If I were to spend the rest of my life on an island, eating only one dish of my choice, it would almost certainly be a classic spaghetti bolognese. Most people are very aware of this Italian classic (although they call it ragu) and there are probably almost as many versions of this dish as there are people cooking it each day. Anyway, this is my version of spaghetti bolognese.

If I cook a bolognese or “spaghetti och köttfärssås” as we say in Sweden, during the week I usually skip both bacon, red wine and finishing butter. So feel free to do the same if you want the dish healthier or for instance without pork. This is a dish that’s almost required to be accompanied by a glass of red wine while you cook and then eat it. But only almost.

What you need (for roughly four persons)
500 grams of minced beef
1/2 package of bacon (or pancetta if you feel fancy)
2 carrots
1/2 small head of celeriac
1 onion
4 cloves of garlic
1 can of finely crushed tinned tomatoes (I usually use Mutti brand)
2 cubes of chicken stock (or substitute with your own)
3 tablespoons of dried oregano
2 teaspoons of tomato paste
Spaghetti (I usually use De Cecco or Martelli – but eg. Barilla is fine too)
Parmesan cheese
Olive oil for frying
Red wine, about a large glass

Salt
Sugar

How to cook it

1. Start with the chopping. Peel and finely slice garlic and onion. Also peel and dice the carrots and celeriac into small cubes, about the size of a pea. Slice bacon or pancetta into quite thin slices.

2. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan. Add the bacon/pancetta and let fry until browned, but not crisp. Add the beef mince to the bacon and let fry until it begins to brown as well.

3. When beef has cooked, using a different pan if possible (otherwise just add into beef pan) fry the garlic, onion, celeriac and carrots until soft.

4. If not in the same pan already, pour the fried veggies into the beef and bacon pan and add red wine, tomatoes, oregano, stock cubes and a pinch of sugar. Cover with a lid, add low heat and let simmer for 2-8 hours, occasionally stirring and adding water/wine as the sauce reduces.

5. About 15 minutes before the sauce is ready, boil the pasta in plenty of salted water. Remember to keep some of the cooking water  before draining the pasta as it is needed to finish the dish.

6. When pasta is cooked, set aside some cooking water and add a knob of butter into the meat sauce. I usually also add some extra oregano as this stage, about a teaspoon or two.

7. Add spaghetti and about half of the meat sauce into a pan together with about a deciliter of the cooking liquied. Stirr over heat until the water has reduced and the spaghetti is covered with meat sauce.

8. Serve spaghetti, with extra meat sauce on top. Of course a generous serving of Parmesan cheese is also required. A glass of red, a tasty bread and a simple salad dressed with balsamic vinegar and good quality olive oil is almost mandatory.

Enjoy my favourite dish!

The other day it was Monday again. Monday usually means vegetarian for me. It all started with the ‘meatless Monday’ concept a couple of years back, and then I kind of got use to eat only vegetarian (all rules with exceptions though) on Mondays. This week I felt like curry, Indian curry, and thought roasted cauliflower should work well with it. It did…

What you need
1 head of cauliflower
2 cloves of garlic
1 red onion
2-3 fresh finely chopped tomatoes or a can of tinned tomatoes
3 tablespoons of cream (or substitute with yoghurt)
1 red chilli
1-2 tablespoon each of garam masala, cumin and turmeric
Neutral cooking oil for frying (or Indian clarified butter – ghee, if you’re very ambitious)

Serve with
Fresh coriander/cilantro
Basmati rice

How to cook it

1. Start with the cauliflower. Cut it down to bite-size florets. Then slice the red onion into “half moons” and finely chop the garlic and red chilli.

2. Heat the oil in a cooking pan (I actually used a wok to get it all to fit). When the oil is quite hot, add the cauliflower florets and fry them until the are starting to brown. When that happens, reduce the heat a bit and sprinkle over half of the garam masala, turmeric and cumin.

3. Continue woking the cauliflower until the spices are starting to toast and the florets almost look charred. Then remove the cauliflower from the heat and puts in a bowl or similar, cause you’re continuing using the pan/wok.

