Coctail from kefir with roasted rye flakes

In Estonian

Nice cocktail from kefir, which is suitable for breakfast and also for dessert.

150 g  frozen blueberries
35 g roasted rye flakes
2 bottle Valio Gefilus bilberry kefir 300 g
3-4 pcs crushed ice cubes
2 tsp honey

Roast rye flakes in dry and hot pan, until these are a little brown. Let the roasted rye flakes to cool down completely before using.
Put all ingredients into blender and blend into even mix.
Pour into glasses and enjoy

Recipe is made in cooperation with Valio Eesti AS

Arancini - risotto balls

In Estonian

Italian cuisine is my favorite. In this time I tried to make Arancini balls/risotto balls. Amazing crispy crunch and a little spicy tomato sauce gives to risotto totally new dimension.

First you have to make risotto and let it cool down completely, so it would be possible to form balls from risotto. Balls are covered with flour, egg, breadcrumbs and fried in hot vegetable oil so the balls will get nice and gold brown crunch. For making sauce you need approximately 1 hour, then all the flavors will be strongly expressed and excessive liquid is evaporated

For making risotto you need:
60 g butter
1 onion (chopped into small pieces)
2 garlic cloves (chopped into small pieces)
220 g Arborio rice
125 ml white wine
500 ml hot chicken stock
50 g grated Valio Forte Speciale cheese
30 g parsley (chopped into small pieces)
100 g brown champignons (chopped into small pieces)
100 g cold smoked ham (chopped into small pieces)

Fry onion and garlic in butter, add rice and fry until the rice will become glassy. Add white wine and let it totally evaporate. Add 1/4 part of hot stock and braise risotto in low heat. Add stock in parts, after the previous stock part has almost evaporated. Stir occasionally and also after every time you add stock. Risotto is cooked, when it is almost soft (al dente). Finally add grated cheese to risotto. At the time of preparing the risotto fry ham and mushrooms. Add to risotto fried ham, fried mushrooms and chopped parsley. Let the risotto cool down completely.

For Arancini balls you need:
80 g Alma cheese from whole milk
100 g wheat flour
2 eggs slightly beaten
150 g breadcrumbs
vegetable oil

Cut from cheese 1x1 cm size cubes and roll cooled risotto into golf sized balls around a cube of cheese. Dip risotto balls in flour, egg and breadcrumb. Fry in vegetable oil at 180 C until golden brown.

For sauce you need:
olive oil
6 garlic gloves (chopped into small pieces)
ca 0,5 chili pod (add according your taste- how spicy food you like)
2 cans ( a 400 g) crushed tomatoes
4 tbsp sugar
0,5 tsp salt

Fry garlic and chili slightly in oil and add canned tomatoes. Braise at low heat approximately 1 hour and season with sugar and salt.
Serve hot Arancini balls with sauce. For decoration add grated cheese and chopped parsley.

Pot Stickers in chinese style

In Estonian

This is recipe for nice Pot Stickers. It will take more time for make these, but result is definitely worth it.
For filling I used pork minced meat, iceberg lettuce, ginger, soy sauce, garlic, rice vinegar and roasted sesame seed oil. This combination gives a nice and a little spicy taste. Altogether with thin and crispy pastry and dip sauce it makes a good and tasty bite.

Dough ingredients:
285 g wheat flour
150 ml hot boiling water
1 tsp salt

Mix flour with salt and add boiling water. Knead it into even dough. It takes about 5 minutes. Wrap ready dough into food film and let it stay (rest) for 20 minutes.
Filling ingredients:
250 g pork minced meat
150 g iceberg lettuce (cut into thin strips)
1 tbsp of sesame seed oil
1 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
4 cm piece of ginger (shredded)
4 garlic gloves (crushed)

Mix all filling ingredients.

Making of Pot Stickers
Roll dough thin as possible. I used pasta machine for this and made the dough as thin as possible. Cut from the rolled dough rings with diameter 6-7 cm. I used glass with sharp edges  for cutting.
Put in the middle of the ring ca 0,5 tsp of filling. Make the edges of rings wet with finger and fold the ring into half moon shape. Fold the edges of Pot Sticker so that you will get nice and small folds in the edges (like making skirt folds). Put Pot Sticker to the plate so that the  folded edges will be in the upper side, if needed arrange the Pot Sticker shape more even..

For frying Pot Stickers you need to heat vegetable oil in the pan and fry Pot stickers on high heat from one side for about 2 minutes or until these are nice and golden brown. Add a little hot boiling water to the pan and cover pan with lid. Lower the heat and let the Pot Stickers boil under the lid for about 3-4 minutes. Remove the lid and let the water evaporate completely.

Serve right away with dip sauce.

Dip sauce ingredients:
4 tbsp of soy sauce 
2 tbsp rice vinegar
0,5 chili pod
1 garlic glove
1 tsp vegetable oil
Mix all dips sauce ingredients.

