Spanish-Inspired Chickpeas and Chorizo with Sherry and Chili

I apologize for my prolonged absence.  Or rather, I am sorry I had not had time to write, but I am not sorry for the reasons – being busy happens to all of us, and I am no exception.  In consolation, I bring you chickpeas with chorizo sausage and chili in sherry sauce – a meal that is not only pretty to look at and easy to make, but is very rich in fiber, and also happens to be one of my most favorite things to eat.  One of my many favorite things to eat, but still!

Warning to the timid – this is not food for the faint of heart, as it packs not only a good amount of heat from the fresh chili, but a flavor punch that will be there whether you are as chili-happy as I am or not.  But if you love Mediterranean food in general, and garlic and chili in particular, then I urge you to make this – you will not have any regrets!

Recently, due to the impending summer and the need to look great in a swimsuit in Barcelona come July, I have been on a lose-weight track.  Which, for me, translates to tossing sugar and avoiding refined carbohydrates – I guess it is a personally-designed permutation of a LCHF eating style.  Chickpeas (along with other legumes), due to their high fiber and protein content, are an ideal solution when you (me in this case) are tired of the green salad and a piece of random protein, or want a bit of comfort food without the sugar high.

I would even go as far as to say that unless you are one of those people who definitely dislike legumes, this is a meal you need to make because it really compromises on nothing – from flavor, to its nutritional content, to the ease of preparation and the beautiful presentation, it wins on all points – at least it does for me.

I won’t lay any claims to the Spanish authenticity of this dish, nor, indeed to its authenticity in any cuisine, except that it is authentically inspired by the flavors of Spanish tapas, and more than one ingredient in it is Spanish, which to me justifies the Spanish-inspired claim.

Another plus of this is that most of the ingredients are storecupboard staples and can be easily kept on hand – chickpeas keep virtually forever if dried (or canned), and for a week or so in the fridge if cooked, and raw chorizo keeps in the cold meat part of the fridge for weeks.  And I am the sort of person who has onions, garlic and chilies on hand more or less at any time – though should you find yourself lacking garlic or chili, a bit of garlic granules or chili flakes won’t ruin this dish.  However, I’d urge against substituting both and/or onions with dried products – the quick preparation and the simple composition of this means that fresh ingredients really do shine – and removing or substituting more than one of them does take its toll.

Anyway – here’s what you need to make your own if when you decide to make it:

Feeds 2 hungry people

• 2 cups of chickpeas, cooked.  You can use canned (drained and rinsed) chickpeas, but I cook my own from dry which in my view results in much better flavor.  However, if you really can’t be bothered, 2 cans of chickpeas will do.
• 1-2 links raw chorizo sausage, cut into small quarter-circles
• 1 red onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 large red chili, deseeded and chopped
• 3-4 garlic cloves, crushed and chopped finely
• 1/2 teaspoon of sweet or hot paprika powder (go with sweet if you are worried about too much heat, but I use hot)
• 1 tomato, chopped into small bits
• Extra-virgin olive oil, a generous slug
• 1 sprig of rosemary, leaves torn off and chopped
• 75-100ml sherry – dry or medium.  I use Amontillado, which I keep on hand for cooking in general – it’s amazing in cream sauces, and anything to do with mushrooms, too.
• Sea salt (ground or flaked) to taste

What to do:

• Heat up your generous amount of oil in a saute pan to medium-high heat.  Reduce heat a little (5-6/9 for me).
• Toss in the onions and fry them until they are translucent and just begin to color.  Move to the side and add chorizo sausage.  Fry for a few minutes until the oil colors red from the paprika in the sausage, and sausage looks about 2/3 done.
• Move sausage over to the onions and sprinkle the paprika powder on the sausage area.  Add the chili to the pan and fry until it turns bright orange (a minute or so).
• Add garlic and fry just until it goes bright white and aromatic.  Add chopped tomato and cook a further few minutes until it is softened and heated through, then add chickpeas and mix everything thoroughly.
• Add the sherry, stir and cover, allowing the flavors to mingle for a few minutes, and the sauce to reduce.  Season with salt to taste.
• Serve in bowls, sprinkled with some fresh chopped rosemary or thyme.

In my opinion, this can make a lovely festive dinner if paired with a bit of green salad and a glass of good wine of your liking.  And some crusty bread if you aren’t avoiding it like I am.  Just saying.

In Defense of Vanilla

I’m a vanilla girl and I am not ashamed to say so.

If I have to choose between vanilla and chocolate ice creams, I invariably choose vanilla.  No, it is not because I am boring and have no imagination, or lack the refined palate that appreciates the chocolate in the chocolate ice cream.  My palate is very spoiled, thank you very much, and I prefer not to eat any ice cream than to buy one of those cones with something looking like plastic foam in it from the “fat-free sugar-free ice cream” stands.  Have you ever wondered about this – if it’s fat free and sugar free, pray tell me what does it consist of?  No, better not tell me, I am not sure I actually want to know.

But, I digress.  If the choice is between really good vanilla and really good chocolate ice cream, I prefer vanilla.  And I have come to resent the fact that this royalty of the flavor kingdom has come to be regarded as a synonym for ‘boring’, ‘unimaginative’ and generally ‘blah’.

I don’t need to search far and wide to know how we have arrived in this sorry state of affairs.  You see, the major flavoring component (but far from the only one!) in vanilla is vanillin (C₈H₈O₃), which is not a terribly complicated chemical to make (in fact I remember us making it in the lab early on during my organic chemistry course), and entirely unproblematic to produce industrially.  And it is a good thing, because the demand for vanilla far, far outstrips production, and a lot of the products in which it is used are not nearly expensive enough to justify the expense of using real vanilla from the industry’s point of view.  I mean, who’d want basic candy bars to shoot up in price without any notable flavor difference? (and no, with everything else in them, the difference wouldn’t matter, not really)

Why is it then, that natural vanilla is so expensive*  (*I’ll come back to this as it is very relative!) and rare?  Well, that’s very simple too, really – vanilla flavor comes from vanilla ‘beans’, which are unripe pods of the climbing orchid in the genus Vanilla.  And as such (being orchids), they are not easy to cultivate to fruiting condition, and even in optimal conditions, they are not easy to propagate, and require fairly specialized care – not to mention hand-pollination.  Yes, if you have handled or seen a vanilla pod in the shop, it was likely the result of a guy with a dry paintbrush tickling a yellow orchid flower half the world away some months prevously.  If the resulting fruit set, it was allowed to mature some, then gathered and cured to develop the characteristic flavor.  In short, the process requires special climate, is labor-intensive and long.

