My favorite carrot cake

Long time no see! I am very sorry it has been so long since my last post, but somehow November, December and now January just slipped away before my eyes. I have been very busy, and somewhat stressed over my upcoming four-month ethnographic fieldwork that I am doing all by my lonesome in New Caledonia. I am leaving in a little over a week now, and am starting to look forward. Maybe you will hear more about my (food) adventures while I’m away.

But first I want to introduce you to my favorite carrot cake recipe. I have been making it for the last five years, and every time I feel convinced that I will never find a carrot cake that I like better. I found the recipe some years ago on DR’s website, created by the Swedish chef Tina Nordström. It is not really showing up online anymore, though, and I also made several adjustments, so here is my version of Tinas carrot cake.

To make a pretty big batch (about 2 springforms) you need:

For the cake

3 eggs

3½ dl. /1.1 cup sugar

3 dl./1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1½ tablespoon ground cardemom

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2½ teaspoons bakingpowder

½ teaspoon salt

4 dl./1.7 cups flour

4 dl./1.7 cups finely grated carrots

2½ dl./1.1 cups neutral oil

 

For the frosting

2 dl./0.9 cups powdered sugar

200 grams/7 oz. butter, melted and cooled

200 grams/7 oz. cream cheese

Finely grated peel and juice of one lemon or two limes

2 tablespoons vanilla sugar

How to:

Heat your oven to 200c/390F. Beat the eggs with the sugar until white and foamy. Add the walnuts, cardemom, cinnamon, bakingpowder, salt and flour to the sugar/egg mixture and combine. Add the carrots and oil to the mix and combine until smooth. Grease two springforms (or one  big ovenproof dish) and pour in the batter. Bake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes (40 if you are making one big cake), or until a knife or pin comes out clean. Let the cake cool completely. Now you are ready to make the frosting. In a bowl, beat the powdered sugar with the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add the vanilla and the lemon/lime peel, and juice and beat until it is all combined. Now you can decorate the cake as you wish. To make a high cake, first frost the top of one cake. Then place the other one on top of it and frost the top and sides. Decorate with walnuts. And remember to have it with a glass of cold milk!

Lavender and lemon pound cake

I am having a bit of a weird obsession these days. I have this compulsion to cook with (and eat) everything lavender. I made a honey/lavender ice cream a while back which came out great and I brought home an amazing lavender salami from a recent visit to Amsterdam which was also so, so delicious. Well, today is an extremely grey day here in Copenhagen, and I felt the need to spice it up with some cake baking, and eating. I settled on this lemon/lavender pound cake, and it came out perfect! It is moist, perfumy from the lavender and deliciously lemony. I found the recipe here, and adapted it to fit my temper.

For one beautiful cake you need

For the batter

190 grams soft butter

3/4 cups sugar

1/6 cup milk

3 eggs

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla (essence, vanilla sugar or the seeds of a pod)

1,5 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/6 cup dried lavender flowers

For the frosting

Juice and zest of half a lemon

70 grams powdered sugar

Start by turning the oven to 175C/350F. Beat the soft butter with the sugar until creamy. Add all the dry ingredients except the lavender and mix until combined. In another bowl mix the wet ingredients. With an electric mixer (or in a stand mixer) mix in 1/3 of the milk/egg mixture to the  butter/sugar/flour mix. Mix for 1 minute, then add another third of the liquid to the mix. Again beat for a minute until adding the rest of the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl. Beat it all for another minute until it is a beautiful batter. Mix in the lavender. Butter a round cake pan (or loaf pan if you like) and add the batter to it.

Bake it for about 35 minutes, or until a pin comes out clean. Let it cool completely. Then mix the lemon juice, zest and powdered sugar to make the glaze. Dress the cake with the lemony frosting and sprinkle some lavender flowers over the cake to make it pretty. Let the frosting dry, and enjoy!