Marshmallow cake with Alma quark cream

In Estonian 

Cake:
3 M size egg yolks
70 g sugar
120 g  Alma Eesti butter
90 g wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
a little salt

Mix flour, salt and baking powder. Whisk egg yolks with sugar until you get a strong foam and mix foam with melted butter. Mix together egg-butter mix with dry ingredients. Cover cake tin (diameter 20 cm) bottom with baking paper. Add dough to the cake tin.
Bake at 200 C about 20 minutes. Take cake out from oven and let it cool completely.

For immersing and covering the cake bottom:
50 ml Alma milk
100 g passion fruit preparation (you could use also raspberry preparation)

Cream
600 g  Alma raspberry-passion fruit quark cream
1 tsp gelatin
2 tbsp water

Dissolve gelatin in water and heat until the gelatin has completely melted. Let the gelatin mix cool a little. Add mix to the quark cream (quark cream should be in room temperature).

Cover cake tin (diameter 20 cm and with removable sides) bottom and sides with baking paper. 
Take cake bottom and put it to the cake tin. Immerse cake bottom with milk and spread passion fruit preparation over the cake bottom. Spread cream over the cake and put cake to refrigerator.
Keep the cake in refrigerator overnight.

Next day make the marshmallow.
For that you need:
3 pcs M size egg whites
225 g sugar
ca 1 tsp of citric acid
0,75 dl water

Heat the water and sugar mix until 118 C. At the same time whip the egg whites until you get strong foam. Add boiling syrup to egg whites and same time whipping the marshmallow mix. Add citric acid in parts and make so sour marshmallow as you like.
Whip marshmallow mix until it has almost cooled down.
Add marshmallow to the piping bag and decorate the cake. If you have small gas burner for food  then you can burn the marshmallow and give it a little brown  color.

Recipe is made in cooperation with Valio Eesti AS

Minced meat roll in crunchy puff pastry

This tasty minced meat dish, which is looking more festive than usual minced meat roll.
Well seasoned filling and crunchy puff pastry over the filling.
It is easy to prepare and worth for trying.

Minced meat sausage roll ingredients:
1 kg fatty pork minced meat
100 g bread crumbs (dry)
ca 1 tsp salt
100 g smoked ham with strong taste (cut into small pieces and fried)
1 tsp crushed black pepper
1 bunch chopped leaf parsley
3 tsp dried garlic granules

For puff pastry crunch:
3 egg yolks
300 g ready puff pastry
black and white sesame seeds

Mix all the minced meat roll ingredients and let it season for about 3 hours.
Form it into the sausage roll. Roll out the puff pastry and spread egg yolks over it. Place sausage roll into puff pastry and cover it with puff pastry, so the joints of the pastry will be under the sausage roll.

Cut the nice grid  to the top of the puff pastry and grease it with egg wash. Sprinkle with sesame seeds to make it looks nice.
Bake it 20 minutes at 210 C. Lower the oven temperature to 180 C and bake the roll more for 
minutes.

As a side dish you can make oven baked potatoes with garlic, hot red cabbage-chili salad and sour cream-horseradish-peppermint cold sauce.


Bon appetite!

Apple and marzipan flower bead

In Estonian

This bread is very easy.
Light yeast dough, apples, farine sugar and marzipan. The bread is not sweet and marzipan-apple filling has strong flavorful taste. 
It is easy to prepare this bread, it is tasty and looks very festive.

Ingredients:
25 g yeast
250 ml milk
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cardamom
ca 500 g wheat flour
100 ml vegetable oil
1 bigger apple
1 tbsp farine sugar
120 g marzipan
100 g butter

Mix yeast with sugar and add milk (in room temperature), salt and cardamom.
Add flour, oil and knead into dough. Dough should be soft. Let it raise for 1- 1,5 hour or until the dough is double size. 

Clean and chop the apple to 1x1 cm pieces. Mix apple pieces with farine sugar and let it stay until the dough is raising.

Roll the raised dough until the thickness about 1 cm and cut from dough rings with diameter 6-7 cm (you can use glass for cutting). Put into middle of each ring 1 apple piece and piece of marzipan. Lift the one edge from the ring to another edge and press the edges tightly for closing. Connect the corners. The ready piece should look like Chinese fortune cookie.
Put ready pieces (even edges next to the cake tin edge) to the cake tin (diameter ca 20 cm) starting from exterior edge. 
Fill the ring and start with new one until you fill all the tin. Add small butter pieces between the bread pieces. Let the ready bread raise for 30 minutes and bake in oven for 30 minutes at 200 C
Between baking take the bread out of oven and spread melted butter over the bread, this way you will get nice gold brown  crust to the bread. Make same when bread is baked and you take it out from the oven.
Let the bread cool down after baking and cover with powdered sugar.