Cheap ice-cream manufacturers don’t want to pay the premium.  Vanillin is used because people want vanilla, and they also want cheap ice cream and chocolate (ice cream and chocolate industries account for about 75% of vanilla use worldwide according to wikipedia), and so the industry responds by manufacturing cheap chocolate and ice cream – with vanillin.  And so the vanilla-flavored ice cream is born.  Which well… it tastes blah.  Like sugar, and not a whole lot else, really.  And because most people actually like the flavor of vanilla (I’ve never actually heard of anyone actively disliking it!), even approximated so, it is the most commonly bought flavor of ice cream out there.  And so we fall into the trap of “blah”, for vanillin simply does not have the rich, lush profile of natural vanilla from beans.

In contrast, chocolate, which is a far stronger flavor, does not taste nearly as blah when it is made as cheaply – it tastes at the very least of cocoa (which is a lot cheaper than real vanilla), which is not a bad thing in itself.

And so the misconception of vanilla = boring is born.  I think it is a grave injustice.

Furthermore, judging from the consumer behavior (and we aren’t talking about high-end shops in better parts of town), a lot of people do not actually know how different and lush natural vanilla extract is, because I see “artificial vanilla extract” and “vanilla sugar: made with vanillin” fly off supermarket shelves – while the pricier bottle of natural vanilla extract doesn’t sell nearly as well, and neither do the test-tube packed vanilla pods.

On the surface, that’s market economy – people try to get value for their money and when they can get something-vanilla for cheaper they do.  In reality, it’s neither good economy, nor do you get what you pay for.  To the industry, manufacturing vanillin-based “vanilla sugar” is cheap.  For you, buying it is expensive.  And if you consider that “artificial vanilla extract” is just some water in a bottle with a few crystals dissolved in it, then it doesn’t look like such a great deal anymore.

Let’s look at it from a shopping-cart point of view.  A box of vanillin-based vanilla sugar or a bottle of the artificial stuff (about 50ml) can run about 1.5€ – while buying 1 vanilla pod right next to them is only 2€ or so. (I am talking average supermarket price here in Stockholm.  You could probably get cheaper vanilla pods if you order them on the net for example.)

But, that one vanilla pod, which doesn’t look all that big or impressive in its pack?  It gets you one heck of a lot more than a whole jar of vanillin-based sugar and a bottle of artificial extract!  I’m serious.

Remember when I wrote about the glorious and easy to make vanilla ice cream and how it tasted absolutely amazing because of the fresh cream and the homemade real vanilla extract?  Well, here’s the thing – all it takes to make real, rich and gloriously aromatic vanilla extract at home is a small bottle (blue or brown glass is best as it protects it from sun damage), half a pod (yes, I used the whole pod but that is because I wanted mine extra rich), and about 100ml of vodka or rum.

Cut your pod in half across, and then slice the half of it you plan to use lengthwise to open up one side of it.  Drop it into bottle.  Top up with vodka or rum.  Close and let stand out of direct sunlight for a week.  Your extract is ready to use.

The other half a pod?  Cut it lengthwise too, and stick it into a glass jar and cover with fine caster sugar (I recommend that rather than powdered sugar for this as it is less likely to stick).  Close and store for a week, shaking occasionally.  It will very quickly perfume the entire jar with a very strong vanilla scent!  There, real vanilla sugar, too!

So all right, 100ml of vodka may run you another 1€, and let’s assume jar and bottle are free (I wash jars and bottles for such uses and keep them), and the sugar will run you a few euro-cent (pennies, whatever).  For the price of about 3€ and about a week’s time, you have yourself a better extract than you could easily buy in any shop, and a jar of sugar already.  But, it gets far better!

You see, vanilla pods keep their flavor for a long time.  Simply put, there is a lot of flavor packed into it.  So when you run low on the extract, just top if off with some vodka or rum again, and if you run low on sugar, refill the jar – and keep using it another few months!

With this sort of economy, there is no reason whatsoever to touch the expensive, blah artificial vanilla again.

So please, do yourself a favor.  Go to the shop.  Buy that 1 pod of vanilla.  Make extract or sugar (whatever you think you’ll use more!), or both, and get reacquainted with the rich and wonderful vanilla as it is meant to be.

Trust me.  Whatever else you may think, you will never reach for the artificial extract bottle again.  And I sincerely doubt that you’ll use the word “vanilla” for “boring” either.

I know I’ve said it before, but we are not rich enough to buy “cheap” things – not to mention that you usually get what you pay for, and in this particular case, what you lose is the enjoyment which could (and should!) be yours – and besides, if you want something done right, do it yourself.  In this case, the difference is truly remarkable.

Spring, Moss, and Half-Rye Sourdough Bread

Considering my recent silence, you have undoubtedly wondered if I have been eaten by crocodiles by now.  Or maybe polar bears.  It’s Sweden, and the polar bears must be hungry.  Or some other grisly fate.  The truth is, however, very prosaic – I have simply been busy.

It happens to all of us, and I am entirely unapologetic for having a life outside the blog, much as I love it.

And besides, to quote a recently-seen on the internet and absolutely brilliant photo:

“IT’S SPRING.  WE ARE SO EXCITED, WE WET OUR PLANTS!”

As you can see, the plants are happily blooming – at least some of them, and others look like they are preparing to, and if you are like me and like houseplants, then it’s exciting.  What can I say, I am easily excited.  I think that’s a good thing.  Surely beats sitting there looking bored and feeling blasé about the world.

So um, yes.  I have been busy, it’s spring, which means my plants needed more attention, my studies are kicking back in, and I have not had so much time to cook anything impressive, nor, mostly, to photograph it.