4. Add some extra oil if needed and fry the red onion on quite low heat until it starts to brown. Then add garlic and chilli and let fry until soft, but not browned. Add the remaining garam masala, turmeric and cumin and let toast for a minute or so before you quite quickly (so it doesn’t burn) move on to next step.

5. Add the tomatoes to the onion, chilli, garlic and spices. Stirr and add some water if needed. Let simmer on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Season with salt and possibly some sugar depending on how tart the tomatoes are.

6. Add cream or yoghurt to the curry, continue to simmer for a few minutes. Meanwhile, roughly chop a bunch of fresh coriander and then add that, and the now cooled roasted cauliflower florets to the curry. Let simmer for a minute more or so. Taste, and if all’s well – serve with steamed rice, and a knob of butter, if you feel that you deserve it.

Above: non-traditional crayfish party spread with the addition of moules frites and garlic bread.

August in Sweden means (hopefully) dark but warm summer evenings, usually the first chanterelles (at least for me), and first and foremost: kräftor, meaning crayfish.

The crayfish season is mainly in August with a couple of jumpstarters in July and then a late season continuing into September. What happens in August is the kräftskiva which pretty much is a crayfish party. You eat crayfish, a few condiments and sidedishes. You also drink beer, schnaps, sing songs and, at least according to tradition, you wear silly pointy hats.

Being slightly allergic to shellfish I usually focus on a couple of crayfish tails as well as on the sidedishes. My favourite is the Västerbottens cheese pie, a high calorie delight comprising of aged cheese from Västerbotten in Northern Sweden not surprisingly called “Västerbottens cheese”. The pie also include onions, dough and eggs. Here is a recipe I wrote a couple of years ago.

Apart from pie you usually also find bread, I usuallt serve good quality baguettes. There should also be butter, more aged cheese (go for the Västerbottens cheese if available) and perhaps some kind of sauce. We usually make lemon mayo which goes well with the crayfish meat.

Kräftskiva is definitely one of my favourite Swedish festivities. So if you find yourself in Sweden in August, try to join one. Skål!

The other day I was craving beef rendang, an Indonesian dish I sampled while at Bintan Island a couple of years ago. We thought that we should try to combine the yumminess of pulled chicken with the flavours of rendang and ended up with the above. Not so rendangy as I’d hoped, so let’s call is spicy coconut pulled chicken instead.

What you need (serves 3-4)
500 grams of chicken thighs
2 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1 stalk of lemongrass
4-5 kaffir lime leaves
ground cloves
ground cinnamon
ground cardamom
1 chilli
1 can of coconut milk
Water
Jasmin rice
Cooking oil

How to cook it

1. Start by frying the chicken thighs until browned, set aside. Slice shallots and garlic. Pound and cut the lemongrass in a couple of chunks, keep count on the number though as you’ll discard them in the end.

2. Fry garlic and shallots in the same pot as the chicken. When softened, add all of the spices and let fry on medium heat for a minute or so. Add the chicken and water so it covers the ingredients and let simmer in a stewing pot for about an hour.

3. Check the chicken, if its soft enough to be pulled, remove it from the pot, but don’t throw out the juices as the chicken’s soon going back in.

4. Pull the chicken by using two forks. It should have a stringy texture.

5. When chicken is pulled, remove any bits of cartilage, sinews or similar you don’t want to chew on, and put back in the cooking liquid in the pot.

6. Add coconut milk to the pulled chicken and reduce until almost dry. You’re done.

7. Serve, preferably with steamed jasmin rice.

We were most fortunate to have saved up on our Eurobonus (Scandinavian Airline’s frequent flier programme) miles last year, and using them we booked a trip that was really, really something. The trip started in Stockholm and continued on to Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Bangkok and finally Manila, Philippines, where our first stop was. We then returned home by flying from Singapore to Bangkok, Paris and finally Stockholm. Without further elaboration (if you want to find out how to do it, read up on Flyertalk.com, Businessclass.co.uk or Swedish version Businessclass.se) below are the pics and some comments from the flight. Read here about the actual trip to Manila, Boracay and Singapore.

