Just got back home a couple of kilos heavier after three days of Christmas celebrations with family. 

Swedish Christmas is mainly celebrated on ‘Julafton’, which is Christmas Eve the 24th of December. The day is usually started with some kind of Christmas breakfast. Then many people watch the 3 pm Disney’s Christmas or “Kalle” (from Kalle Anka, meaning Donald Duck). So did we, but this year we substituted the glögg (mulled wine) and gingerbread cookies with champagne and Skagen mix on Finnish rye crisps.

After ‘Kalle’ and exchanging Christmas gifts it’s time for the main event, which of course is the traditional Swedish julbord (literally Christmas table). The julbord is a buffet (smorgasbord) of various Swedish Christmas foods. We served gravlax salmon, meatballs, mini ‘prince’ sausages, cream sauce, creamed kale, red cabbage, Jansson’s temptation, pickled herring, potato salad as well as a couple of Finnish vegetable baked ‘casserolles’, since my family originally is Finnish. With this we had Christmas beer, red wine and a soft drink called julmust. For dessert a British Christmas cake as well as chocolates and Christmassy candy. On the 25th of December you basically do it all again with the leftovers.

Now it’s time to reload before the upcoming new years celebration and give heart and liver some time to recover.

Swedish Christmas recipes

If you need some Swedish Christmas recipes, visit my old Scandi recipe site Scandinaviafood.com.

God jul (Merry Christmas)!

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.

A good Swedish Midsummer is, in my mind, among the best things of the year. Usually it rains, and usually it’s a last minute option. But occassionally, there is this invite to one of your friend’s country houses for a proper traditional Swedish Midsummer bash with Midsummer’s pole, boozy herring lunch, childish games and partying till the sun goes back up at something like 3 a.m. This year was one of those rare pretty much perfect Swedish Midsummers. Pics below.

Midsummer party setting. No electricity, no heating and no running water. Lots of pretty little cabins, lots of beer, plenty of schnaps, sea access and a great sauna made up for any first world inconveniences though.

Pre-Midsummer dinner.

Picture perfect sauna.

Slightly crooked Midsummer’s pole which is what we circulate doing our pagan dances, such as the classic “tiny frogs”.

Traditional herring lunch with pickled herring, boiled new potatoes, Västerbottens cheese pie, egg halves, sour cream, chopped chives, salmon and crispbread.

Un-traditional but nevertheless delicious pavlova.

Sunset at 11 pm:ish.

Day two was spent on below jetty tanning/sweating out the Midsummer alcohol.

Sunset.

Got back from our trip to Monaco last week, and though I’d share what we had, and what you too could eat in Monaco.

Although we only visited for four days, we did a fair bit of eating.

Le Louis XV – Alain Ducasse à l’Hôtel de Paris

One of the “must dos” in Monaco if you are okay with spending €300-400 (minimum) on a dinner for two. I’ve wanted to go there for a long time, so we decided to splurge to, for the first time, visit a European three michelin starred restaurant.

Upon arriving, we were the first guests of the night, which was a little bit intimidating initially. Although staff were quite relaxed so we were too.

Prices are quite high as mentioned, but you do get quite a lot for your euros. We ordered five dishes in total – a shared starter (€45), two mains (approximately €100 each) and two desserts (€36 each). A bottle of red wine was €60 and a bottle of water €7. In addition to our five ordered dishes we received 9 various kinds of food items and dishes, each.

French fishes with Mediterranean herbs.

Stocafi, a Monegasque dish with salt-cured cod, fennel sausage, tomatoes and olives.

Milk-fed lamb, red leaves lettuce salad, tiny spelt and herb pesto.

Guinea fowl cooked in the fire place, green peas and morels.

Soft chocolate cake, cocoa/nib.

Coffee candy.

Rum baba, lightly whipped cream.

Apart from what is above we had two kinds of sorbet (green apple-rucola and yuzu), roasted almonds and homemade chocolates.

A fantastic experience both in terms of ambience, food and service.

Café de Paris

A Monaco classic, located just next to the casino and an exceptional place to people spot, watch the expensive cars (and their owners/renters). Because of this also sort of a tourist trap with steep prices, at least so I’ve heard. Fortunately it wasn’t all that bad and we had a really nice dinner at prices relatively close to a meal in for instance Stockholm.

Sirloin with fries and béarnaise sauce (that is much better than it looks) costed €31.

Steak tartare with fries, also €31.

Enjoyed with a bottle of wine and a shared dessert we paid slightly over €100 for two in probably the best location in one of the most expensive places in the world.