I did bake a half-rye bread on the basis of my two-fifths rye no-knead recipe, and it turned out gorgeous.  I have, again, let it proof entirely too long due to the same reason (I went for a walk and returned later than planned), but it was delicious and lovely nonetheless.  One of those days I will actually bake it in time and see if it can be made taller, but between the high rye content and the high hydration of no-knead method, I am not sure.  On the up side, the narrow slices make fantastically elegant open-faced sandwiches with slices of cheese, salami, dried ham or cured fish.  Anyway, no recipe here – merely a note that the two-fifths rye recipe works exceptionally well with a half and half split between the types of flour.  And, I will try a closer to 65 or 70% split in favor of rye next.

And then there is my newly-found fascination with moss.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of conflicting and downright bad information about how to grow it on the internet.  And doubly unfortunately, I managed to spray the two original moss-homes I made with the wrong water spray bottle.  What’s so wrong about the wrong spray bottle?  Well, it used to contain agricultural soap-and-oil mix for treating bugs on one of my orchids last summer.  As a result, I think one or two applications of that instead of water are killing the moss slowly, which made me very sad.  It is still alive and struggling to stay so (and I am helping), but I am not sure it will win the battle, and it is entirely my fault.

So, I did a lot more reading, and gathered more moss.

And then I followed several other new instructions which changed or negated the things I originally found.  For example, I did not use any potting soil on this round.  Instead, I made a base out of aquarium-filter activated carbon, and piled sterilized gravel bits, re-sterilized bark chips (from my orchid potting bark bag), and pieces of terracotta (broken flowerpot that did not survive the winter freeze) on top of that.  Added aged tap water with some activated carbon swirled in it via my new, clean spray bottle, and arranged the moss on top, above the water level.

Note: to sterilize rocks and bark chips, soak in boiling water, let stand, pour water off and repeat.  This won’t sterilize them for purposes of neural surgery, but it should kill most mold spores and random microfauna present on and in them.  If you want to be more sure about it, boil a pot of water and toss them in there for a while.  Do not salt.  ;)

The second thing I found important is having a lid for your moss-growing dish.  A more reputable moss-growing website owner mentioned in his blog that he covers his moss dishes overnight and leaves them to air out during the day – so, upside-down flat candle plates were found to cover the little terraria, to maintain good humidity with periods of drying-out and fresh air.  Since, unless your moss is swamp moss (mine isn’t, it came off rocks and tree stumps), it doesn’t want to sit in a swamp.  (Deep wisdom right there, for various houseplants other than moss as well!)

And a third thing was washing the moss when I had initially brought it home, removing all debris and clinging dirt under running water, and then quarantining it in sandwich boxes with partially-shut lids for several days before using it in the arrangement – to make sure no pests or molds surface in the meantime.

The new terraria are now a few days old, and are so far doing well.  I’ll just avoid spraying them with insecticidal solution by accident and see what happens.

So, there it is.  Coming soon(tm) – posts about vanilla, and about the two entirely new to me white whole wheat flours (That is not a typo – they are whole wheat flours made from white, not red wheat!) that I have just received in the mail and all excited about – but obviously, first I need to bake something from them and see how that works out!

Moss Dish Garden Experiment – Day 3

UPDATE:  Please see this post for more and more correct information regarding moss dishes!

For those of you curious about how the moss is doing – well, so far, it appears to be doing fine.  In fact, it does not appear all that different from how it looked about 4 hours after watering – see for yourself!

Day 1 on the left, Day 3 (today) on the right. (Click to enlarge)

The light is a bit different (today’s photos are taken a bit earlier in the afternoon but on a cloudy day), but the pot has not changed a whole lot.  It is not at all surprising as mosses are incredibly slow growers and I don’t expect sprouting like you’d see on higher plants.  I think I may keep taking a benchmark photo every few days – it would make seeing progress a lot easier.

Throughout yesterday and today, I have misted the containers a few times, and I have added water into the reservoirs as the moss was slurping it all up at a surprising rate – in the glass container, it nearly emptied the reservoir!  I heard that some mosses can hold up to 4x their weight in water but I did not actually see it before!  From what I can tell, it is happy.  It’s still too early to tell whether it’s going to survive, so I am serious about giving this a couple of weeks before pronouncing it any sort of success.

There is also something I’ve noticed about it after a closer observation, and perhaps a day or so indoors and moistened:

The moss is not just a single carpet of Hypnum.  It appears to have in it a few leaves of a larger, curlier species which is a little lighter in color (not pictured in this clip as they did not come out in focus at high magnification), and also tiny star-shaped deep green growths with reddish stems.  I had noticed the cup lichen (Cladonia) earlier, but it bears mention all the same for sheer cuteness – the largest cup is about 1.5mm across.  I really hope it survives as well!

I have a very mild concern that the water we have here, however pure it is, may be a little too harsh for the moss that is a non-vascular plant, so I have put 2 small buckets to gather rain outside should it fall, and will also age some tap water and check supermarket bottled waters for pH and mineral content listing and maybe buy a bottle of that till the spring rains come.

Also, I am really getting rather attached to the cute tiny green things!  T even teased me this morning about staring at the moss meditatively while we were having coffee, to which I replied that he should not disturb my “moss appreciation time”.

Whatever you say for it, it’s certainly incredibly relaxing, and soothing to look at – a tiny piece of forest of your own within arm’s reach.

Moss Dish Garden Experiment – Day 1

UPDATE:  Please see this post for more and more correct information regarding moss dishes!

Today’s post is not at all about food, but about spring, and green growing things.  I love greenery, I’ve mentioned that before, but when the days turn sunny and the chill in the air is no longer a biting cold but a refreshing breeze, my fascination with the green stuff goes into overdrive.

I literally cannot have enough green things around the apartment, and preferably new and interesting ones at that.  Yes, I did say apartment – had I had a house, and a garden, there’d be a lot more green things around.  As it is, I have to fit my desire to see things grow into a city apartment.  Which means, windowsills and tabletops and maybe balcony… actually definitely balcony, as my lavender bushes not only survived the winter outside unprotected except by what snow fell on them, but are alive and sprouting happily.  I’ve trimmed them down and fertilized them and can now look forward to an abundance of purple and white flowers and a heavenly fragrance… but I digress.

Yesterday, a friend of mine informed me that if I do not yet have a moss dish garden, I need one.  Need.  And she showed me some photos, and I realized that yes, she is right and I do indeed need one, right now.  Right then it was too late in the day to go gravel-gathering, or moss-hunting, but that is precisely what I did this morning.

