Food: Easy Oatly mango ‘kulfi’

When the Oatly branded product of their Orange Mango oat drink came out, loads were sceptical, is it ‘milky’? Is it ‘juicy’? And some where perplexed altogether (I like the product as it is!). You can find it in the UK at IKEA stores and it’s available from supermarkets here in Sweden.

 

Oatly Orange Mango Oat Drink. Photo: Oatly

 

Here is a quick way you can use it creatively. To make a light but sweet kulfi-style Indian dessert.

(Makes 4)

To make you’ll need:

• 200ml Oatly Orange Mango oat drink
• 8tbs Oatly fraîche/ other non-dairy sour cream
• 3tbs coconut chips (optional)
• 3tbs golden syrup/ corn syrup
• Pinch of salt

Simply mix the Fraîche and the syrup together in a bowl and slowly add in the Orange Mango, continuously stirring. Next, add in the coconut chips for added texture and the salt and stir through, then simply pour it into molds. I used silicone cupcake moulds, but feel free to use what you have and place in the freezer for at least 3 hours to set. When ready to serve take them out of the freezer a couple of minutes before you’d like to plate up and de-mould. Serve with fresh fruit, chopped nuts and a sauce. I served them with an easy raspberry and cardamom coulis.

To make:

• 200g fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1tbs icing sugar/ powdered sugar
• 1tsp ground cardamom
• Pinch of salt

To make it couldn’t be any easier. Place all the ingredients into a small saucepan or frying pan and heat on low until the raspberries start exuding their juice. Take off the heat and blend it down with a food processor. Strain out the seeds and pour in a jug. Leave to cool for serving.

To save time, I’d make the coulis whilst the ‘kulfi’s are in the freezer. The result should be a light vegan-alternative to a very rich Indian dessert. Purists will say it isn’t the same as a real kulfi that takes hours, but for a quick, convenient dessert that’s dairy-free it’s not bad at all!

Enjoy!

Food: Rude Food Recipe 4: ‘Keep the cold at bay’ soup

 

The #Beastfromtheeast has left its mark over all of northern Europe it seems and snowy Malmö is no exception. I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands with this stalwart soup that will batten down the hatches with plenty of fresh alium and flush out any lingering nasties with the heat of the chilli. The level of any of these is preferential, but here are the amounts that I used.

You will need:

• 1 pack of cooked Beetroot, and its juice
• The zest & juice of 1/2 lemon,
• 1/2 tsp chilli, (go full tsp if you’re feeling particularly under the weather!),
• 2 medium potatoes,
• 1/2 an onion,
• 1tbs Sauerkraut juice (optional, I used some, leftover from my dear friend Kathe Kaczmarzyk’s pop-up here in Malmö) ,
• 3 cloves of garlic,
• 3 rhizomes of fresh turmeric, grated,
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon,
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger,
• Salt & pepper,
• 500ml homemade veg stock
• 1tbs dried parsley,

For the orange, ginger & mustard crème:

• 2tbs dairy free crème fraîche (I used Oatly fraîche)
• 1tsp wholegrain mustard
• zest & juice of 1/4 orange
• Thumb- size piece of ginger, grated

Garnish:

Handful of fresh parsley, chopped.

 

 

The method for soups is always fairly simple, the magic here is the contents and not the process.

Chop the onion, the garlic and the onions roughly, separately chop up the beetroot into chunks and make sure you keep the juices.

Gently soften the onion and the garlic in a little oil and then add the potatoes, stir them through. Begin to add the lemon juice, the sauerkraut, the beetroot pieces, the beetroot juice and then grate in the lemon zest and the turmeric. Be careful with the fresh turmeric as it will stain anything, including your skin, so you might want to use gloves. Add the spices, the herbs and then pour over the stock, season to your taste including the chilli!

Bring the whole thing up to a robust simmer before sticking in the oven at 140 degrees celsius (fan assisted) and allow it to do its thing for at least an hour. Take the whole thing out, stir and check the seasoning. When you’re happy with it you can blast the whole thing with a stick blender or a food processor until it’s thick.