Amici Miei

Closer to our hotel, the Columbus we found Italian restaurant Amici Miei, meaning “my friend” as we learned from the friendly owner.

First up, delicious mussels.

Raviolis with truffle, porcini and ricotta in a creamy sauce. Really, really delicious.

Delicious grilled lamb with a few basic but well cooked condiments.

Again, prices were relatively high, although less so than Café de Paris. Two beers, a 50 cl bottle of local wine, a shared starter and two mains costed us around €100.

More food in Monaco

Honorable mentions goes to Le Comptoir at Place D’Armes were we had delicious sandwiches and coffee for breakfast. It is below the hill where the palace and the aquarium/Oceanographic Museum are located.

Mozzarella & ham sandwich at Le Comptoir.

Another recommendation is to visit Carrefour where you can buy snacks and drinks. They had bottles of Champagne (yes, actual) from €10.

Another quite nice place was Bilig Café which had decent food at decent prices. A crepe with lemon and sugar was €4 and a Salade Nicoise was €15.

Salade Nicoise and crepes at Bilig Café.

All in all, Monaco was a very nice destination for a four day getaway. The ultra luxury is mostly located around the casino, in the rest of the city/country you can find nice food and drink at relatively decent prices.

I have the somewhat odd but also quite fun hobby to try to visit all the countries in the world. Now it’s time for number 73, namely: Monaco!

Haven’t managed to get further than the Lufthansa Business Lounge in Frankfurt yet, but I’m working on it!

Looking forward to four days of nice views, lots of delicious food and possibly a glass of champagne or two.

I’m, like most people I reckon, a big burger lover, and hence from time to time I like to make my own burgers (or eat them at various places, but that’s another story). When I lived in Australia, I came across a really simple recipe for a burger sauce, or dressing as we call it in Sweden, that really elevated our homemade burger creations to the next level.

What you need:
2 dl (~ 1 cup) Good quality mayo (make your own or use store bought)
1 tablespoon of ketchup
1 tablespoon of mustard
1 tablespoon of minced/really finely chopped onion (shallots work well)
1 tablespoon of finely chopped gherkins (pickled cucumbers).

Mix all of the above, then let rest in the fridge for half an hour or so. Then put on your burgers, and enjoy. Works great as a dipping sauce for the fries too.

Sitting on the plane bound for Singapore at the moment and thinking back on the Boracay experiences from the last seven days. Boracay, as you may know, is an island in the South China Sea, mainly famous for its pretty beaches, more specifically “White Beach”.

Prana Restaurant
But if you know me, you know it won’t be just beach life. One has to eat too. On Boracay, we stayed at the Mandala Spa and Resort, situated among lush greenery on top of a hill overlooking the ocean. Since we arrived quite late we opted to have our first meal there, a miniature tuna dish and healthy Thai red curry with whole grain rice in the resort’s Prana restaurant.

Mandala Spa and Resort
Mandala Spa has a massive focus on health and relaxation. So much that we were upgraded to a “Digital Detox Villa” that lacked both wifi and a TV. Even worse, the mini bar was only stocked with things like dried mango, healthy nuts and organic wine. That is no wifi, no tv and no beer. I felt like I was part of the movie “Couples’ Retreat”. Fortunately things improved. The TV, i could not do much about, but we cheated on our digi detox-room with locally purchased sim cards. To be honest, the reliability was quite poor, but it worked better than no internet at all (to the resort’s defence there was free wifi in the lobby). We also bought local beer from the local super market, and abrakadabra, the only-organic-wine-issue was a thing of history as well.

In all seriousness, the Mandala Resort and Spa is probably one of the better places I’ve stayed in, and despite I can’t really live without internet, the villa, the surroundings an the staff was really great. The food’s a bit expensive though, and portions are a bit small. You do feel however, that there is some serious thought into the options, all I tried was quite delicious despite being made extra healthy. Especially their breakfast dishes were really delicious, although slightly pricy compared to other options on nearby White Beach.

The food of Boracay

Above: tuna main course, as well as quinoa pancakes with mango for breakfast at Prana, Mandala Spa and Resort.

If healthy holistic food is not what you’re after in Boracay there are several other options waiting for you. We did quite a lot of research before our trip and tried a lot of different places on Boracay and being an island, there aren’t any fantastic food experiences, but still very good food to be had. Below are my favourites.

       
Above: Choriburger, wonut and giant pancakes at Sunny Side Cafe.