Why?  Because it’s green, it’s alive and because it is incredibly beautiful, at least to those like me who think just about anything in the forest short of animal poop is beautiful.  And a moss dish garden is very far from that end of the spectrum indeed – it is as small as you want to make it, elegant and stylish, and has the certain quiet beauty much admired by Japanese gardeners (who have encouraged moss to grow in their gardens for centuries before we have gotten the idea to do this – probably from them).  And it’s supposed (supposed does not = works out that way) to be pretty low-maintenance.  This latter part, we’ll see about.  Once it establishes, that is.

Important: before you rush out and strip the moss off the nearest boulder, first make sure that it is not protected or endangered wherever it is you live.  If it is, then you may be better off buying some from a nursery or get some (legally sourced) spores online.  Of course, collecting it in your own garden or in a garden of people you know works too.  Just – make sure you aren’t breaking the law and ruining the environment by gathering an endangered species – after all, the point of this (at least to me) is to grow something beautiful because you love green things, not to destroy what is possibly irreplaceable!  For reference, in Sweden, some lichens and mosses are protected, but it is legal to gather a little bit of other varieties for personal (non-commercial) use in public forests.  The variety pictured above is a species of Hypnum genus of mosses, a very common forest and bog moss.

After the ethical and legal concerns are out of the way, putting together a moss garden is apparently very easy – you just need a ceramic or glass dish, some gravel and pebbles, a bit of non-alkaline potting soil, and the moss.  However, and that’s a big however, I imagine it will take more than just putting it together to get it to establish and thrive.  So, this is my moss dish garden experiment – day 1.  I will update over the next several weeks on how the mosses are doing before I pronounce this a success *knocks on wood*.

So, what does one need to make a moss garden?

Apparently, not that much.  Mosses don’t like alkaline environment (at least most of the common ones don’t), and they dislike direct sunlight but like a bit of light all the same.  They also do not develop true roots the way higher plants do, and so must be kept moist but not waterlogged (except bog mosses that sometimes just float in bogs).  Most websites recommend watering with filtered or rainwater.  I agree in theory, but in practice, the tap water in Stockholm is clean and soft enough that it should not be a problem.  I did put a bucket outside to collect a bit of rainwater should it fall, but in the meantime, the moss will get the same water as my orchids do.

The basic idea is a layer of pebbles in the bottom of a shallow dish, then a bit of gravel (this is to provide a place for excess water to drain into, and also a reservoir for keeping the soil moist), then a little bit of soil on top of it, and then the moss itself.

After I have put everything together around lunchtime today, it looked like this:

It hasn’t rained for over a week before I went out today to collect it, so the moss was looking a little dry but not dead – we have a beautiful patch of untouched forest behind our apartment building, a landscape feature I love about Stockholm.  It’s very common here to build around old boulders and between them, leaving the actual forest biome intact between the houses.  It makes for a beautiful view out the windows as well.

So, as per instructions, I constructed the base, watered it thoroughly, and then gently pushed the moss patches onto the soft and wet soil.  For a while, nothing visible happened.  I took the above photo, then sprayed the moss thoroughly with a spray bottle and wandered off to do other stuff.

Then, after a few hours, I came back and looked at my dish garden – and the somewhat-unexpected (but not unwelcome!) has happened:

On left, photo taken at half past noon. On right, photo at half past four in the afternoon.

The moss has soaked up water, plumping up visibly – and turned a beautiful lush green!  And while I know it’s too early to be happily assuming that the moss will survive, it certainly does look happier already, which means I am happier too – how can you not be, looking at something turn beautifully alive nearly before your eyes?

All that remains now is an exercise in patience.  Check moss daily for drying out, mist and admire.  Water weekly (or as soon as the glass container looks dry on the side) by pouring water in.  Wait to see what happens.  I’m sitting on the edge of my seat here with impatience – I have never been the patient sort, ever.  I’ve always been told that patience is a virtue.  I suppose at least where growing moss is concerned, that has got to be true.

Wish me – and the moss! – luck.

Two-Ingredient, Five-Minute Ice Cream

WARNING:  This post contains information that will come perilously close to ruining your relationship with your jeans.  And/or the mirror.  Read at your own risk!

Anyone who knows me, knows that of all sweets, ice cream is the one I have least resistance for.  Which, as it happens, does not at all mean that I’ll eat any sort of bad ice cream whenever.  Oh no.  The above only applies to exceptionally good, ice-cream-shop ice cream, or at the very least something like Häagen-Dazs. Or, preferably, the homemade stuff.

Like this.

Because really, if we could make ice cream at home without an ice-cream maker (some of us who have tiny kitchens can’t own every kitchen gadget we want because of space issues if nothing else!), of course we’d make it as amazing as we want it to be, and without anything questionable of remotely icky on the horizon.

I have made no-churn ice creams with fresh or frozen fruit before, and they turned out amazing – but when I came across this recipe, I simply had to try it.  Because it was promised that it would deliver (and boy, did it!) an even creamier version without any, any iciness at all!  And don’t color me boring, but I love vanilla ice cream.  By that, I don’t mean the plain oversugared white stuff you can find in any supermarket, no – I mean the heavily vanilla-perfumed rich and creamy vanilla ice cream that vanilla fanatics (like me) seek like the holy grail.

Personally, I think it’s sad that the word “vanilla” has come to signify in common slang something boring and uninventive.  I blame the aforementioned tasteless concoctions labeled “vanilla” that line the supermarket shelves, and the cheapening of this queen of flavors that inevitably followed – but I digress as usual, and this is a story for another time (yes, that other time is being planned… just need to take photos!).

Back to ice cream.  This ice cream is by no conceivable definition boring, unless you hate vanilla and/or ice cream with a passion (in which case I am not sure why you are reading this post).  It is lush, it is incredibly creamy and full of that rich, perfumey goodness that we expect of vanilla ice cream.  And best of all, it is very, very easy to make!

Now, like the original writer of the recipe, I cheat.  I use more than 2 ingredients, because while I imagine this ice cream would taste wonderful even without it, I have added real vanilla extract to it.  Why?  Because of all the above and how I adore vanilla.  And because I have real vanilla extract at home, made by yours truly (like I said, vanilla talk another day), and so I could.