The aroma should be rich and earthy with the beetroot and the garlic, the back notes from the sauerkraut and the lemon should be sharp and punchy. The heat should be there to the taste too from the chilli. The colour should be like you’ve liquidised rubies.

For the punchy crème, simply mix all the ingredients together into a bowl and leave to thicken for 5 minutes.

Serve with a good loaf of your favourite sourdough, a sprinkle of chopped parsley and a generous dollop of the punchy fraîche.

Enjoy!

Food: Brekkieklubben launch

Whilst being here in Malmö, I’ve noticed the lack of breakfast options. Sure, Malmö is a culinary hotpot of different cultures & cuisines, but they don’t really ‘do’ breakfasts here. Sure, there’s the Scandi style cold-cuts frukost and then on the weekend plenty of places offer a ‘brunch’ but, it’s yet again a buffet affair, where people queue up and many miss out to what they want. Seeing the gap in the market, this is where Brekkieklubben (literally, The Brekkie Club) comes in.

Together with my Aussie mate, and fellow Swedexpat, Anya Trybala (who I’d check out her music project & label Ninoosh & Synth Babes Records) came together to bring the best of a Melbourne & British Brekkie to Sweden! And as I’d been listening to a lot of Kate Bush that morning and with Stranger Things 2 (then) on its way to be released, we wanted it to have a cool 80s & early 90s vibe.

We’ve been working together with Gro’up, an amazing community run space & restaurant founded by Nina Christensson (one of the founders of both SMAK & Bastard) and run by the bloody stellar duo of Project manager, Edith Salminen and Head Chef Marcus Schön. They are such a great addition to the food scene in Malmö and conveniently around the corner from our apartment.

So, myself, Anya and Tom spent from the end September to mid November honing our idea & concept, Tom creating original art for the project with his illustration business, Jom Tones Illustration, myself pitching the idea at Ideon’s ‘Pitcher’s Corner’, until we set the date for our launch on Sunday the 26th of November. Selling Tickets through Eventbrite, we managed to drum up both trade, in the guise of 19 tickets (plus a further 4 walk-in orders) and interest by regularly updating our social media channels. With the menu written up, containing our spin on British & Aussie favourites and classics such as Eggs Benedict that you simply cannot get easily here, we were ready for the launch!

The prices for the tickets were 146kr for a Brekkie plate (that you ordered, in advance, especially for you), coffee & a special surprise (which were vegan bread & butter puddings, inspired by the very British combo of ‘tea, toast and marmelade’, topped with Oatly fraîche. I Even made my own bitter orange marmelade for them!). We catered to people of all diets with a gluten free ‘Punked Porridge’ option and I made it my mission that most of the dishes were or could be made Vegan Friendly.

 

 

On The launch day itself, Edith thankfully helped us through our very first service. It went amazingly well considering, albeit, I’m an accomplished cook and have worked in the service industry, but I had never been this side of the kitchen before. We got the food out, with relative ease and every customer was satisfied, together with some 80s & early 90s hits rocking out on the speakers. Edith then gave us a de-briefing on how to improve next time.

Check out Brekkieklubben on

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/Brekkieklubben

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/brekkieklubben

So, people of Malmö look out for the next opening of Brekkieklubben, very soon!

 

 

Drink: Kladdkaka cocktail

This week in Sweden it was kladdkakans dag, which is a day for the unctuously good gooey chocolate cake, called a kladdkaka (sticky cake), like a Swedish brownie. I wanted to do a vegan version, but instead of just re-creating the cake, I’ve used it as inspiration for a cocktail.

