Tag Archives: Simple Dishes

Spicy Lemon Paprika Chicken Thighs

18 Jan

These oven-baked chicken thighs are juicy, delicious, and easy-to-make — they are great during the work week, when you want to make a relatively simple dinner at home with a lot of flavor, and also yield plenty of leftovers for lunch the next day.

SPICY LEMON PAPRIKA CHICKEN THIGHS

  • 2 lbs. organic chicken thighs, skin on
  • 2 tbsp paprika
  • 1 tbsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsps cayenne power
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground pepper
  • Zest and juice of one lemon
  • ¼ cup organic olive oil

In a bowl, mix paprika, garlic powder, cayenne powder, salt and pepper.  Stir in lemon zest, lemon juice, and olive oil, to create the marinade.  Check the taste and adjust the seasoning as necessary (you may want more spiciness here, for instance).

Add the chicken thighs and toss.  If you have the time, let the thighs marinade for a couple of hours –in full-disclosure, I often make this recipe when I don’t have time to marinate the thighs for much longer than 15 minutes, and the chicken still tastes delicious.

Preheat the oven to 215C (about 419F).  Lay out the chicken thighs in a roasting pan and roast for about 30 minutes, until cooked through.

Turn on the broiler and broil until the skin is lightly crisp, 2 to 3 minutes.  Take the roasting pan out of the oven, transfer the thighs onto a platter and let them rest for about 5 minutes before serving.

These chicken thighs are great the next day, even cold!

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Cauliflower Soup w/Crispy Garlic Chips+White Truffle Oil

5 Jan

As the starter to our Christmas Eve dinner, I made a cauliflower soup garnished with crispy garlic chips and a drizzle of white truffle oil.  This soup is very simple, light, and flavorful — and contains no dairy!  It’s an elegant, delicious soup to serve at a dinner party.

For the dinner, I doubled the recipe, as I wanted to make sure we had plenty of soup for seconds.  Turned out it was more than enough, despite everyone having seconds.  But the soup also keeps pretty well and is great the next day — and who doesn’t love leftovers over the holidays?!

CAULIFLOWER SOUP (serves about 8 as a starter, 4 as a main course)

**Please note that I doubled the recipe for the Christmas Eve party, and so the photos show more amount of ingredients than listed.

  • One head of cauliflower
  • 2 large white onions, chopped
  • 6 cloves of garlic, chopped
  • Water (enough to cover the cauliflower)

For Crispy Garlic

  • 6 garlic cloves, sliced length-ways
  • Olive oil for pan-frying

The soup itself is very simple.  First, break down the cauliflower into small pieces.

Also, chop the onions and garlic.

Heat olive olive (about 1 tablespoon) in a large pot on medium-high heat.  When the oil is hot, add the onions and garlic.  Turn down the heat to medium.  Salt generously, and saute the onions and garlic, make sure to keep stirring to make sure that they don’t burn at all (**important to make sure the soup retains a nice, creamy white cauliflower color).

When the onions are tender, add the chopped cauliflower.  Stir, then add water until cauliflower is just covered.

Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to low and cover.  Cook until the cauliflower is extremely tender (easily breaking if you stick a fork through it), about 25 minutes.

Take off the heat.  With an immersion blender, puree the cauliflower until smooth and silky.  Taste, and adjust the salt as needed.

For the garlic chips:

Heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a pan.  When hot, turn down the heat to medium-high and fry the sliced garlic, turning frequently with a heat resistant spatula (or whatever with which you feel comfortable).

When golden, take the garlic chips out and lay them out on a paper towel over a plate.  Sprinkle with some sea salt.

To serve: drizzle some white truffle oil over the soup, and garnish with the crispy garlic chips.

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Simple Veg: Spicy Cumin Cauliflower

11 Dec

Here’s an easy variation on the roasted cauliflower (I’d previously posted a recipe for roasted cauliflower with capers) using ground cumin and some cayenne pepper.  I love the aroma of cumin, and the cayenne pepper gives the roasted cauliflower a nice kick — I think this cauliflower dish goes well with simple meat dishes, such as steak or pork chops.

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Break down the cauliflower into about 1 in. florets and put them in a bowl.  Add sliced garlic (about 3 cloves), add a tablespoon of ground cumin, and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper (or about 1/2 tsp if the cauliflower is small — you can vary depending on your spiciness tolerance); season with salt and pepper.  Drizzle with some olive oil and mix well.  Lay out the cauliflower in a baking dish and roast for about 25 minutes, or until tender.  Move the cauliflower around occasionally so that they brown evenly.