So, what do you need for this?  (Makes just under 2L of ice cream.)

• 2 plastic buckets or freezer-safe boxes that will hold a bit over 1L each.
• Freezer that goes to -12C or below (Two-star or preferably more rated).  I am serious here.  Mine goes to -24C and that is how high I crank it, but those little (one-star) iceboxes in some fridges that don’t really freeze food solid won’t work.
• Mixer.  I would not try this with a hand whisk although I have a friend who is scary with that thing and can whip cream or egg whites or whatever you want by hand.  I am not so gifted or exercised!
• Bowl

• 0.5L (5dl) heavy whipping cream (I used 36% one because that is what I had in the fridge, but I imagine 40% will work even better.)
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk (397g one which is apparently standard … who the heck came up with that amount?!)
• 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract (and some seeds out of the vanilla pod if you want those black specks in your ice cream)

Method:  (This takes approximately 5 minutes.  After which there is a freezing period but really, you can just go to sleep like I did and wake up to ice cream!)

• Put your cream in a bowl (add vanilla seeds now if using), and whip it to soft peak stage.
• Add vanilla extract and whip to stiff peak stage.
• Add condensed milk and whip to combine.  Mixture will be somewhat softer than stiff-peaks but that is ok.
• Pour into your boxes and freeze overnight.

Serve.  If your freezer is a mean machine like mine, take the ice cream out for a few minutes before scooping, but to be honest, with a bit of arm power, I managed to scoop this even straight from the freezer – it does not go icy and it does not go terribly solid either.  It is creamy and gorgeous and, for all of you vanilla freaks, incredibly vanilla-satisfactory.  So much, in fact, that even I tend to have a little and then feel it is enough.

Like the original author says, this is very versatile.  Next time I will make my salted caramel sauce and swirl it into a semi-frozen mixture.  Or mix in some smashed cookies like she did.  Or… the imagination is the limit, I suspect, and I really do think that adding some chocolate to the whipping cream would work wonders as well.

Now that I have this recipe, the ice cream is always, always within my reach… my jeans may think this is not such a great idea.  I may have to, you know, compromise with them and feed most of the ice cream to skinny Scandinavian friends.  Yesss… ;)

P.S.  While I make none, zero, nada claims regarding the health value of this (it has none except for those who really need to gain weight, and maybe not even then), it does have some virtues which are hard to come by in shop-bought ice cream:  It has zero food additives, stabilizers, colors or artificial flavors.  It contains no eggs at all, and so is suitable for egg allergy sufferers and vegetarians who avoid eggs.  And well… if you count your mental health, it does have a health benefit.  Like, you know, keeping you from throwing objects or crying when you have PMS.  For that, it works wonders, even in small doses.  (Yes, I’ve tried it for that.)  Oh and – for this sort of quality, it’s also really inexpensive to make, so it makes your wallet – and you – happier.  Beat that!

Bad Romance (And Amazing Pizza Crust)

No no, I have not suddenly decided to leave T!  This is so not what this is all about!

Allow me, for just a moment, to wax all Lady-Gagaesque.  Oh all right, maybe I would cook and eat the steak instead of making a dress, but still – over the past year, I have been having what I can only call a love affair with bread.

Which is for someone who really ought to stay away from too many carbs, is notably a case of bad romance.  But rather than set the bed on fire torch the bread, I have dealt with it by feeding most of the bread to T and assorted friends, and only having a little.  Because, really, what sort of life is it if you don’t even try what you bake?  (And what sort of life is it if you don’t bake at all?!)  So in the end, I live within the best of both worlds – I can bake, he can eat, and I don’t overdo bread-eating.  Usually.

In the case of this pizza however, T had to share equally.  Because, you know, some things are just entirely too good not to have – and had I made two, I imagine we would have both finished one each easily.  I need not sing hallelujah for the pear and blue cheese pairing, nor for the addition of red onion and olive oil-and-balsamic-herb wash for this, for they need it not.  These are all classics, and as such, worthy of many repetitions because they never fail.  No, what made this special is the crust – thin, crunchy, light-as-air and crispy on the outside: the very epitome of what I have always loved about good pizza.  Just when I had thought homemade pizza-making could not be improved, there is was, yet another revelation, bringing me into higher reaches of pizza heaven.

It all began with being lazy.  Because I am, you know, and make no secret of it.  So while I wanted to learn to bake real breads, and was willing to put in the effort for the learning curve, if there are better and easier way to make something, I am always very interested in trying them.  Like the adventures with no-knead bread (including the original spectacular failure!).  And, this – this being the other recently popular method for artisan-style bread for home bakers, the so-called bread-in-five (minutes a day), which is another variation of the no-knead method (allowing time and moisture to develop the gluten instead of pounding the dough like a sumo wrestler), but with the added caveat of it being very wet dough, and stored in the refrigerator to make it less sticky and more manageable.

I would not say that five-minutes-a-day is an absolute claim, because really, that excludes the resting of the bread, preheating of oven, and other such things (as many critics have claimed), but it is true that it is five minutes of actual effort a day if all you are making is a loaf of bread from pre-prepared dough.  And well, as such the claim is true enough – after the initial mixing and such, of course – but that is hardly laborous either.

The method for dough handling outlined on their site (I will go over it in short in a bit) works brilliantly well.  As you can see from the neat and smooth ball of dough on the next photo, the gluten is well-developed and the dough is both, elastic and very relaxed – both very desirable attributes more or less regardless of what you are baking.

Before we go any further, I cannot make any claims as to what quality of loaf the method produces, because I have not tried to make a loaf using this dough yet.  All I have made so far has been a small focaccia on the same day I mixed the dough (post-mandatory-refrigeration), and a pizza this morning for lunch.  Although I can attest that it does hold its shape once shaped into a ball despite very high hydration % (very wet dough), probably due to well-developed gluten after the refrigerated maturing of dough.

Bread experimentation forthcoming, I have to give this method (at its very basic master recipe adjusted to bread flour) two thumbs up for making flatbread that is incredibly crispy and light, with a moist and airy interior.  And the dough is a joy to work with, for someone as clumsy with dough-stretching as me (I make zero claims on my pizza-tossing ability as I imagine it’d end up draped on the overhead lights if I tried – that, or stuck in my hair) – the dough stretches easily, does not resist much, and does not stick nearly as much as you’d think when you initially mix it.  Well… you do need to flour your hands, but that’s it really.

