Mousse cakes with pumpkin and white chocolate

In Estonian


Nice and spicy pumpkin cakes suits well  to pumpkin season. 😊
From this amounts you will get 4 small cakes ( for preparation I used silicon tins, what is same size like ramekins tins) .

Ingredients:
300 g cleaned and copped pumpkin
1/3 tsp ground ginger
1/3 tsp ground cardamom
1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
vegetable oilMix all spices together. Put pumpkin, vegetable oil and spices to the baking tin and mix together. Roast in oven at 200 C about 30 minutes. Cool down and crush with hand blender into puree.

100 g white chocolate
150 g+50 g of whipping cream
1 tsp gelatin + 2 tbsp water for dissolving
a little salt
8 thin gingerbread biscuits

Put 100 g of white chocolate to 50 g  whipping cream and heat in low heat until chocolate is completely melted. Add to chocolate-cream gelatin mixed with water and heat until the gelatin is completely dissolved. Add pumpkin puree and a little salt. Let the mix cool until room temperature.
At the same time whip the leftover cream (150 g) and add it to the pumpkin-white chocolate mix. 
Fill the silicon tins with cream and press 2 thin gingerbread biscuits into cream. I used Marmiton gingerbread biscuits with orange pieces.

Let the cakes set in refrigerator. If you wish to cover the cakes with velvet cover (I used velvet cocoa butter spray), then you need freeze cakes before covering with velvet cover.

But the cakes tastes deliciously also without velvet cover. Take cakes out of refrigerator after setting and remove the tins (gingerbread biscuits will be in the bottom) and decorate according to your wishes.

Blue mussels in creamy white wine sauce

In Estonian

Very tasty dish, that suits very well to rainy evening. Seafood is always delicious.

Ingredients:
1 kg blue mussels
2 shallots
25 g celeriac
3 big garlic gloves
1 tsp chili flakes
15 g butter
vegetable oil
100 ml of white wine
200 ml of whipping cream
200 g processed cheese
salt, pepper, sugar
fresh dill

Clean and chop shallots, garlic and celeriac into small even pieces. Cook shallots, celeriac, garlic and chili flakes with butter and vegetable oil until shallots has become a little bit softer. Add white wine and let it boil until the alcohol has evaporated. Add whipping cream and let it boil some minutes.

Add processed cheese and boil in low heat until the cheese has melted. Spice with salt, pepper and sugar if needed. Add fresh chopped dill.

Finally add washed blue mussels and cook these in sauce ca 7 minutes. Cover pot with lid. All the mussels, what has not opened throw away and do not eat these.
Serve mussels with sauce and chopped dill.
Eat mussels with fresh sour dough bread, what has crispy crust and soft inside.

Eclairs with Alma Greek quark cream

In Estonian

From this amount you will get ca 16 eclairs

Eclairs:

85 g Alma Eesti butter

180 g water

0,5 tsp salt

110 g wheat flour

3 pcs. M size eggs

Put water, butter and salt to the pan and heat until boiling.

Take the pan from the heat and add flour. Mix dough until you get an even dough ball.

Put pan back to the heat for 3 minutes and mix the dough all time.

Let the dough cool a little and mix eggs one by one to the dough by hand blender.

Put ready dough to the piping bag and pipe to the baking tray (covered with the baking paper) about 7 cm long sticks.

Bake eclairs at 200 C for 20 minutes. Open the oven door for a second and let the moisture come out from the oven. Then reduce the oven temperature to 180 C and bake more ca 20 minutes. Eclairs should be light brown.

Let the eclairs cool down completely before filling with cream.

Cream

100 ml Alma whipping cream

350 g  Alma Greek quark cream lemon-biscuit

100 g  Valio Viola lactose free fresh cheese

35 g sugar

Whip cream with sugar and then add quark cream and cream cheese. Put cream to piping bag.

Cut eclairs in half and fill with cream.