Great places to eat in Singapore

Before I got back to Denmark, Andy and I spent 4 days in Singapore, dealing with the Indonesian embassy, getting Andy’s research permit ready to go. Maybe I haven’t said before, but Andy is still in Indonesia now, doing ornithological fieldwork in the jungles of Flores for the next two months. So before we parted, we enjoyed ourselves with lots of good food in Singapore. I had done quite a bit of research on restaurants beforehand, because of some major food cravings while in Indonesia, after eating rice every day for over a month. I am sorry for the lack of pictures, but I decided to dress up for most of the meals bringing only a small purse with me which wouldn’t fit my camera.

Au Petit Salut

We went to Au Petit Salut for lunch because it was supposed to have a very good, and relatively cheap lunch menu priced at 32 S$. Andy and I ordered different things, and I was definitely the one who lucked out. Andy’s niçoise salad and braised beef cheeks were good, but not great, whereas my snails were the best I ever had, and my pork in mustard on polenta equally amazing. Both the strawberry shortcake and the choux buns were delicious desserts. I would definitely go back! It is a popular spot so call ahead.

40C Harding Road

Tel: 6475 1976

Pizzeria Mozza

Pizzeria Mozza is owned by the pretty famous Mario Batali (in the US anyway) and is attached to the fancier Osteria Mozza right next door. I went to Pizzeria Mozza alone before my flight out of Singapore for a quick dinner. I had  a nice glass of Valpolicella and the pizza with burrata (a home made cheese, sort of like mozzarella but with double the fat), slow roasted tomato and oregano. It was absolutely divine! It was one of the best pizzas I have ever had, and I will go to great lengths to try to replicate it. There is a picture of it above, and here is a picture of the restaurant:

I went to Mozza on a random Sunday evening at 6pm and they were fully booked, so it is a good idea to call ahead if you don’t want to dine at the bar (as I did, and it was fine).

2 Bayfront Avenue (inside the Marina Bay Sands shopping centre)

6688 8522

Iggy’s

I went to Iggy’s all by my lonesome and pretty impulsively right after Andy had left for Jakarta. Iggy’s is currently 27th on the S. Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants list. I was amazed that they had a table available on very short notice, and I went power shopping for something decent to wear half an hour before my reservation.

I got the set 4 course lunch menu for 85S$. First I got an amuse bouche of smoked eel parfait with caviar and a citrus gel. It was amazing, and definitely the best dish I had at Iggy’s. As my first real course I had their version of the classic niçoise salad. It was very good, and especially the truffle mayo and olive sphere made it amazing. Second dish was spaghettini with smoked mullet roe and zucchini. This dish I actualy disliked. I had four bites, trying all I could to see the genius in the dish, but I did not succeed. I left the rest, and considered it as a blessing in disguise because it meant that I could eat more of the delicious bread and smoked butter with parmesan. Third dish was confit of duck with mashed potatoes. It was good, but I could have made it just as delicious in my own kitchen. I expected more of one of the best restaurants in the world! For dessert I had caramel, brown butter ice cream, grapefruit, miso and pecan. It was very delicious!

So all in all I was pretty disappointed by Iggy’s. Two of the four dishes were nothing special and one of them I actually disliked. I had a glass of 2006 Meursault Les Meix Chavaux Blanc to drink though, and it was probably the best wine I ever had! If anyone knows where to find this wine, please give me a hint as I haven’t been able to find it on the internet. Service was good at Iggy’s, but the staff seemed to find it weird that I was there all by myself. I guess my conclusion is that I would not go back to Iggy’s for lunch. I am not sorry I went, but I would not do it again. Maybe dinner is better though.

581 Orchard Road, 3rd floor @ The Hilton

6732 2234

Royal China

Andy and I had our sunday lunch at Royal China. I had done some research and it sounded like Royal China was the best bet for stand out dim sum in Singapore. We had some excellent dim sum when we traveled around Hong Kong and China some years ago, and I was eager to have some again. Royal China is located at the Raffles hotel, and looks pretty fancy, but we had (lots of) dim sum, and I thought it was a very good deal as the were about 3S$ each. We had a pot of jasmine tea and 7 different dim sum and got very full. The best were the scallop dumplings and the crispy shrimp rolls. The other dishes were great as well though. I love dim sum and Royal China did not disappoint! Again, call ahead for reservations.

