A good hamburger

We had a great garden day, dug flower beds, cut down trees, built frames for the roses to climb on, put up the washline. Thanks, guys! And ate some great cheesebugers for lunch.

My local halal butcher has good chopped beef. Made the burgers on the barbecue, with just a bit of black pepper and oil. Salt and a slice af aged Irish cheddar, when they were turned over. On toasted rolls with tomato slices, fresh garden lettuce, thin slices of new onions. Ketchup for the boys. Really simple, with prima ingredients... really tasty!

dansk

Swapan's Friday's chicken curry

Swapan and his two colleagues live upstairs for 6 months while working on a software project for a big Danish financial company. On Fridays he makes a big pot of chicken curry, enough to eat then and a couple more times during the coming week. We've been talking about how he makes it, on Friday I was invited to dinner.

Swapan marinated
2 kg. - 4,5 lbs. - of boneless chicken
for about 15 minutes in

3-4 tbsp. chili powder
3-4 tbsp. ground turmeric
3 tbsp. ground coriander
2 tbsp. salt
2-3 tbsp. vegetable oil, mustard if possible.

While the chicken was marinating, he fried
2-3 large coarsely chopped onions and
1,5 tbsp. garlic paste
(1 green chopped chili goes in now if you like it hotter)

in a pot, that was big enough to fit the chicken. When the onions were golden, he fried
2 big potatoes, peeled and cut in big pieces
with the onions for a minute, then added the chicken and fried everything for a couple of minutes. When the chicken started giving off liquid, he added
3 glasses of water
and finished the curry in the pressure cooker, they've brought with them from Bombay. That took 10 minutes, in a pressure-less pot, it will take about 20. We ate it with rice and mango chutney. Mmm...
dansk

Piggy II

There's something about preparing a whole animal that makes me reverent...

dansk

Piggy I

The pig is dried inside and out and rubbed inside with a mixture of ground cumin, a little less ground coriander, even less ground fennel seed and some Maldon salt. And a pinch of cayenne pepper.Half of the spices are mixed to a paste with 30 - 40 grams of butter.
The pig is stuffed with a pilaf of rice and wild rice - with shallots, fennel, finely chopped ginger and garlic, salt, pepper and another pinch of cayenne pepper. The belly is lined with Thai basel and lemon grass before sewing the whole thing together.
After a rubdown with the spice paste, the pig is ready for the barbecue. A ball of tin foil keeps the mouth open while it cooks, so there's room for a (small) apple later on.

dansk

This little piggy

I had planned to serve a buffet of cakes and desserts for my birthday last weekend. While totally enjoying filling my cart with chocolate, double cream, mangoes, limes, and other necessary dessert ingredients, I happened to catch a glimpse of three beautiful, fresh piglets hanging in the butcher's department.

Raised in France, the piglets were sold at about 14 lbs., instead of the 45-pounders usually sold as suckling pig here in Denmark. Besides needing a fire and spit arrangement - and 7 or 8 hours - to cook it, the older pig has a completely different taste. That ruined the cake plan, I couldn't leave the shop pigless. Suckling pig for birthday dinner....

dansk