Lemon glaze

200 g powdered sugar

4 tbsp lemon juice (more if needed, because glaze should be so liquid that it is possible to cover with it the eclairs)

yellow food colour

Sieve the powdered sugar into bowl and add lemon juice and colour. Mix glaze and put glaze to the piping bag. Decorate eclairs with glaze.

Keep eclairs in refrigerator overnight before serving.

Recipe is made in cooperation with Valio Eesti AS.

Pea soup with Moroccan spices

In Estonian

Pea soup, what is 😊almost usual. I added Moroccan spice mix to soup, what gives a little spicy and sweet taste nuance to Estonian pea soup.
There is coriander, fennel seeds, cumin, ginger, cinnamon, saffron and black pepper in Moroccan spice mix. 

Moroccan spice mix:
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin
0,5 tsp fennel seeds
0,5 tsp ground ginger
0,5 tsp ground cinnamon
0,5 tsp black pepper
a little saffron

Crush all ingredients in mortar. Put the mix into jar. For soup you need  3 tsp. The rest you can use in next cooking session.

Pea soup:
100 g barley corn
225 g whole, yellow, dried peas
ca 1 kg smoked pork ribs
ca 1,3 l water
2 big carrots
1 big onion
fresh chopped dill

Wash peas and barley corns. Soak these ca 1 hour in cold water.
I prepared the soup in Crock-pot (slow cooker), but it could be made easily also in oven pot.

Add to the pot pork ribs, peas, barley corns, water and boil these in low in low temperature ca 5 hours. In oven at 120 C and in Crock-pot in "low heat".

Grate the carrots, chop the onions and fry these until these are softer. Add 3 tsp Moroccan spice mix and heat with carrot-onion mix until the flavors will start to release from the spices.
When peas and barley corns are soft and meat will come easily away from the bones, then add carrot-onion mix. Spice soup with salt and sugar if needed. Add chopped dill and the soup is ready for serving.
It is highly recommended to serve soup with home baked barley flour bread 😊

Small cakes from Skyr

From this amount you will get 7 small cakes.

Ingredients for cake base:

85 g oat meal bisquits

30 g Alma Eesti butter

Filling ingredients:

1 egg

50 g sugar

300 g Alma  Alma skyr mango-passion fruit

30 g  Alma Eesti butter

a little salt

For decoration:

half of peach

3 spl passionfruit preparation with seeds

1 fig

2 tsp sugar

For making cake bottom  crush the biscuits and mix with melted butter.
Put mix to the paper muffin tins, what are placed to the muffin tin made from metal.
Press the biscuit base tightly to the bottom of muffin tins.
For preparation of filling mix egg, sugar, skyr, melted butter and salt. Divide mix between muffin tins. 
Bake cakes at 160 C about 20 minutes. Let the cakes cool down in oven until these are completely cooled. Put cooled cakes to the  freezer and keep these in freezer overnight.
In the next day remove the  muffin tins from paper and decorate the cakes with glazed fruits.
For making glazed fruits for decoration you need to heat the passion fruit preparation and add sugar to it. Add also chopped peaches and fig. Heat a little, but be careful, the fruits should not to be too soft. The fruits should be covered completely with the passion fruit sauce.

The recipe is made in cooperation with Valio Eesti AS

Slow cooked pork and chicken with Texas BBQ sauce served fried sweet potato strips

In Estonian

Making this dish will take more time than usually, but believe me the result is worth it. The dish is so flavorful and tasty. Cooking slow and in low temperature is making meat so juicy and mopping it with Texas BBQ sauce will add interesting sweet and sour taste nuance to the dish.

Rub for meat:
4 tbsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
1 tsp cayenne`i pepper
2 tsp smoke paprika
1 tsp garlic flakes
60 g farine sugar
30 g sugar

Crush all the ingredients in the mortar. Put the mix into the jar. You will use only part of this spice mix . Keep leftovers for next cooking times.


1,5 kg pork neck
6  chicken thighs
Rub 

Cover pork neck and chicken thighs with rub. Be sure that meat has covered well with rub and massage rub into the meat. Put meat pieces into the plastic bags (I used vacuum bags) and keep the meat in refrigerator at least for 24 hours. I kept 36 hours.

