It’s a rainy cold day in Toronto, which makes it the perfect occasion for this Canadian Old Fashioned. A classic Old Fashioned is served with bourbon, bitter, a bit of simple syrup and maybe, if you’re daring, a bit of orange peel. So, there is a bit of a freestyle twist here, and conservative fans of the classic Old Fashioned might see this as nothing less than heresy. However, I recommend trying it first, and then making your judgement. At least, eat the bacon. My Canadian Old Fashioned here draws on a cocktail we had in a restaurant in Quebec City back in November. Like today, it was a cold…
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Festive port wine sauce
It’s no secret the Danes really like sauce. I mean really, really like sauce to the point where it can (almost) ruin an entire dinner if there’s no sauce! Personally, I think a good roast or nice piece of meat deserves nothing less than a killer sauce, and would never dream of serving a classic dinner with meat, potatoes, or some other kind of starch, and a side of nice veggies without a delicious sauce. For a lot of people though, the thought of producing a good sauce triggers bouts of anxiety. Because how do you nail a sauce that will be that killer accompaniment that leaves your dinner guests…
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Pickled mini onions
Pickled mini onions are a perfect little side dish for roasts, cheese boards, lunch, patés, sandwiches… The list goes on and on. They are so easy to make, and first time I made them I felt really stupid for having paid a lot of money for similar pickled onions in the stores. I started making these as a garnish for a our extravagant veal tenderloin dish, but found they are wonderful in so many other ways. Make them one or a couple of days in advance or on the same day you want to use them, either way, they’ll be yummy little extras. They’ll easily keep for at least two…
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Extravagant veal tenderloin
This recipe for veal tenderloin with trimmings is one of the most beautiful dinner dishes in my book, which is why I call it extravagant veal tenderloin. The combination of colors from the roast veal, red currants and thyme make it a feast not only for both your eyes and your palate, yet, it is not a very complicated dish. I usually make the pickled onions the day before or in the morning, and the meat can be done in less than 30 minuttes. The first time Karen-Anne and I made this was for New Year’s eve, and it really is a festive dish. It looks quite decadent and opulent,…
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Divinely decadent shrimp appetizer
Here is our second appetizer for our Roaring ‘20s Gatsby themed New Year’s dinner. We started out with oysters, or what we called Roaring Rockefeller oysters, and we thought that a natural next step is a fresh little bite with shrimp and herb cream with a touch of lemon and watercress. We recommend you use a very small type of shrimp, as we thought this would be one in a row of appetizers, and small shrimp will make this dish look very elegant and delicate. North Atlantic shrimp are great, or maybe you can even get your hands on a batch of Danish ‘fjordrejer’ (frozen as the fresh ones are…
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Mozart’s little shooting stars
Mozart chocolate balls are these old school chocolates from Vienna that used to be the ultimate luxury when I was growing up. I remember how friends and family would often buy them if they visited Austria or southern Germany, and they were quite expensive, almost like good quality Belgian chocolates these days. You can still get them of course, but as with many other chocolate brands, the quality has unfortunately gone downhill, often leaving you with a overly sweet product with way too much sugar and hardly any real almonds in the marzipan or hazelnuts in the nougat. The good news is, it is very very easy to make your…
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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Last week we shared our recipe for brown Christmas spice cookies – Danish ‘brunkager’. Here’s another wonderful recipe for Christmas cookies, this time straight from my great grandmother Inger’s old recipe book. I guess most people are familiar with the Danish vanilla butter cookies that you can buy in typically blue tins, often with photos of famous Danish places on them. Whether these mass produces cookies leave a positive or negative impression of Danish baking on those who try them, is not for me to judge, but these homemade ones are definitely a much more interesting taste experience, and I think far more worth the calories. And they are super…
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Roaring Rockefeller oysters
I know New Year’s is still a bit away, but as is our custom, this is the time for Karen-Anne, my fellow blogger, and I to start planning our New Year’s dinner. We’re so lucky that we get to celebrate it together again this year, and that really calls for one knock-out dinner. To tell you the truth, we actually started planning this dinner back in July, and we decided to make it a themed evening inspired by The Great Gatsby and the Roaring ’20s. Can it get more festive, indulgent and decadent? We immediately knew that we were going to do Oysters Rockefeller, so we start off by sharing…
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Spicy Christmas cookies
It’s time to start planning which Christmas cookies to bake this year! Danish ‘brunkager’, literally ‘brown cakes’, have always been my favorite Christmas cookies. With all their warm aromas from cinnamon, cloves, ginger, all spice and nuts, these wonderful little treats smell and taste like real Christmas to me. Just wait till you put them in the oven, and you’ll see what I mean. There are tons of variations of these cookies, and you can find cousins of these all over Scandinavia and northern Germany. But since this recipe for these spicy Christmas cookies comes from my ancestors, of course I think it’s the best. A ‘brunkage’ is also a…
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French meatballs
So why call this recipe French meatballs? Honestly, I can’t really claim this recipe to be authentically French, nor did I ever have anything like this in France. In truth, the recipe actually draws on a very delicious ready made, just pop-in-the-oven, meal I once bought in a little shop in torvehallerne in Copenhagen, an upscale street food market in the middle of the city. Pricy and quite hipster, it is honestly a great place to visit if you get the chance to visit the capital of Denmark. I’m not sure the shop still exists and I forget the name of it, otherwise I would surely have given a referral.…