1 Beach Road @ The Raffles hotel arcade

6338 3363

Maxwell Road Food Centre

Singapore has tons of wonderful food courts, and Maxwell road food centre was my favorite one. It is famous for the stall called Tian Tian which connoisseurs say makes the best Hainan chicken rice in all of Singapore. Just look for the long line, and you will find Tian Tian. The chicken rice was wonderful, but I think the real gem is this one:

It is the stall with the writing fried sweet potato dumpling on the bright yellow sign. I still dream of the coconut dumpling, which had the most amazing texture and sweetness. So good!

Well, the centre is packed full of  cheap and interesting food, and it is pretty much a paradise for a food lover like myself.

Where Maxwell Road meets South Bridge Road

New Asia Bar

The New Asia Bar is located on the 71st floor, high above Singapore with an amazing view of the city. Andy and I had cocktails there, and despite the expensive drinks, it was worth it for the view. We just sat there for hours with our cocktails, holding hands, and had a great time. The food looked pretty bad though (from what other people were having).

2 Stamford Road 

71st floor of the Swissôtel The Stamford

Cocotte

After drinks at the New Asia Bar we went to a late dinner at Cocotte in the middle of Little India. I had read that their whole roast chicken which was supposed to be out of this world tender and delicious. And it really was! I think Andy said it best: It’s like it is not even chicken. It is like if a chicken and a pack of butter had a baby. It really was like no chicken I ever tasted before, and I would go back in a heartbeat for it. We also shared a crème brûlée for dessert, which was also perfect.

2 Dickson Road

6298 1188

The best sate in Jakarta

A week ago I got back to Denmark after two months of travelling around Sumatra, Java, Flores and Komodo. I had a great time but was generally not blown away by the food in Indonesia. This one particular hole-in-the-wall sate  (also sometimes called satay) place in Jakarta was absolutely amazing though. So if you ever find yourself in the dreadful city of Jakarta, take a taxi to where Jalan Haji Agus Salim and Jalan Kyai Haji Wahid Hasyim meet for the most tender marinated chicken skewers, perfect peanut sauce, pickled vegetables and ice cold coca cola. And it is dirt cheap too! Here are some more pictures:

It is right where the two streets meet (like I wrote above), but it is located on Jalan Kyai Haji Wahid Hasyim on the northern side of the street. The guys working there wear red shirts, and at meal times it is absolutely packed with locals. Order the sate ayam with nasi putih (white rice). The Sate kambing (goat) is also good, but doesn’t hold a candle to the chicken.

Strawberry compote and summer vacation

I am very sorry for the silence on the blog lately! And I am even more sorry to say that it won’t be looking up any time soon. I am off to Indonesia later today for two months of adventure which I don’t think will leave much time for blogging (or cooking for that matter). I wish you all a wonderful summer of strawberries, sunshine and fun, and despite being crazily busy today, I will leave you with a recipe for wonderful Danish strawberry dessert.

A couple of weekends ago I spent some days with my Dad. I had a cold and was feeling pretty bad, and among other things he pampered me with this homemade strawberry compote.

For 6 servings you need

1 kg/2 lbs fresh strawberries

200 g/7 oz sugar

1 tablespoon water

An empty vanilla pod

1 tablespoon potato starch (which I think can be substituted by corn starch)

Whole milk or cream to serve

Start by cleaning the berries, cutting off the green tops. Dump them in a pot, adding the sugar, vanilla pod and water. Bring it to a boil and if it looks to dry, add a bit more water to prevent it from burning. Let it simmer until the sugar has dissolved, and the berries have the texture you like. I like the berries to still have a little bite so I would let it simmer for about 10 minutes, but if you want a smooth compote, just let it simmer longer. When this is done, take the pot off the heat. Quickly mix the potato flour with a bit of cold water until there are no lumps. Then pour it into the warm compote while stirring. It varies how much starch you need for the right texture, so just stop pouring when you think it looks and feels right. It is important that the compote does not boil after the starch has been added since it messes up the texture.