Serves 2

To make you’ll need:

• Handful of lightly burned oats, soaking in 100ml water
• 100ml of leftover coffee, I like to use what’s leftover in my French-Press, (so for this I used Coaltown Coffee’s Black Gold No.3)
• 400ml oat milk, I used Oatly
• 1tbs cocoa, sifted
• 50g good quality chocolate (at least 70%), melted, I used Svenska Kakaobolaget
• 3 shots of Vodka, I used Stoli
• 1tbs vanilla sugar
• Ice

Serve:

• Vegan whipped cream
• Pinch of cocoa

Start by placing your oats in a pan and toasting them on low. Rather than letting them go golden brown, you need to take it just a bit further so they start to burn, not too much however. You need the nutty-bitterness that will be imbued in the liquid. Take off the heat, place into a bowl and pour in the water. Let the oats soak until they make the water a golden hue. like the picture below:

 

 

After this, leave it to cool. When ready, strain the liquid through a sieve and place the golden liquid in a separate bowl. Now, take your melted chocolate and whisk that into the liquid, before adding in the cocoa, whisking thoroughly. Then add in the vanilla sugar.

 

In your cocktail shaker, place the chocolatey mixture, along with the cold coffee, oat milk and your 3 shots of vodka over the ice. Shake vigorously and serve in a tall glass. Top with some vegan whipped cream and a sifting of cacao.

 

Enjoy!

 

Food: Vegan Carbonara

Last week in the ICA store in Möllevången, here in Malmö,  I saw these awesome new soya bacon pieces. Well, I just had to buy them and make myself a vegan spaghetti carbonara didn’t I 😉

Here’s a recipe for an equally creamy sauce as the original, but 100% plant based.

To make, you’ll need:

• 1/2 pack soy bacon (87g)
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1tsp vegan butter,
• 100ml Oatly cream (or any other plant based cream)
• Glug of garlic infused oil
• 1tbs nutritional yeast
• 1tbs vegan mayo
• Lots of black pepper, around 8-9 cracks

To serve:

• Handful of chopped fresh parsley,
• Lots of vegan Parmesan ( I used Astrid och Aporna’s Riv-iera)

 

Start by putting on the spaghetti, the dish isn’t going to take long to make! Once the spaghetti is starting to simmer in it’s salty water, start by melting the butter in the pan and adding in the vegan bacon. I used ones from ICA here in Sweden, but I’m sure there are definitely nice bacon alternatives you could use, like smoked tofu, or tempeh bacon etc. Fry off until it starts going crisp, then add in the garlic. Fry until it cooks out its raw bite. Now, add in the Oatly cream, black pepper, nooch and garlic oil. Turn the heat down to low and stir. When they have thoroughly mixed together take the pan off the heat. By this time, the pasta should be nice and al-dente. Strain into a colander. As the sauce has started to cool down, you can add in the vegan mayo. This will give the same unctuous taste and feeling as using eggs in a traditional carbonara. Stir through the pasta evenly, so that each strand of spaghetti is enrobed in the sauce.  Serve with the chopped parsley and a generous helping of vegan Parmesan.

Enjoy!

Drink: Banana, apricot, vanilla & passionfruit Oatly smoothie

One way of getting by in Malmö, on a budget (for me, at least) has been to shop at my local ‘livs’ store. ‘Livs’ stores are small, little corner shops, come greengrocers. They often have great prices on veg and sometimes reduce great quantities as the day goes by. This it where it really gets fun (AND CHEAP!). My local ‘livs’ store, last week had huge bags of passionfruit, bananas & apricots all reduced to 10kr (just under £1), and I had used them in a myriad of different ways, but time came to that the last few needed using up. This is one great way of using up leftover fruit, that has maybe gone a-bit-too ripe, to make a nutritious & healthy breakfast option.

 

To make you’ll need:

• 400ml water
• 4tbs rolled oats
• 4 ripe bananas, roughly chopped
• 5-6 ripe apricots, de-stoned & roughly chopped
• 1tsp Vanilla bean paste/ vanilla extract (optional)
• 1tsp Maca powder (optional), sifted
• 1tsp Young barley grass powder (optional), sifted
• Pinch of salt

 

For the yogurt top:

• 200ml dairy-free yogurt (I used Oatly)
• 1 Passionfruit

 

Start by placing the water and the oats in your blender and pulse until you get a creamy, thick solution. Then, add about half of the rest of the ingredients, remembering to keep pulsing it down. Once you start getting a creamy & fruity mix you know you’re on the right track. blend it with the final portion of ingredients and pour into a jug/pitcher. In a separate bowl mix up the yogurt with the passionfruit pulp & seeds. To prep the passionfruit, I’d recommend using a small, serrated knife to cut the fruit in half and then scoop out the tart & sweet pulp with a spoon.