Early morning in Copenhagen, waiting to board Lufthansa’s flight to Frankfurt.

Tasty breakfast in Lufthansa’s business class.

Fast forward to Frankfurt airport and a glass of champagne in the Lufthansa Senator lounge.

Hello spaceship seat. Thai’s A380 first class offer large seats that are converted into a bed when it’s time to pass out after the free-flowing Dom Perignon 2004.

Decent leg room.

Small lounge area for first class passengers. No one really used it except for us.

This friendly guy was head of cabin on both Frankfurt-Bangkok and then Bangkok-Paris on our trip back.

Starters. Cheese and crayfish mini sandwiches. Crayfish were good, bread a bit soggy.

The traditional caviar serving. Very delicious.

Without a doubt is this the best thing I’ve ever had on a plane. Lobster with linguine pasta and cream. The lobster wasn’t even remotely dry, which really surprised me. Washed down with Dom Perignon it was spectacular.

Dessert.

Bed’s made, time to pass out.

After a quick change of planes in Bangkok, we boarded Thai Airways’ Boeing 777 in business class.

Book-the-cook meal of pad krapow gai wasn’t that exciting.

Manila, big city.

After two and half week in Asia it was time to fly back. First up was Singapore Airlines in business class.

Seats.

Singapore Airlines intra Asia business class cabin on Boeing 777-200.

Champagne (the very delicious Charles Heidsieck), water and a Singapore Sling.

Book the cook lobster thermidor.

Decent views.

Thai Airways’ royal first class lounge in Bangkok.

First class passengers have access to a complimentary 1 hour massage at Bangkok Airport. Opted for a one hour foot massage that was great.

The first class lounge have an a la carte restaurant that serves a decent club sandwich, among others.

Cheese platter on the Thai First leg to Paris. In general this flight was less good than the one from Frankfurt to Bangkok. No idea why, but food was mediocre and service not as good.

Coffee and dessert.

Went for the eggs benedict for breakfast. A quite hideous experience with eggs so hard boiled/poached that the yolks were crumbly. The hollandaise was some kind of sauce base with artificial lemon flavour, the bacon were fatty and oily, I guess the English muffin was edible. Barely though. I should’ve understood this though, eggs benedict are easy enough to mess up as it is.

All in all though, it was a fantastic experience and I’m hoping to do this as soon as I’ve saved up on the miles again. Won’t be anytime soon though I’m afraid.

Last year I visited Thailand, and for the first time I tried the dish larb, something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time. Larb is a salad common in Northern Thailand as well as in Laos. It contains ground toasted rice and herbs and can be made with several proteins. Some use raw beef, some use pork mince, I had it with guinea fowl in a spectacular version at Nahm in Bangkok, and you could also, like me, use chicken for this fresh tasting flavour explosion of a dish. A salad in my taste.

What you need
Minced chicken/chicken chopped finely
Fresh mint leaves
Fresh coriander/cilantro
1 Green chilli (or use chilli flakes – or like I did, both)
3 stalks of spring onion (the green stuff)
2 shallots
3 deciliter of jasmine rice (get Thai long grain if possible)

For Thai salad dressing
2 limes
2-3 tablespoons of Thai fish sauce
1-2 teaspoons of caster sugar

How to cook it
1. Start with the salad dressing. Roll the whole limes for a bit against the table, this will make it easier to squeeze out the juice. Then cut limes in half and press the juice into a bowl. Add fish sauce and caster sugar. Stirr with a spoon until the sugar has dissolved.

2. Time to toast the rice. Toast a deciliter of rice in a dry pan until it’s is quite brown but not burnt. When it smells toasty it’s probably about done. Ground the rice in a blender or by using a mortal and pestle.

3. Continue with the chicken. Fry the mince or the chopped chicken until done. Set aside.

4. Roughly chop mint leaves, coriander and spring onion stalks. Finely slice the green chilli if you’re using one. Then mix everything together and pour over the dressing. Let rest for a while and then served together with steamed rice and possibly a cold beer.

August is here, meaning autumn in Sweden is approaching. Fortunately, being in the final month of summer isn’t all sad, as we are able to sample autumn delicacies such as chanterelles. Today we had this delicious little mushroom in a soup and on a sandwich.

