Archive for December, 2007

Thinking about summer in winter

December 26, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under christmas, cooking, food, meat, summer, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

It’s the day after Christmas and I’m already thinking about summer. I blame the paella valenciana that I prepared the other night. It made me think S—sun, sea, and Spain, of course.

Below is the recipe taken from the magazine All about Food. It’s the paella recipe for 6 persons that I follow.

  • 300 grams chicken thighs
  • 300 grams chicken breast fillet
  • 4 tablespoons olive oil
  • 3 yellow onions
  • 1 red capsicum
  • 1 green capsicum
  • 4 decilitres long-grain rice (Maggan’s kitchen uses long-grained whole rice)
  • 8 decilitres chicken bouillon (water + bouillon cube), as an alternative Maggan’s kitchen uses homemade vegetable stock
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • white pepper
  • 1 teaspoon tarragon
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 gram saffron
  • 10 mussels with shell (optional)
  • 250 grams frozen green peas
  • .5 kilo shrimps with shells (optional)
  • lemon
  1. Heat the oil in a paella pan or wok.
  2. Brown the chicken. Set aside.
  3. Saute the sliced capsicum, roughly chopped onions, and pressed garlic until they become soft, but not brown.
  4. Add the rice and stir.
  5. Pour the vegetable stock.
  6. Add in the saffron, salt, tarragon, bay leaf, chicken pieces.
  7. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
  8. Add in the mussels and cook them until the shells open.
  9. Shell the shrimps. Add them in. Cook until they become pink or orange.
  10. At the same time, add the frozen green peas.
  11. On serving, squeeze lemon over on the plate or pan. 

When making paella, it is important to use the right kind of rice. The sticky kind, like jasmine, will never do. Long-grain rice is the safest choice. However, if using whole grain, the result will be a wetter paella. The solution is to just cook it a little longer, extra 5 minutes, without the lid on.

I don’t mix the paella while it is cooking in the pan. Por que? The same reason why we don’t mix rice when preparing it the regular way. We want the grains whole, not mashed, not broken, and certainly not pasty.

Claire and Ed love Spanish food. Come summer time, their summer, I will treat them to this wonderful paella dish. Maggan’s kitchen goes on tour! Hasta lo!

Leave a Comment

All-purpose vegetable stock

December 25, 2007 at 12:43 pm · Filed under christmas, cooking, food, health, nutrition, soup, vego, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

Do you sometimes wonder how to make a dish more flavourful without using bouillon loaded with mono-sodium glutamate, flavour enhancers, emulsifiers, preservatives, and hydrogenated fat?

I found a solution by making my own vegetable stock using the vegetable stock recipe from Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo’s Cook Right 4 Your Type. Aside from being a healthy alternative that is highly beneficial to all blood types, this broth is sweet and clean-tasting. I can attest to that. Now, what could beat the promise of good taste and good health? N-o-t-h-i-n-g-!

  • 1 large yellow onion, cut into quarters
  • 2 carrots, washed, trimmed, and cut into large pieces
  • 2 stalks celery, washed and cut
  • parsley stems
  • garlic skins
  • apple skins and cores
  • mushroom stems
  • parsnips
  • leeks
  1. Fill a very large (5-6 litre) pot up to 3 quarters full with water and bring to boil.
  2. Add all the vegetables and herbs.
  3. Simmer for 40 minutes in low to medium heat.
  4. Cool and strain out the vegetables.
  5. Freeze in small containers.

Don’t worry if you mistakenly put in the vegetables and herbs before the water boils. The stock will still turn out fine. I committed this mistake twice. Oops!

Nor is there anything to worry about if you don’t have a very large pot. If you use less water, the result will be a more concentrated stock. You’ll then only need a little amount when you use it for cooking. Just ensure you freeze it in small amounts to avoid re-freezing after thawing.