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Simple Dishes: Roast Pork Tenderloin w/Garlic-Ginger Rub

3 Dec

Grocery shopping can lead to impulse purchases.  If something looks fresh and beautiful, I find it hard not to want to take it home to cook it, even if I don’t exactly know what to do with it at the time of purchase.  Pork tenderloin was one such purchase.  I’d never cooked pork tenderloin before, but the butcher in Saluhall had fantastic-looking pork tenderloin and I couldn’t resist.  After work, at home, I Googled various pork tenderloin cooking methods.  Many recipes call for 3 hours or overnight marination — I didn’t have the time, since the pork was meant for dinner that night.  So I decided to just rub some spices I had at home and roast it.  Although I’m sure marinating the tenderloin overnight will infuse it with flavor and tenderize the meat, I think this simple spice rub worked quite nicely.

SPICY ROAST PORK TENDERLOIN WITH GARLIC-GINGER RUB

  • 3 tsp garlic powder
  • 3 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 tsp cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • Salt
  • 1 1/4 pounds pork tenderloin
  • Olive oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced

Preheat the oven to 450F.

In a small bowl, mixed garlic powder, ground ginger, cayenne pepper, and salt.  Stir well with a fork to combine — this will be the rub.  With dry hands, sprinkle the tenderloin with the rub, making sure to cover the entire tenderloin.  Gently pat the rub to ensure that that the seasoning adheres to the tenderloin.

In a large skillet or pan over medium-high heat, add olive oil (about 1 tablespoon).  Add the minced garlic and saute, stirring, for about 1 minute.  Put tenderloin in the pan and cook for about 10 minutes, searing each side and turning the meat.

Transfer meat to a roasting pan and bake for 20 minutes.

Rest for 5 minutes.  Slice and serve!

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Simple Veg: Roasted Cauliflower with Capers

30 Nov

Roasted cauliflower is one of our favorite vegetable accompaniments to many meals.  I like to roast cauliflower with thinly sliced garlic and a drizzle of olive oil, seasoned with salt and pepper. Recently, I add about a tablespoon of capers after the cauliflower comes out of the oven — the capers add a nice salty and slightly tangy flavor.

For the cauliflower, preheat the oven to 375F.  Break down the cauliflower into about 1 in. florets and put them in a bowl.  Add sliced garlic (about 3 cloves), season with salt and pepper.  Drizzle with some olive oil and mix well.  Lay out the cauliflower in a baking dish and roast for about 25 minutes, or until tender.  I like to move the cauliflower around occasionally so that they brown evenly.

When the cauliflower is cooked, take the baking dish out of the oven.  Rinse about a tablespoon of capers and add to the cauliflower — I like the small type of capers (non-pereil), jarred in water.  Gently mix in the capers.

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Mustard-coated Oven-roasted Salmon

10 Nov

Good quality filets of salmon are very well priced and accessible here in Stockholm.  We picked up a big piece of salmon the other night from our local supermarket for dinner.

One of my favorite, simple ways of cooking a big piece of salmon is by oven-roasting it in a mustard, garlic and lemon coating.

For the mustard mixture, finely mince a red onion (small) and 3 garlic cloves, and put them in a small bowl.  Add about 1.5 tablespoons of Dijon mustard and also about 1.5 tablespoons of whole grain mustard; add about a tsp of salt, and mix.  I originally made this recipe without the red onions, but I thought it might add some flavor/crunch, and it seemed kind of Swedish-inspired (?).

Next, zest the rind of a 1/2 lemon into the mustard mixture, then add the juice of 1/2 lemon.  Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and mix.

The consistency of the mustard mixture should be on the thick side, so that it sticks to the salmon.  If it seems too wet, you could add more mustard.  It’s good to taste it and adjust the seasoning.  Put the salmon, skin-side down, in a roasting pan or dish.  Coat the salmon with the mustard mixture.  Cover with cling wrap and let the salmon marinate in the fridge for about 15-20 minutes.  While you have the salmon in the fridge, preheat the oven.

Our oven in Stockholm is tiny and not particularly powerful, so I set ours to broil.  At home in Brooklyn, I generally preheat the oven at 500 F.  After letting the salmon marinate for about 15-20 minutes (as above), take it out of the fridge, take off the cover, and put the dish in the oven.  Roast for about 15 minutes to medium rare, a little longer for medium.

Rest the salmon for a few minutes before serving.  For a simple side-dish, I pan-fried some asparagus with garlic.  The salmon is great cold, too!  (Makes for good leftovers the next day, should there be any left!)

