move it to the baking sheet. as my eyes flitted between strudel and oven, i realized the rolling should have ended on greased parchment paper that i could have lifted onto the baking sheet. d'oh. so i decided to cut my losses and just picked the damn thing up. of course it broke in half and the hot, wet filling seeped out. not a pretty sight, as you can see.

the filling i used was based on a sauce mix that my mom bought for me in california. despite the HOT stamp it wasn't that spicy at all. my family used to eat japanese-style curry about two or three times a month when my mom made it from the packaged mix and poured it over piping hot rice. being the impatient type, i always burned my mouth... i rarely eat 'kah-deh' now that i cook for myself and also it's not readily available here in denmark. i imagine my mom doesn't make it too often either, now that it's usually just her and dad at home and also because she was recently diagnosed with diabetes (and her usual curry ingredients were lots of white potatoes and beef over white rice).

the recipe calls for bread crumbs but we mostly only have heavy rugbrød in our cupboard so i used black sesame seeds instead. for the filling i just added onions, peas, carrots, and sweet potato to the sauce mix and tried my best to get more solids than liquid onto the dough.

though it has the face only a mother could love (actually i think i can see jesus in there!) it tasted really good. i mean, really good. on first bite, my mind instantly went back to new zealand where i had my first meat pie. i think it was steak. surprisingly i lost weight during that trip even though i ate 1-2 fist-sized savoury pies every day. but the very best one was at a dead cafe in the middle of nowhere; my pie sat all alone under a heatlamp in a glass case. low on cash and tired from running all over a mountain, i wasn't prepared for the explosion of chicken, brie, blueberry, and pastry. it was crazy! and this pie, i mean, strudel had the same perfect texture. i was in heaven~

about an hour later, i was in hell. concentration became a strangely difficult task and my body was suffering from grossness in general. oily, dizzy, and in dire need of a nap. my suspicions were confirmed when i had a look at the package for the curry. of course my arch-nemesis MSG was spotted in the ingredients, along with a couple of his friends who make me swear i'm going to make my own japanese-style curry. and for goodness sake, palm oil is the first ingredient listed?! someone hand me a bucket, i'm gonna be sick...

lessons were learned and mina got her (baking) groove back. or rather, her whisk? spatula? oven mitt? anyway i've got all the inspiration i need to make this curry, bake cakes, and perhaps even attempt beating egg whites for the first time.

easy way out

yes, i've been bad and indulged in unnaturally-coloured chewy candy. it's so sunny and warm outside so i've been jogging and biking to my heart's desire, but it's no excuse. the colours are calling to me! doesn't help that a new sweets shop (touting prices of 7.95kr per 100g) opened down the street... and it's called sukkertoppen, how could i resist? but it adds up, both in kroner and kilos. i'll try to be good. ):

at least my favourites don't contain gelatin?

other things i've been eating are apples, oranges, peanut butter and solbær jam on rugbrød (don't knock it til you try it! at least not til you try my rye), soft-boiled eggs, brie, and that's really just about it. oh, and i have a newfound love for cantaloupe and honeydew melons. my mom will laugh when she reads that. (:

i haven't been cooking much at all. in fact the most work i've done in front of the stove since my return to denmark was make coffee or boil some water for instant noodles. no, not the bowl kind... an awesome jjampong (korean-chinese spicy seafood soup) mix that my mom sent with me from california. it contains condensed sauce, some dried veg and tiny bits of seafood in thickener, and what seems to be fresh noodles! and good lord is it spicy. i'm almost sorry that i could only fit two into my suitcase, but they need to be refrigerated (hence my suspicion of fresh noodles) and there's only so much shelf space. actually i would have been able to fit one more, had i not taken a package of jajangmyun (korean-chinese black bean noodles). it's from the same korean brand, pulmonale, and i'm looking forward to trying it. but maybe not photographing it... it looks like black worms. yum.

also: my next batch of kimchi is underway. (8