Now, I’m going to reveal a secret. I use this vegetable stock for my lasagna meat sauce. The first time I had done it, H marked the difference in taste. The best lasagna by far! It outdid all my earlier lasagna. Nothing wrong with them though.

Yesterday, I made paella valenciana using this vegetable stock instead of water and chicken bouillon. H says I should make paella more often—a weekly staple like lasagna. Incidentally, we’re having lasagna tonight and postponing the pizza until tomorrow.

Oh, before I forget, here’s a last note on the vegetable stock recipe: don’t use broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and other vegetables of the cruciferous kind as they will dominate the taste of the broth.

Leave a Comment

Ginger cookies to flavour the holiday

December 24, 2007 at 8:49 pm · Filed under baking, christmas, cooking, food, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

I’m skipping gingerbread cookies this year for the first time in 2 years since I began with the tradition. Yesterday evening, I made ginger cookies instead. Easier to make than gingerbread cookies since they don’t require rolling the dough and cutting into shapes.

This recipe is by the pastry-maker Therese Wikström and published in the magazine Food and Wine.

  • 125 grams butter
  • 1.25 decilitres cream
  • 3 decilitres sugar
  • grated peel of 1/2 lemon
  • juice from 1/2 lemon
  • 1.25 decilitres syrup
  • 7.5 decilitres wheat flour
  • 1 tablespoon ginger
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  1. Set the oven at 175 degrees Celsius.
  2. Melt the butter in the lowest heat.
  3. Whip the cream.
  4. Grate the lemon peel finely. (If the peel is not grated finely, chop them finely after grating.)
  5. Squeeze the juice off the lemon.
  6. Blend all ingredients very well in a large bowl by hand. Give the dough a good kneading.
  7. Tear or pinch a piece of the dough and roll it into a ball the size of a 5-Philippine-peso coin or one-Swedish-crown coin.
  8. Place the balls on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Ensure that there is enough space between the balls. Four balls in a row is sufficient.
  9. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes.
  10. The cookies should be soft in the middle when taken out of the oven. Otherwise, they will become very hard after they have slightly cooled.

The balls that are put in the oven will flatten while being baked. This is the reason for leaving a good space between them on the baking sheet. It’s amazing how they form themselves  into perfectly shaped round  cookies. Perfect cookies, as H says every time he goes for a refill.

This recipe makes 65 pieces, at least. It’s easy to make and takes 15 minutes only, if you’re a professional like Therese. And the cookies smell very good. I love lemon and ginger. Perfect in shape, perfect with tea, and perfect as a Christmas present. In 2008, that is.

Speaking of presents, want to know what I got and how many? The first I opened was a book by Bo Hagström called The Sun’s Taste based on the author’s TV program about his food trips in Italy, and which I enjoy watching.

The second present was a CD with 3 discs. Absolute Disco. I hope H doesn’t regret giving me this CD since he has to bear hearing me sing along with the tunes.

The third present, the smallest but not the last (so I hear), was an envelope containing 2 tickets to Mando Diao’s concert in March 2008. I’ll invite H to go with me.

Leave a Comment

Braised ox tongue of the Christmas past

December 23, 2007 at 4:54 pm · Filed under christmas, cooking, food, meat, winter

Lengua estofada de Clarita 

Ingredients: 1 ox tongue, brown sugar, water, onion, bay leaves, black pepper corns, soy sauce, little vinegar, potatoes, bananas (saba banana ), olive oil or canola oil 

Clean the ox tongue by dipping it in boiled water. Leave it in the water until the the whole surface of the tongue is no longer pink or is flesh in colour.

Take out the tongue from the boiled water. With a scraping knife, knife that is not very sharp, scrape or peel off the surface of the tongue, which is a thick layer of skin.

Set aside the clean tongue. Heat a thick-bottomed casserole that is wide enough for the length of the tongue. Melt the brown sugar and constantly stir it. Do not melt it for too long and do not burn it.