Sunny Side Cafe
Our first day we had dinner at the Sunny Side Cafe. The Sunny Side Cafe has (at least) two sister restaurants on the island, Spicebird and Super Magic Burger, and is a modern hipsterish coffee shop meets restaurant. They are serving western-style breakfast dishes like French toast, pancakes, grilled sandwiches and really good coffee as well as twists on local favourites like the Chori-burger, a delicious spicy chorizo burger with a sweet and spicy tomato dressing, served in one of Sunny Side’s fluffy brioche buns. We actually went back several times to the SSC and enjoyed both their eggs benedict made with perfectly poached eggs on English muffins with hollandaise and thick cut bacon. I also tried their ginormous pancakes with cream cheese and mango. Sort of pricy for Boracay, but very good food and drinks. Not to miss is also their dessert “wonut”, which is a deep-fried waffle which we opted for having served with fresh mango, whipped cream and nutella. So unhealthy, so delicious.
Prices: $$$

Location: pretty close to station 3

Above: Pandan pancakes filled with “lechon” suckling pig, as well as stir-fried lechon at Mesa.

Mesa
Mesa is a sort of fancy Filipino restaurant chain that we saw both in Manila and on Boracay. One of the perks of eating at Mesa Boracay is that they have extended the restaurant (although many White Beach restaurants did this) on to the beach itself. So you sit on the beach itself enjoying dinner. From my experience this is something you usually have to pay extra for in certain resorts. So I found it very nice. Anyway, the food at Mesa is very nice and especially so is the crispy lechon. Lechon is basically a roasted suckling pig, a very popular dish in the Philippines. At Mesa, you order from 1/6 of a lechon (which the two of us did) up to an entire pig. The lechon is served two ways, sliced in pandan pancakes and then the remaining lechon is stir-fried in chili and garlic. Sort of like peking duck. Except for the pandan pancakes that were on the dry side, the both dishes were really delicious. The stir-fried suckling pig (note that they stir-fry the already crispy roasted pig) was really something. Best dish we had on Boracay, but also the most expensive at around 1 000 ++ Php.
Location: Close to station 2 at the Henan Resort (former Boracay Regency).
Prices $$$

Above: Pizza at Aria.

Aria
One night we did a short break in our Filipino eating experiences since we were both desperately craving pizza. We did a little research about the local pizza situation, and based on empirical evidence from a walk-by combined with written reviews we went for Aria restaurant. Aria is an Italian restaurant located adjacent to D’ Mall near Station 2, and I read good things about their truffle pasta, but it was pizza that was the focus of the night. We ordered a Greek pizza, with olives and feta, and a “Diavolo” with mozzarella and spicy salami. Pizza’s were surprisingly great and I really enjoyed mine. The dough was nearly perfect but the mozzarella cheese could have been better.
Prices $$$

Above: Smoke Resto, bulalo and crispy pata, at Smoke Resto.

Smoke Resto
When visiting Manila, one of our taxi drivers started chatting with us about Filipino food, and I asked him about his favorite dish. “Bulalo” he answered, and as it happened, Smoke Resto on Boracay had been awarded for the best bulalo in the entire Philippines. Smoke Resto is an authentic Filipino place situated in sort of an alleyway just off White Beach. We arrived quite early and was immediately seated at a table, however just a couple of minutes later the place was full and a line had formed. We ordered (of course) the bulalo, which is a soup with beef shanks and marrow bones that are cooked for a long time to make a really flavoursome broth as well as melt-in-your-mouth-tender meat. I can see why they won their award, a seriously tasty soup. We also tried “crispy pata” which basically was a deep-fried “schweinshaxe” or pork shank, and we also had their beef in dark soy and garlic sauce served with rice. All their dishes were quite simple in look and ingredients, but so tasty, as well as inexpensive. An added benefit was that the place felt really authentic, much more so than many places on the White Beach Strip.
$$

Above: Garlic fried chicken at Gerry’s Grill.

Gerry’s Grill
We visited Gerry’s Grill first in Manila and then again on Boracay when we learnt of its existence. Food was as good as in Manila and we tried their pancit noodles, their pork floss adobo, garlic fried chicken, water spinach and grillad pork skewers. Everything delicious, although not spectacular. Prices are very good though.
$$



Above: D’Talipapa market action as well as our prawns that was bought at the market and then cooked at Sababi Paluto restaurant.