So what does the method for dough-making entail?

The principle is very simple.  You mix a high-hydration dough, you allow it to rise to maximum rise (about 2 hours with regular yeast), and then you place it in the refrigerator and cut off and use as much as you want over the next fourteen days (2 weeks).  All the dough requires before baking is a minimal shaping with floured hands and 30-40 minute rest before going in a hot oven onto a pizza stone or into a cast-iron pan or pot.

The master recipe is listed here, but it is in American measures.  I have converted the recipe to metric and then used bread flour, of which I used proportionally less to same volume of water as advised on the site:

• 3 cups (710ml) barely-warm water
• 1.5 tablespoons dry yeast (this came to just under 1 packet (50g) of Swedish yeast)
• 1.5 tablespoons coarse salt (I used coarse sea salt)
• 6.5 cups (2lb) = 910g all-purpose flour.  I had adjusted this to ~850g bread flour (which absorbs slightly more water)

Mix, cover, allow to rise for 2 hours, and place in refrigerator covered (but allowing a bit of air to escape so don’t screw a lid on tight) for 3 hours to 14 days.  The site recommends using a plastic bucket with a snap lid and a tiny hole in the top to vent the air.  I used a large stainless-steel bowl and covered it with plastic wrap which gets around the danger of blowing-up from gas pressure very well.

To use, sprinkle the top of the dough with a bit of flour, stretch up the amount of dough you want to use grabbing it by that floured bit, and scizzor it off.  Drop dough onto a floured board, and pre-shape into a boule in the classical manner of tucking ends under.

To make the pizza or focaccia base, in my experience the use of rolling pin only makes the dough too tough.  So, I had allowed the dough ball to rest for about 15-20 minutes, then I placed a piece of baking parchment onto a board, preheated my oven with my trusty huge cast-iron shallow casserole bottom in it to 225C, and stretched the dough gently with well-floured hands.  Then dropped it onto the baking parchment without any flouring.  Why?  Because a tiny bit of sticking to the parchment helps prevent it shrinking (See that stuck bit on the right?  Like that.), and because it comes right unstuck during baking – and keeps your cast iron pan clean as a bonus!

The rest, so to speak, is history.  While the crust is resting a few more minutes, cut up your favorite toppings – or whatever happened to be in the fridge (in my case, a bag of pears, a leftover quarter of a red onion, and a small chunk of blue cheese), brush the pizza crust with a bit of olive oil (or leftover dipping oil mixed with balsamic vinegar and herbs in my case), and top it.

Slide onto a pizza stone, or if you are like me, pull out the hot cast iron casserole, and slide the baking parchment with the pizza into it.  Turn oven to 250C and broiler (top grill) on, and bake for a few minutes until done.  Ovens and distance from the broiler will vary, so watch your pizza – half a minute and it may char beyond what you want it to be!

Take it out and cool on the rack for a few minutes (few = not many here!), before cutting it apart and serving, and regretting that you did not make two or three.

And if you are like me and live with sugar sensitivity – eat, but enjoy in moderation.  Complete deprivation never did anyone any good.

Submitted to the lovely baked-goods showcase at Yeastspotting.

Folded Cheese Sourdough Bread (with just a touch of garlic)

First of all, let me tell you, fellow cheese freaks – you need to make this bread.

You need to make it because it turns out gorgeous, because it takes so very little effort, and because it tastes so incredibly cheesy, it borders on being hard to describe.  I’ll try though!  Have you ever bought that pretty loaf of “cheese bread” in the bakery, and then were disappointed when only the cheese-sprinkled crust tasted of cheese at all?  I know I have.  And this, in all its oozy cheesiness, this tastes like – and thus is! – the remedy for all your cheese bread disappointments.  This bread is moist, and has a beautifully open crumb with some shiny set-melted-cheese slicks in it, and is smells rich and wonderful and tastes as cheesy as I could have wished it to.

The sourdough base with a bit of wholemeal rye mixed in adds both a good sour edge and a wholesome earthiness to the flavor, and the chewy, glossy-pored texture is satisfying in the sense of you not actually needing to eat half the loaf to sate the cheese craving (hey, that’s a great way to deal with desire to snack on cheesy snacks otherwise!).  And to make it more of all the good things I love, I tossed in just a touch of garlic, too!  Now, do you feel the need to make it?  I sincerely do hope so!

The making, and specifically the putting-together method of this bread was inspired by something I had seen on the net somewhere, and, to my utter dismay and frustration, have failed to bookmark – which subsequently ended up with me being unable to find where I had seen the recipe and photos that prompted the making of this.  I looked and looked and found tons of different cheese bread recipes, but not the one I had wanted.  So, the credit for the idea goes to you, unknown blogger – and if someone recognizes the idea from someplace else, please do let me know so that I can credit the blogger for his or her idea.

The dough for this bread is a sourdough with about 1/4 wholemeal rye to 3/4 white bread (high-protein) flour, prepared by the no-knead method (see detailed instructions here).  Which is, in short – I mix the ingredients, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, leave overnight at room temperature (fairly warm, Swedish room temperature – I suspect it is 19-22C in my kitchen at night), then shred my cheese and proceed to the very easy prep and proof.  And then I transfer the whole thing on a piece of baking parchment into a preheated Dutch Oven and bake it.  But, first things first!

Ingredients:  (makes one loaf)

• ~50g live sourdough starter (I use 100% hydration) fed with some rye and some wheat flour in the past 48 hours.
• 120g wholemeal rye flour
• 360g white bread flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons garlic granules or powder (this is entirely optional but I recommend it.  If you like garlic, I heartily recommend it.  If you worry about it, no it does not give it a heavy garlic scent at all – more like a gentle hint of it in the finished product.  If you still worry, replace this with a favorite seasoning of your choice.)
• 350ml cold tap water

• ~2.5dl (1 cup) coarsely shredded cheese of your choice (I used a mix of aged cheeses but this is really up to what floats your cheese boat).