 Pour the compote into a big glass bowl and sprinkle a thin layer of sugar over the surface. Let it rest until it is completely cool, and serve with cold whole milk or cream (and more sugar on top if you like things to be really sweet).

Enjoy! And if you end up with leftovers, they can be used very nicely in a trifle.

Myseost parfait and a birthday party

Wednesday the 1st of June was my 26th birthday, and for the occation I had invited 20 of my favorite people over for dinner. It was a wonderful evening with good people, wine and tons of food. Food that I spent pretty much two days cooking. I served 5 courses, starting with a noma favorite of flower pots filled with an herb cream made from sheep’s milk yoghurt, sprinkled with edible soil (made from malt, hazlenuts etc.) and beautiful radishes sticking out of the soil. Just a nice and very pretty little snack. Second course was a tomato and carrot soup with fresh basil. The main course was porchetta, caramelized whole onions, slow baked tomatoes and barley with parmesan.

After the porchetta followed two desserts. First a rhubarb compote with a vanilla/marscapone cream and fresh Danish strawberries on top. Second was the myseost parfait with crushed up macaroons, sprinkled with freeze dried raspberries. And that, my dear friends, is the recipe I will share with you today.

 

But before you say, “yuck, I hate myseost,” I have to tell you that you will love this parfait no matter what. It tastes nothing like cheese. It is all creamy, caramelly, vanilla goodness! I didn’t tell my guests what was in the parfait before they had tasted it, and they all loved it, even the ones who hate the brown Norwegian cheese. Myseost, or brunost as it is sometimes called, is a Norwegian whey cheese made from  goat’s and cow’s milk. It is brown, and very creamy.

Recipe for vanilla parfait is from Claus Meyer, that I wrote down ages ago. 

What you need:

125 g./4,5 oz. Myseost (brunost), shaved or cut into chunks

5 dl./2,1 cups cream

5 egg yolks

75 g./2,7 oz. sugar

Seeds from half of one fat vanilla bean

A couple grains of salt

How you do:

First you add a dash of cream and the cheese to a small pot. Over low heat you gently melt the cheese in the cream while stirring. It takes a while for it to get smooth, but if you are patient it will happen. When the mixture is smooth, pour it into a bowl and place in the fridge or freezer depending on how long you want to wait. It has to be completely chilled before you proceed. That applies for all the other ingredients, as well. So place everything, even the sugar and the bowl you are planning to use, in the fridge until you are ready. When everything is cool, add all the ingredients to the bowl and whisk it with an electric mixer until it is a pretty loose whipped cream. Pour it into a container and place in the freezer until it is thoroughly frozen.

 

And there you have it. A wonderful caramelly parfait. Remember to take it out about 20 minutes before you want to serve it though, since it is very firm otherwise. The great thing with this recipe is that there is not an ice crystal in sight. Don’t ask me why, but it is perfectly creamy and delicious. As I said, I served mine on top of some crushed up (store bought) macaroons, and sprinkled with freeze dried raspberries, but it is great on it’s own too!

And that was the story of my birthday and my (at the moment) favorite ice cream. It was a very nice party, and luckily I have tons of left over parfait left to munch on this sunny weekend.

 

Le Chateaubriand and a wonderful trip to Paris

A palate cleanser of pickled rhubarb with candied aniseeds from Le Chateaubriand.

Long time no see! May has been a very busy month for me so far, but I did manage to squeeze in a trip to Paris with my mom 3 weeks ago. We had such a wonderful time. We just strolled around the city in our short sleeves and sandals and had amazing meals every night. I had booked three dinners from home by phone, and I was very happy I had, since they were all booked up in advance and we saw people being turned away in the door almost every night. I am sorry to say though that I only have pictures from the meal at Le Chateaubriand, so all the pictures in this post are from that one meal.