Add water and blend with sugar well. Add onion slices (sliced length-wise), bay leaves, pepper corns, soy sauce, and little vinegar. Bring to boil and season according to taste.

Put in the ox tongue. Boil until the tongue is tender. As tenderizing the tongue takes hours of slow and gentle cooking, a pressurized cooker may be used as an alternative.

When the tongue is done, work the potatoes and bananas. Quarter the potatoes length-wise. Cut the bananas round, about 2 centimetres thick. Fry them in oil in a frying pan.

When the tongue has slightly cooled, slice it diagonally starting from the tip. About half-centimetre thick slices are perfect. Lay the slices on a serving dish and pour the sauce over. Top with the fried potatoes and bananas. Muy sabroso!

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

I have good memories of Christmas holidays. Claire’s side of the family gathered at her father’s house or her house for lunch. Buffet with spring-rolls, sweet-and-sour fish, stuffed boneless chicken, and leche flan by Lola; lengua estofada, barbecue, and coconut fruit salad by Claire.

Dessert was followed by the gift-giving, which in later years became money distribution. Money, as in small bills, were distributed by uncles playing Santa. How many bills? This depended on the generosity of the uncle.

For the finale, the whole clan posed for a group photo, which took, like, forever because he or she wasn’t ready—either still talking or smiling too much.  Ready, 1, 2, 3, cheese!

Talked to Claire and Ed yesterday. We haven’t talked over the phone for a while. About 2 weeks. It was too late to call them when I get home from work. Anyway, I told them that I would visit soon—in April.

It’s only Claire, Ed, and Jo this Christmas. Cello and the kids are flying south to spend Christmas with her in-laws. Have fun and make the most out of it! But Cello always manages to do just that in any situation.

As for Claire and Ed, the bright side of being few during Christmas is that they could enjoy a quiet celebration. No need for a big preparation. As Jo and I suggest (insist), they could go to a buffet by themselves and enjoy dinner quietly and slowly at a fine restaurant or hotel on Christmas Eve. I’m not sure though if they will welcome that suggestion since they think they are too old for buffets.

Leave a Comment

My Christmas holiday menu

December 22, 2007 at 8:41 pm · Filed under christmas, cooking, food, winter

Hi, my name is Maggan. Welcome to Maggan’s kitchen!

The long Christmas weekend has begun. Yesterday, I with some colleagues enjoyed a traditional Swedish Christmas smorgasbord at the Jail (a cool hangout and the place to be seen). Like last year, I could hardly progress from the cold dishes. I feasted on pickled herrings (garlic being my favourite) and pickled salmon.

Long weekend. This means today is the last day that H and I are doing the groceries because (and this I promise) as soon as we step into our home, we switch to our lazy mode. But only until Wednesday. Then we can go to the grocery again.

Christmas menu at Maggan’s kitchen

Saturday, 22 December

Tofu teriyaki on a bed of sauteed mung-bean sprouts and carrots julienne topped with sesame seeds and served with lettuce

Sunday, 23 December

Whole flour pancakes with apple sauce and organic raspberry jam

Monday, 24 December

Paella

Tuesday, 25 December

Calzone and/or pizza made of spelt flour and filled/topped with Mediterranean vegetables (onion, capsicum, artichoke, tomatoes, button mushrooms) or chicken-pineapple curry

Wednesday, 26 December

Whole wheat lasagna with meat sauce seasoned with Maggan’s delightful and tasty vegetable broth (no mono-sodium glutamate, no salt, no preservatives)

I know that a pizza dish on Christmas day doesn’t connect with the season. But it’s been a while since I made pizza last and I have time to make them, as well as experiment with calzone. My dough will also be made of spelt flour. I don’t think pizzas can get any healthier than that.

Oops! It seems that someone got carried away while planning the menu. Now, who could it be? The holidays are just not enough for a salmon-and-boiled-potato number. I could see H beaming with joy over the holiday without a fish dish.

Leave a Comment

Older Posts »