Method:

• Mix all dry ingredients other than cheese and whisk to combine.  Mix water and sourdough starter in another bowl and whisk to combine.
• Mix the liquid into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon until all flour is more or less incorporated – the dough will be shaggy and somewhat sticky, and grey in color (rye flour tends to do that, don’t worry, it’ll bake up beautiful!).
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap (clingfilm) and leave overnight in your kitchen.

• The next day, flour a board thoroughly and scrape the soft dough out on it.  Flour your hands as well and gently stretch it out using your hands into a rough rectangle.  The dough should be very relaxed and not resist at this point, so it should be fairly easy.

• Take your shredded cheese and sprinkle it all over the rectangle, as evenly as you want to bother with.  Just, you know, avoid dumping it all in a sticky clump onto the middle of the dough, and it’ll be fine.

• Roll the rectangle along the short edge to make a short stubby roll.  (Yes, I’ve rotated it in this photo after rolling!)  Cut the roll into three pieces and place them on a piece of baking parchment cut sides down to make a lumpy loaf.

• Flour a piece of cling film and cover the loaf with it (floured-side down) and then with a kitchen towel, and leave to proof for 1-1.5 hours (this may take longer if your kitchen is not very warm and depending on how lively your starter is), until it is somewhat puffed up.  Because of its shape, the loaf won’t quite double in volume, but the rise will be visible.
• While the bread is proofing, preheat your oven to 220C with the Dutch oven inside.
• Once bread is ready to bake, remove Dutch oven from the oven, open lid, (be careful, it will be bloody searing hot!), and carefully place the bread into the Dutch oven holding it by the baking parchment edges.  If you drop it a few centimeters, it will do it no harm.
• Cover Dutch oven, and bake for 20 min at 220C covered.  After the 20 minutes, remove lid and lower temperature to 190C and bake uncovered for another 20-25 minutes until the top is properly browned.
• Remove (carefully!) from Dutch oven – I usually stand it on a sturdy foot stool covered with a terry towel I do not mind singing for this – and cool on the rack for 2 hours or until cooled completely before cutting.
• Once cooled and cut, wrap the cut end in aluminium foil.  The bread will keep for a few days without drying out – if it lasts long enough to be around.  I cannot say with any certainty that it would last for longer than 3 days because after that it was just gone.

Rejoyce in your cheese satisfaction!  This is one of the best ever breads to have to vegetable soup in my opinion – the earthy flavor, the substantial texture and the glorious flavor of cheese works great without any need to butter the slices – but you do as you wish, for that is between you and your cheese addiction.  Because *cough* it’s not like I have sliced thick slices of it just to have alongside a cup of tea or anything…

In hindsight, I may try to make an even fatter roll and only slice it in half to see how that works to make a shorter and thicker loaf, but that is more a matter of curiosity than a necessary instruction, and it may well not turn out any better than this in the end.  And the slices were still a good size, especially if slicing slightly on the diagonal as I did.

Submitted to Yeastspotting.

Red Lentil Soup with Leftovers

Legumes.

They are healthy, they are delicious, they are full of fiber and minerals, they are really, really cheap (you should buy them dried by the bag), and yet many people here in the West have no idea how to prepare them, nor how to eat them on a regular basis.  Granted, that may be due to the fact that if you want your beans and chickpeas to taste really good, you don’t want them to come out of a can – you need to pre-soak and you need to boil them yourself.  So, while it is not difficult, that method does require thinking ahead.

But, not all legumes are created equal.  Lentils, especially the red ones, cook in minutes without any pre-soaking, and green peas these days are sold frozen in large inexpensive bags which are very easy to just store in your freezer for when you need them.  And thankfully, the Middle Eastern kitchens – Persian, Lebanese and many others – have long ago come up with a fantastic way to feed people based on those, cheaply and in a hurry.  Frugality and convenience attended to, the easiest way to incorporate legumes into your diet in a gloriously delicious way, is a lentil soup.  And you can then impress your friends with your creation, presenting it as a Mid-East inspired dish rather than “I have some leftovers in the fridge that we can probably do something with.”

Because red lentils cook so fast, and because legumes go with a huge range of savory seasonings, this soup pulls together in about half an hour, and it is a wonderful way to use up various leftovers looking sad and forlorn in the corners of your fridge.  Or freezer.  And the result is a warming, hearty soup that is thick and satisfying enough to serve as a large lunch, or even a dinner if served with some bread on the side.  And you can feel good for having done something great for your health in the process, to boot!

It can even be made vegetarian, or indeed, vegan, if you omit the bacon, and if needed, the dairy I like to garnish it with – and for all I am a definite carnivore, this soup will really be not much worse for the omissions.  Or if you have aging smoked lamb or pastrami, or ham, it can be sliced and tossed right in alongside with everything else to make the soup richer.  Though if you are skipping bacon, I would suggest a teaspoon of smoked paprika to add the smoky scent without the smoked-pig component.

And if you are cooking for yourself only, and are daunted by the prospect of having a large pot of soup, this both, keeps fine in the fridge for a few days, and freezes fantastically well if you have some of those plastic tubs handy.

There is no set-in-stone recipe for lentil soup, as it literally uses up whatever you have around your fridge, but there are a few simple guidelines.  It needs onions, it needs a good amount of greenery, and it needs enough fat to cook those onions.  The rest is honestly mutable.

You will need (this will make about 3L of soup):

• 1-1.25 cup (3 dl) red lentils
• 2-4 tablespoons cooking oil or bacon fat
• 2-3 onions, chopped
• 3-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped finely
• 1-2 dl green peas (frozen – if you have fresh, I’d just eat those fresh!)
• A couple of handfuls of frozen chopped spinach pellets
• Half or whole pack of bacon (75-150g), cut into small bits (can be omitted, or substituted with shredded cooked beef, chicken, smoked or roast lamb, pastrami, or whatever you have handy)
• Salt and black pepper and chili flakes to taste
• 1 very heaping tablespoon of curry powder, or Middle Eastern 7-spice (Baharat), or a thyme-based mix like Zaatar, or really whatever you have on hand and feel like – toss in that Italian pasta or salad seasoning, it will work just fine too.
• 1 teaspoon hot paprika or hot smoked paprika
• Leftovers:  in my case – a couple of aged salad onions, trimmed, but you can use up a slightly-mushy tomato, some root celery (peeled and chopped into small bits), green celery (sliced crosswise), a potato or two, and you get the idea.