On the first night we dined at Café des Musées in Marais. It was a very laid-back place, with a waiter who had a very strange sense of humor. It kind of felt like he hated us, but I have a sense that it was just his style. For a starter I had the foie gras terrine with a fig compote and toast. It was wonderful, and I savoured every bit of it, especially because I have a rule of only eating foie gras when I am in France. For my main course I had a perfect entrecôte with amazing fries and spot-on bérnaise sauce. It was so simple and satisfying! It was a very big steak, though, and I was too full for dessert. My mom had smoked salmon as a starter, and a pot au feu with lamb shank and lots of veggies for her main course. Those were extremely delicious as well. It was a pretty cheap meal, and it could have been even cheaper if we had ordered the menu of the day for only 20 Euros.

49 Rue de Turenne

Tel. 01 42 72 96 17

A small course of fluffy little brioches at Le Chateaubriand.

On our second night we ate at La Régalade, and once again we were blown away. La Régalade has an offer of three courses from the carte for 32 Euros. Very cheap, and also very very good! Once we sat down, the lovely waitress placed some bread, a huge terrine of paté and a jug of gherkens on the table. They were on the house, and it was very hard to leave the paté alone and save room for the rest of the meal. For that I started with the best scallops I have ever tasted, followed by a perfectly cooked duck’s breast, with roasted potatoes and a green salad. My mom started with raw tuna on an eggplant purée and some beautiful greens. She had steamed cod on a bed of fresh spinach, and hard boiled eggs and tomatoes with a wonderful vinagrette as a maine course. For dessert we both had a rhubarb compote with a vanilla cream and fresh strawberries. I still dream of that dessert at night. I was in heaven! On top of all this great food, where all the dishes we had stood out as something out of the ordinary, the waitresses also did an amazing job of finding great wines by the glass for the various courses. And they were extremely nice, too! I completely fell in love with La Régalade, and I desperately wanted to eat there for our fourth dinner, but they were already fully booked for that night. Ooh, and another nice touch were the two warm and perfect madeleines they served us with our bill.

49 Avenue Jean-Moulin
Tel. 1 45 45 68 58

Le Chateaubriand

For our third dinner, we went to Le Chateaubriand. This was the meal I had been looking forward to most, and I was very happy when I managed to get a reservation. Le Chateaubriand is currently number 9 on The Worlds’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Yes, the one where noma is number one. Reservations are only taken two weeks before from 3-7pm, so I called at 3.05pm exactly 14 days before I wanted to eat there and got a table for two. The evening actually started rather badly, since they had overbooked the restaurant, and mine was the name they had missed. They did find my name on another list though, so they could see that I actually did have a reservation. We were some of the first people in the restaurant, and I was very disappointed when they seemed totally unwilling to give us a table. They wanted to seat us at the bar, but I had pretty bad back pains that day, and it was an extremely uncomfortable eating position. I kept complaining to them, since it was their mistake, and after a few times it worked and they gave us a real table.

Cevice juice with avocado and cilantro flower at Le Chateaubriand.

There is only one menu at Le Chateaubriand with five courses plus three tiny appetizers at 50 Euros. On top of that I had the wine pairing menu, also 50 Euros. Again, this restaurant is very low-key. It looks like an old Parisian bistro, with a huge blackboard and a long wooden bar. It doesn’t seem the least bit fancy, and it had a very relaxed atmosphere. The clientelle was a mixture of locals and food-tourists like myself. I won’t go into detail with all the courses, and often I actually wasn’t sure of what I was eating, because of the noise and the mumbling waiters.

Fried red fish with a chicken liver mousse and fried dill at Le Chateaubriand.