To serve, pour the smoothie mix into your desired cup/ bowl/ glass. If the mixture is a bit too thick, then try thinning it out with a splash of water. After, you have the desired amount,  spoon the yogurt on top and drink.

 

Enjoy!

Food: Smoky chickpea and lentil stew

Here’s a dead simple recipe for a store cupboard vegan alternative to regular stew. The secret ingredient to this (and many other) recipes is time – just allowing it to simmer away and work its magic at a low temperature in the oven.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 red onion, chopped finely,

• 1-2 cloves of garlic,

• 1tbp of oil (vegetable)

• 1 tin of chickpeas,

• 1 tin of butter beans,

• 150g of red lentils,

• 200ml of water,

• 1 tin of tomatoes,

• 1tbp tomato puree,

• 1tbp sundried tomato paste,

• 1tsp dried cumin,

• 1tsp pimentón,

• 1tsp chipotle chilli powder

• ½ tsp cinnamon,

• ½ tsp chili flakes,

• 3-4 drops of liquid smoke,

• Small handful of fresh coriander,

• Small handful of fresh parsley,

 

To serve:

• Small handful of fresh coriander or parsley,

• 1 generous dollop of Oatly fraîche,

• Lots of nice, crispy fresh bread.

 

Method:

 

Chop the onion and the garlic finely and soften in a little oil in a suitably sized Dutch oven. When they’re soft add the tomato puree and allow that to suck up all the extra oil. Add in the chickpeas and the tomatoes, sundried tomato paste, stir and season with salt and black pepper. Add in the lentils and some of the water for now. Season the stew with the rest of the dry spices and give it a good stir. Let the mixture come up to simmering point and then stir in the fresh herbs and the drops of liquid smoke. The lentils should have absorbed some of the water by this point so top it up and place in a preheated oven at 140°C. Allow it to cook for at least forty minutes before checking. Take it out and give it a good stir, give it a bit more water if it’s looking dry. At this stage you’ll need to give it another half an hour at least to let the lentils truly lose their bite and become soft. Keep stirring and checking until it’s the consistency you want. The longer you leave it the better it’ll be, I promise!

When it’s done serve with the chopped herbs, a dollop of Oatly fraiche and a mountain of good bread. It’s the perfect summer stew!

Food: Columbian potatoes

This is my take on the Colombian dish, Papas con Salsa de Aguacate (potatoes with an avocado sauce), using sweet & purple potatoes, topped with a creamy intense avocado hit. My version has a spicy tomato base to transform it from a traditional side-dish into a tasty plantbased meal.

You’ll need:

• 3 Sweet potatoes, roughly chopped
• 3 purple potatoes/ potatoes roughly chopped
• 1/2 tin of peeled tomatoes
• 1tbs tomato pureé
• 1 red onion, diced
• 1tbs Pimentón
• 1tbs ground cumin
• 1tbs ground coriander
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 red chilli, chopped finely (de-seeded if want less hot!)
• Black pepper
• Oil for roasting.

For the Salsa de Aguacate:

• 1/2 a tub of Oatly fraîche
• A glug of garlic infused oil
• 1 avocado
• Handful of coriander, chopped
• Juice of 1/2 a lime
• Some red onion
• Salt & pepper

Garnish:

• Salt for garnishing (I used Saltverk Birch smoked salt)
• Handful of chopped coriander

Start by parboiling the potatoes in salted water. As they’re boiling, place a baking tray in oven on it’s hottest setting, with a layer of oil (just like you’re making roasties). Whilst they are cooking, fry off the onion & garlic in a pan. When they are sufficiently softened the potatoes should be ready to take off the boil. Drain and place into the baking tray and oil. Flip over until they begin to sizzle. Place back into the oven to start roasting and crisping up.