The soup is actually a mushroom soup topped with fried chanterelles since we were too cheap to buy only chanterelles (the price is approximately $30 a kilo). Anyway, here is the recipe. Serves about two persons.

What you need
About 500 grams of button mushrooms
1 onion
1 garlic clove
about 5 cls of Whiskey (or white wine, or just leave it out)
3 stock cubes, I used chicken
100 grams of Celeriac
Olive oil for frying
1 deciliter of cream
Tomato pure
Thyme
Salt
Blackpepper

How to do it
This soup is supposed to be mixed, so no need to fancy it up with nice little cubes or similar. Just peel everything and then roughly chop it.

1. As mentioned above, peel and roughly slice mushrooms, the onion, garlic and celeriac. Fry the vegetables until browned. Add the thyme, salt and pepper and stirr well.

2. Add tomato pure to an empty spot in the pan and let it roast for a little while (maybe 30 secs). Then add the whiskey/wine and use it to de-glaze the pan, eg. get all the burnt stuff in the bottom to let go. Stirr everything well once more.

3. Add water and stock cubes until it covers the vegetables. Then let simmer for about 30 minutes before you add the cream. Let reduce for a couple of minutes. Taste, and season if needed. Then remove from the heat.

4. Mix the soup in a blender or with a hand blender. Serve topped with butter-fried chanterelles, finely chopped parsley and a few drips of olive oil.

The above chanterelle toast is great as a side with the soup. It’s made with more butter-fried chanterelles on top of a grilled slice of sourdough bread.

One of my favourite breakfast dishes is the, at the moment (and for some time) quite trendy, ‘smashed avo’ sandwich.

In this weekend’s version I used fried chorizo “crumble” to add some fatty, spicy and meaty crunch to the dish.

What you need (for 2 persons)

1 fresh chorizo (remove the casings)

2 eggs

about 100 grams feta cheese

2 quite thick slices of good quality sourdough bread

1 avocado per person

Fresh Coriander/cilantro

Blackpepper

Salt

How to make it

Fry the de-cased chorizo in olive oil and use a wooden spoon to divide the sausage into small pieces like minced meat for the chorizo crumble. When it’s crisp, turn off the heat and set aside.

Use a griddle pan or an actual bbq to char the sourdough bread. It should have nice char marks but not be too crisp, so a minute or so per side depending on the heat should do the trick. Of course you could just toast the bread as well.

Poach the eggs by adding cracked eggs to just boiling water (with salt and vinegar in the cooking water). Let boil for a minute and a half, then pick them up with a slotted spoon or similar. Set aside while making the final preparations.

Take the pit out of the avocado and mash the flesh together with a little bit of salt. Put the mix on the grilled bread. Crumble feta cheese on top of the avocado and finally a poached egg. Top with the chorizo crumble, coriander and chives.

Serve with a cup of coffee, a bloody mary, or why not a glass of bubbly – it’s still weekend after all!

Had a very nice weekend, especially eating wise, last week. Thought I’d share some pics from it.

Slow cooked Sunday Bolognese, probably my all time favourite dish. Made extra tasty with spaghetti from Italian company Martelli (found at Urban Deli if you’re in Sweden).

I had a slice of Nutella and strawberry pizza when we visited Brazil in January and I’ve been wanting to try to make it ever since. Basically bake a pizza crust without anything on it, when done smear on Nutella, and then add strawberries, whipped cream and icing sugar when it has cooled. So good.

A homemade pizza with shrimps, bacon, feta cheese, buffalo mozzarella and chilli flakes. We actually had this one from Dominos while living in Australia. Great combo of flavours. Washed down with rosé.

Probably the best burger I’ve ever made. Fresh ground chuck roll, cheese, my favourite burger dressing, brioche buns (from Garant if in Sweden), pickles, tomatoes and onion rings. So fatty the grill went crazy but turned out to be incredibly juicy and delicious. Served with kimchi slaw (kimchi mixed with mayo), fries and smoky Brazin Zinfandel.