The menu was very good value. Not all the courses were perfect, but the food was interesting and inventive and most of the time, tasty. The wine menu had some very, very good wines (but I was never told what I was drinking, so I can’t tell you), but the servings were extremely small compared to wine pairing menus in other restaurants. The small glasses suited me well though, since I was not at all interested in getting drunk.

Salted cod with tons of different herbs at Le Chateaubriand.

Sorbet of blood orange with pickled endive and soil of olives at Le Chateaubriand

All in all I am very happy that we got to try Le Chateaubriand. My expectations were high and they were met, pretty much. For the price I could not have wanted any more, but for Le Chateaubriand to be on the same list as noma is crazy to me. Noma gave me an evening of food and drink and atmosphere that I am sure I will remember for the rest of my life. Le Chateaubriand offered me a meal that was great while I was eating it, but has faded with time, and would be hard for me to remember if I didn’t have photos of the various courses. Their concept is genius though; gourmet for the people. I hope more great chefs will follow their example.

129 Avenue Parmentier

Tel. 01 43 57 45 95

S’mores and an apology

First, I want to apologize for my absence on the blog. I have been (and still am actually) extremely busy with writing a pretty huge paper, and there just hasn’t been time for posting. My busyness is also caused by the fact that I am going to Paris with my mom on Sunday (YAY), which leaves me with even less time for writing that big paper. I can’t wait to tell you about the, hopefully, amazing restaurants we will be eating at, but until then I will tell you about s’mores. If you are American, you probably think I am crazy for writing up a recipe for s’mores because it is total common knowledge, but I am not sure how many Danes know about this amazing and sweet end to a nice summer barbeque.

What you need is

A fire

Marsmallows

Graham crackers

Chocolate

Sticks or long forks

Place a marskmallow on the stick, and hold over the fire until it is beautifully brown on the outside, and very goopy on the inside. And be careful, they burn very easily.

Then you take a graham cracker and place a nice square of chocolate on top of it. Lay the marshmallow on top of the chocolate.

Then cover it with another graham cracker, and pull the fork og stick out of the marshmallow. And then you eat it. Very simple, but very delicious! Happy barbequing everyone.

Spaghetti with green peppercorns, anchovies and lemon

I just looove pasta. It is so incredibly versatile and just damn tasty. This pasta dish is one of my favorites. It is fast and easy to make, and the flavors of the lemon, anchovies and peppercorns just come together very beautifully. It has a bit of a spicy bite to it from the peppercorns and a richness from the anchovies.

What you need to serve three people

Slightly adapted from Tessa Kiros’ beautiful cookbook Falling Cloudberries

2 tablespoons fresh green pepeprcorns, roughly chopped

1 lemon, both the peel and juice

12 anchovy fillets

70 g./1/2 stick butter

A handful of fresh basil

400 g. spaghetti

Parmesan to serve

Boil the pasta until al dente. While the spaghetti is cooking, place 2/3 of the butter in a pan with the anchovies. Turn the heat on low, and let the butter melt and the anchovies warm. After a few minutes, squash the fillets with a wooden spoon and add the peppercorns, lemon peel and juice to the pan. Mix it all and turn off the heat. When the spaghetti is done, drain it and save a little of the cooking water. Pour the spaghetti over the sauce along with the roughly chopped basil and the rest of the butter. Mix well, and adjust the texture with the pasta water if the sauce is too dry. Serve immediatly with plenty of freshly grated parmesan.

Congratulations noma

Today I woke up to some great news; noma had been voted the best restaurant in the world – again. Those guys make me proud to be Danish, and I feel very lucky to have eaten there. The evening I had at noma was perfect for in every way, and it opened up my mind to what food can be. If you want to read more about the dinner I had at noma in September, you can find it right here.

I dream of going back there, and every time they open up to new reservations I try to get a table. I have had no luck though, but I am on the waiting list for many evenings in June. Keep your fingers crossed (even though my plan b is going to Geranium which, I am sure, would also be awesome). And once again congratulations to René Redzepi and his crew!