At the same time make the Texas BBQ sauce 
200 g ketchup
100 ml apple vinegar
100 g dark Muscovado sugar
1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tsp smoked paprika
100 ml orange juice
1 tsp garlic flakes
25 g butter
Put all ingredients to the pot and let the sauce boil 5 minutes. Put the sauce into jar and let the sauce cool down.
There is more sauce what you need in this time. You could also use the sauce for preparing other dishes. Keep the sauce in freezer.

If the meat has been in refrigerator at least for 24 hours, then take it out from the plastic bags and move to the baking tray. Cover meat with the aluminium foil. Bake meat in the oven in 140 C for 4-5 hours.
Remove foil and pour the meat juices, what has come out from the meat to the pot. Mop the meat with Texas BBQ sauce, so these will be nicely covered with sauce. Raise the oven temperature to  180 C and cook meat ca 20 minutes. Take meat out of the oven and mop again with Texas BBQ sauce. Bake more 20 minutes in 180 C.  
Take the meat out of oven and let it rest for 20 minutes. At the same time take the pot where is meat juices and reduce these to the sauce.
Serve meat with fried sweet potato strips and meat sauce.

Fried quark balls with blueberry kissell

In Estonian

Quark balls are made with a little flour and because of that the quark balls are nicely moist. The taste will add also added cardamom. The frying will give also nice and crispy texture to the quark balls.
Blueberry kissell will add sour and sweet taste nuance.

Ingredients for quark balls:
2 eggs
100 g sugar
0,5 tsp salt
600 g quark
0,5 tsp cardamom
50 g wheat flour

Mix egg with sugar. Then add salt and cardamom. Add quark, flour and mix to the even dough. Fry in hot oil at 190 C for about 5 minutes or until the quark balls are baked well.

Serve with blueberry kissell. I prepared the blueberry kissell from freezed blueberries.

Thai green curry

In Estonian

For this curry I got idea from BBC Good Food magazine. Unfortunately it is not possible to by all ingredients from our shops, so I had to replace some ingredients and I also added some ingredients.
Finally I got spicy and tasty dish. I recommend to try if you like spicy Asian style food.

Curry paste:
1 tsp coriander seeds
0,5 tsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp shrimp paste
3 garlic gloves, chopped
3 shallots, peeled and chopped
1,5 pcs cayenne pepper chopped (you can put more or less, depend how spicy food you like)
2 cm piece of peeled and chopped ginger
1 tsp grounded curcuma powder

Heat a dry frying pan and add the coriander and cumin seeds. Heat until they begin to colour and release their aroma.  Grind the seeds using the pestle and mortar.
Wrap the shrimp paste into foil and heat at the same pan for 2 minutes from the both sides.
Pound the garlic, shallots, cayenne and ginger using a pestle and mortar.
Finally add shrimp paste and grounded curcuma powder and pound to a smooth paste.
Divide curry paste int two parts and keep the second part in the refridgerator for the next batch of curry.

Curry
2 x 400 g cans of coconut milk
1 tbsp farine sugar
6 pcs of boneless and skinless chicken thighs
4 kaffir lime leaves
2 tbsp fish sauce
300 g deep freezed beans and carrots  (defrost before using)
1 lime juice
1 tbsp sugar
Parsley for garnish

Carefully remove the thick part from coconut milk cans and spoon it to a warm frying pan. Let it boil some minutes. Add farine sugar and curry paste. Cook it about 10 minutes or  until you get a smooth paste and the oil starts separate.
Add chicken  and stir well to coat chicken with the paste.
Pour in the rest of the coconut milk and add the kaffir lime leaves.
Boil until the chicken thighs are soft and the sauce is reduced. Add vegetables and season the curry with lime juice and sugar, add fish sauce and salt if needed.
Boil some more minutes and curry is ready for eating.
For serving add chopped parsley and serve curry with jasmine rice.