In a baking dish, place the now softened garlic & most of the onion with the tomatoes, spices and the chilli. I’d recommend roughly chopping up the tomatoes. Season, mix thoroughly and spread evenly across the bottom of the dish.  After around 10-15 minutes, take the potatoes out and place into the baking dish, on top of the spicy tomato base. Place back into the oven, with a lower temperature of 180°C. Cook for a further 30-40 minutes before taking out. Leave to cool slightly, before serving.

Whilst the potatoes are in the oven, you can make the indulgent bit, the avocado sauce. In a food processor, place the Oatly fraîche, avocado, coriander, garlic oil, lime juice and the rest of the fried onion. Whizz up until it forms a creamy sauce. Scoop into a bowl. Season to taste. If too thick, you can loosen it up with a bit more lime juice.

To serve, drizzle on the sauce, the chopped coriander and a sprinkle of salt flakes. I used Saltverk birch smoked salt, which matched the smoky spicy taste of the potatoes.

I’d reccomend serving this with a couple of cold cervezas. I paired it with some Columbian Cerveza Aguila.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

Food: Peaches with apricot, cardamom & lemon fraîche

Here’s a quick recipe for a dessert perfect for cooling down in the Summer sun.  The flavours also give a taste of the exotic, so even if you’re stuck at home, you can feel like you’re on holiday

Serves 2

You’ll need:

• 4 peaches ( I used doughnut peaches as they are in season)
• zest of 1/2 lemon
• juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 shot of lemon vodka (optional)
• 2tbs sesame seeds, toasted

Apricot fraîche:

• 1/2 tub of vegan crème fraîche/ yogurt ( I used Oatly fraîche)
• 2tbs icing sugar, sifted
• 2 apricots, chopped finely
• 1tbs ground cardamom
• Zest of 1/2 lemon
• Squeeze of lemon juice

 

Start by making the fraîche. Add all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix throughly. You can either then place it in the fridge to firm or do as I did and use the freezer. It will start to create a slightly frozen texture, like a semi-freddo.

Whilst it’s in the fridge/freezer you can prep the peaches. Cut them in half and de-stone. This is usually a messy job, so I tried to keep it intact by poking the stone through the other side. once this is done, heat up a pan on a medium heat. Place the peach halves in the pan, flesh down. cook until they begin to colour. Flip and cook for a few minutes. Squeeze the lemon juice over them and sprinkle them with the lemon zest. Take them out of the pan and place them into the serving bowls. This in an optional step, but I like pouring a shot of lemon vodka on them too! Take the fraîche out and dollop it on top. Finish with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds. I’d recommend you pair it with a Tokaji wine.

Enjoy!

 

 

Food: Oatsicles

We may well have had our fill of sunshine for the year already, but on the off chance that there is more sunshine to come here’s a quick and easy recipe for a dairy free alternative ice lolly for keeping cool in the sun.

 

You’ll need:

• Lolly moulds,
• 1 carton of chocolate Oatly,
• 1 banana.

 

Chop the banana into slices and fill the lolly moulds. Don’t pack them in too tight, you need to leave enough space for the chocolate drink. Pour in the drink to the brim, stick the lids/handles in firmly and leave in the freezer for a good couple of hours or overnight if possible. One carton can easily make between 6 – 8 lollies, depending on the amount of banana you use and the size of your moulds. I used the small ones from Lidl. The creaminess of the chocolate drink combined with the fudginess of the banana are a fantastic (and cheap) alternative to the usual sugary lollies. This way you can control their sugar intake with natural ingredients!

It also works great with other flavours of Oatly like Orange & Mango, or for a grownup take on the above recipe, mix some coffee into the chocolate Oatly mixture for an iced mocha lolly!

 

Enjoy!