D’ Talipapa and Sababi Paluto restaurant
The local wet market on Boracay is called D’ Talipapa and is located along the main road a few blocks from White Beach. We had a bit of a struggle to find it, but if you walk up to the main road along the street up from White Beach that passes a McDonald’s, you’re on the right way. When you reach the main road, turn right and just walk a couple of meters until you see signs to D’Talipapa. You can also reach it through the alleyways from White Beach strip. Can’t really give a good description for that though. Well, the experience then. We visited quite early in the day, and the market was quite relaxed. The idea is that you purchase fresh or still alive seafood or fish from the vendors, you need to haggle a bit. We did not reach that great of a deal, but we were happy with the small discount we got as it was a fun experience first and foremost. We bought a dozen of prawns and went to the nearby Sababi Paluto restaurant since they had the most customers. Paluto means that they cook the food you bring according to your instructions, and we got a small menu with prices for the different options available and opted to have our prawns sautéed in butter, garlic and a hint of chili. The food took a little while to arrive, and meanwhile we could enjoy watching the grill chef cooking others guest’s whole fish fillets, making us regret only buying prawns. The food arrived and was really delicious. Although the prawns were slightly expensive, having them cooked was not, so all in all it turned out to be one of our both best and most inexpensive meals of the week on Boracay. Very recommended both for the experience and the tasty food.
$

Above: Real Coffee Boracay’s chicken sandwich, coffee, juice and kalamansi muffin.

Real Coffee Boracay
They have dishes like grilled sandwiches but are famous for their kalamansi muffin which I found was the best of the things I tried. Coffee is also better at Sunny Side (above).
Location: just outside D’Mall with views over the beach from second floor.
$$

Above: Juice at Jonah’s fruit shake.

Jonah’s fruit shake
On main road, so a bit of treck through alleys if you’re going from White Beach as we did. Worth the walk though, ask a local if you can’t find it. Note: it seems like there was (or still is) a Jonah’s on White Beach itself, but we couldn’t find it. So we walked from about Gerry’s Grill towards the main road and managed to find it after asking a few locals. It’s not far, and the fruit juices and shakes are delicious.
$

Bolognese, preferably with spaghetti despite the above pappardelle, is probably my all time favourite dish. Read below for my go to recipe when it comes to the classic. If you want it healthier, remove the bacon and the finishing butter which however do add a lot of taste to the dish.

Recipe is for, roughly, four persons.

What you need
500 grams of minced beef
1 yellow onion
4 cloves of garlic
2 carrots
1 (relatively) small piece of celeriac
50 grams of pancetta/bacon (optional)
3-4 tbsp dried oregano
2 chicken stock cubes
20 cl red wine
1 tin canned tomatoes (I use Mutti finely chopped tomatoes)
butter
sugar (optional)

Serve with
Spaghetti or pappardelle (I use Martelli or De Cecco)
Parmesan cheese
Red wine (sort of optional)

How to cook
1. Peel and dice carrots and celeriac into small cubes, about peanut-sized. Also peel and finely slice garlic and onion.

2. Slice pancetta or bacon (optional) into thin strips. Fry until cooked through, but before it starts to crisp.

 3. If you haven’t used bacon/pancetta heat olive oil in a saucepan or a cast-iron pot. If you have, just add the vegetables to the already hot bacon pan and use its fat to fry. Start with the minced beef, and fry until it is starting to brown.

3a. If you are feeling ambitious set aside, and then fry all the diced and sliced vegetables in olive oil in a separate pan until soft, but not browned.

3b. If you are not feeling ambitious, just chuck the veggies into the beef pot and fry together with the minced beef until soft.

 4. If not already mixed, combine vegetables and fried minced beef into a saucepan. Add canned tomatoes (and some extra water if needed), red wine, stock cubes and oregano. Cover with a lid and let simmer on medium to low heat for at least an hour, but preferably three hours or more. Check and stirr once in a while. Add more water if it gets to dry/reduced. Add a pinch of sugar if needed (taste after 15 minutes or so of cooking).

5. When about 25 minutes remain of the bolognese cooking; add salt to and heat water for the pasta (it should taste almost like sea water). Cook the pasta al dente (check the package for directions if needed).

6. When pasta is almost done, turn off the heat on the bolognese sauce and add a knob of butter (optional but very tasty) as well as some additional oregano to it.

7. When pasta is done, strain it but reserve some of the cooking liquid. Then add spaghetti, bolognese sauce and two or three tablespoons of the cooking liquid (eg. the salt water) in a bowl and mix. You can also add pasta, some of the sauce and cooking water into the pasta pan and cook together on medium heat for about a minute to flavour the pasta with the sauce. It makes the dish much tastier, trust me.

8. Serve sprinkled with grated or shaved parmesan. A glass of red wine is (almost) mandatory with this if you are a wine drinker.