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A local butcher + cooking perfectly medium-rare steaks

8 Nov

After some internet investigation, I found a great butcher in Kungsholmen called Taylors and Jones.  Founded by an Irish butcher and a Welsh chef, Taylors and Jones provide “quality meats, sausages, cheeses and other specialties from the British Isles,” and use “only quality Swedish meat in [their] sausages and offer English butcher style cuts in [their] meat counters.”  People seem to have great things to say about them, and, as the butcher is only about a 20 minute walk from our apartment, we had to check it out.

Taylors and Jones is not big.  It has the feel of a neighborhood butcher, and sells fantastic dry-aged beef, various cuts of pork, and a wide array of homemade sausages, alongside some British imported cheeses, groceries and snacks.  Everyone is very friendly there, and helpful with questions.  We bought 2 steaks of dry-aged bone-less rib-eye, as well as 2 pork chops and a few selections of sausages.

High-quality cuts of beef — especially dry-aged — are not for everyday consumption, since they are on the expensive side.  For 2 steaks, we paid 340SEK, or about $46US — definitely a more “special” occasion home-meal.  But when you consider cooking at home versus dining out, and how expensive it is to eat out in general in Stockholm, eating gorgeous steaks at home seems like a fabulous and preferred option.  A main dish at restaurants generally hover around the 220SEK mark or more — and that’s for one person!  From this perspective, cooking a fantastic steak dinner at home seems quite sensible.  What you don’t want to do is overcook these steaks at home.

Before cooking the steaks, it’s important to bring them back to room temperature.  I generally take the steaks out of the fridge, put them on a plate, and let them sit for about 30 minutes.  Then, I salt and pepper both sides of the steaks, and leave them for about another 15 or 20 minutes (out of the fridge).  Bringing the meat back to room temperature helps to cook the meat evenly.

For a steak of about  1-1.5 inch thickness, my magic timing for a medium-rare steak is about 3 minutes on each side, and then resting the steaks for 5 minutes.  It’s better to under-cook the steaks and have to cook some more, than to over-cook them.  If the steak is bone-in, then the cooking time could be longer (from my experience, usually by about 1 more minute on each side).  Cooking time will vary between stoves/burners.  The electric burner in our Stockholm apartment definitely has spots that seem hotter than others, which I’m still in the process of figuring out.  In the mean time, I rotate the pan halfway during cooking to try to even out the hotspot exposure.

Heat a skillet with some olive oil.  Get your timer ready.  When the skillet is nice and hot, put the steaks on the pan, and start the clock.  At 3 minutes (or more if the steak is thicker, or you want it better done than medium rare), turn over the steaks.

After cooking the other side for 3 minutes (total of 6 minutes cooking time), take the steaks off the pan and put them aside on a plate to rest.  Rest the meat for 5 minutes.

Perfectly medium-rare!  I like to eat good quality steaks very simply, without any sauces.  On this occasion, I roasted some cauliflower for a side vegetable, and we had some leftover eggplant and zucchini ratatouille I’d made the night before.

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Simple Eats: “Mediterranean”-style Chili

6 Nov

ICA has a line of i (heart) eco products

The hardest part about grocery shopping in a foreign country, where you don’t speak the language, is understanding what it is that you are buying.   Organic items are usually easy to spot — Bio or Eco normally indicate organic products in Europe (biologique or ecologique).  In Sweden, too, you see a variety of “Eco” or “Eko” products (Ekologiskt).  Recently, I learned that there is another label for organic products established specifically in Sweden — KRAV.  Useful information to have, as I don’t think I would have figured this out on my own.  After reading various expat internet forums on buying groceries in Stockholm, it seems that organic meats and produce in supermarkets are a relatively new thing here, and that quality varies greatly from one supermarket to another, even within the same chain.  We visited the ICA in the NK the other day, where we picked up some nice looking, KRAV ground beef.

Ground beef — or mix of beef and pork, as often is the case in Europe — is a useful item to have in the fridge for a quick, protein-rich meal.  At home, when David needs to load up on protein, or we want a quick lunch, I make what seems like a cross between a bolognese (sans pasta) and a chili.

I dice some onions and carrots, mince a couple of cloves of garlic, and finely chop a whole jalapeño pepper, deseeded.  In a heated pan, I drizzle some olive oil and sauté the vegetables until tender, on medium-high heat.

When the vegetables are tender, I turn down the heat to about medium.  I add a pack of mince meat (like the photo above) into the pan, and with a spatula, I break up the meat and combine it with the vegetables.

When the meat is mostly cooked, I add a can of organic tomato sauce (no sugar added, chunky tomatoes, not whole).  Stir the pan.  When the sauce simmers, add a handful of capers.

And, here is my version of something between a bolognese and a chili — I call it “Mediterranean” style chili because of the capers.   It’s hearty and tasty, and great for the winter!

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