• Extra virgin olive oil to drizzle on top – or you can be like me and use up herb-infused olive oil that some sun-dried tomatoes were sold in.
• Greek or Turkish yogurt or creme fraiche or sour cream to serve – optional, but really nice.

How to achieve soup in record time:

• Put a large pot (enough to fit 3+ Litres) on the stove and add 2 tablespoons of oil or bacon fat.  Start heating it on medium-low heat.  Put a non-stick frying pan on the stove, add 1 tablespoon of cooking oil or bacon fat and heat that to medium heat as well.
• Toss your chopped bacon into the frying pan, stir and allow to cook on medium heat while you add your “leftover” vegetables to the pot, and saute them gently in it.  Add your seasoning (curry, 7-spice, seasoning mix – but not the paprika), whatever the choice is.
• Once bacon is cooked, lift it from the pan and add to the pot with leftover vegetables.  Add your chopped onions to the pan, and fry them in bacon fat on medium heat until they turn golden and a little crispy on edges.
• While your onions are frying, rinse your lentils and add them to the pot.  Add approximately 2 L of water (the process is made faster if you boil it in your water boiler while at it), and bring soup to a slow simmer.
• When the onions are nearly done, move them a bit to the side, add a tablespoon of oil if needed, and toss the garlic into the pan.  Cook just until it goes bright white and fragrant, a few seconds – now this is ready to add to the pot, whatever stage that is at – soup is forgiving like that!
• Bring your soup to a bit higher boil (higher simmer?  We don’t want this at rolling boil, not really!), and cook for approximately 15 minutes until lentils are nearly cooked through (they will fluff out at edges and will be nearly soft to the bite).
• Add the frozen peas and spinach, and enough boiling water to make 3L of soup in total.  Add the teaspoon of paprika.
• Cook, stirring, until spinach pellets are completely dispersed and the soup is back at a low simmer.  If the lentils are not cooked through at this stage, give the soup another 3-5 minutes until they are.
• Season with salt and pepper and chili flakes to taste, and serve with yogurt or creme fraiche and a drizzle of olive oil.

The bread in the photo that we ate it with, is a rye-blend folded cheese sourdough (I promise a recipe with stage-by-stage folding photos another day!), but this soup would go just as well with any – or none at all.

Eight Years Without Cheesecake

With Valentine’s Day just behind us, and everyone being overdosed on chocolate and rich desserts, the last thing you may want to be reading about may be the decadence that is NY-style cheesecake.

Lemon and Orange Cheesecake with Shortbread Crust

Unless you are like me, that is, and have gone easy on the chocolate – or, unless you are like me, and the thought of proper, creamy, tender and oh-so-good real New York-style cheesecake makes all else not matter.  I am (last I checked) myself, and therefore I believe that cheesecake is always in time, occasion and season.  So if you are a fellow Cheesecake-worshipper, keep reading.  On second thought, even if you are an infidel among us Cheesecake-believers, you should stay and hear the gospel as well.

So what about the eight-year deprivation, you ask?  Well, as it happens, I adore cheesecake.  In fact, I ate it on any occasion that called for dessert when it was available, back when I lived in the USA, the holy land of cheesecakes.  You may not know it, but Americans actually have a restaurant chain called “The Cheesecake Factory”.  I am not kidding!  And as far as I am concerned, it has to be American cheesecake.  No, I am not interested in the ricotta cakes, or the Swedish traditional ostkaka, give me the tall, creamy but definitively non-gloopy beauty that is NY-style cheesecake any, any day of the week.

Except that I have not lived in USA since 2004.  That is… 8 years, people!  And in that time, between Sweden and UK, I have not had any cheesecake, because I refuse to have any that is less than what cheesecake, in my mind, should be.  And you know what?  Eight years is simply too long to go without cheesecake!

So, having gotten thoroughly cheesecake-frustrated, I have decided that I’ve had it, and I think I’ve completely talked T’s head off about the real cheesecake that I so desired, and in the end I ended up promising him to make the real thing myself.  Because, if you want something done right, you bloody well should.

There is a lot of talk, both in word-of-mouth and on the net and even in cookbooks about how difficult it is to make a cheesecake.  Some people say you have to cook it wrapped in foil on a water bath (really, wtf people, haven’t you heard of the invention of the this thing called an oven thermostat?!  It’s been around for several decades!*), and nearly all preach about how hard it is to mix, and how it will get air bubbles and oh god oh god crack and burn and explode and collapse and… guess what?  After reading a bunch of different sources and then making the actual cheesecake (I write this in a cheesecake-satiated glow after eight years of deprivation!), I came to the conclusion that it is all a bunch of over-hyped hoopla.  Similar, in some ways, to the way people describe sourdough bread-baking – anything to preserve the elitism and scare newbie bakers away from their holy grail.  So, pfft at them!  Making a cheesecake is really really easy.  You need to think about it, and there are some instructions you really ought to follow and not try to improvise, and you need to chill it overnight – but that’s really that!

And if the top cracks a tiny bit – who cares?  If you are serving it to guests, it should get topped with something anyway (melted, chocolate, caramel sauce, good tangy preserves or fresh berries – whatever takes your fancy!), and if you are just cutting a greedy slice to share over the morning coffee, then you can cut along the cracks.  Or simply ignore them.

So, if I have managed to impress upon you that to prepare this dessert royalty you really do not need much effort, what do you need?  Well… first of all, you need time.  Cheesecake must be allowed to set overnight in the refrigerator.  Which means you need to bake it the day before you are going to serve it (or several days – it keeps easily over a week in the fridge if wrapped properly!).

What else do you need?  Ok, here we go:

• An oven.  One of those modern ones with a thermostat knob.
• A mixing bowl.
• A mixer or a whisk and a really strong arm.  I use a small, handheld mixer and it works just fine.
• A springform pan, with bottom inserted upside-down (yes, I mean that!) – meaning, lipped side down, flat side up.  The upside-down bottom ensures there is no “lip” on it once the cake is ready, and it can be easily sliced, or transferred off the flat surface onto a plate.

Recipe is adapted fairly heavily from a saved recipe card that I got mailed as a promotion back when living in USA.  Adaptations include not being able to get my hands on brick cream cheese, not using egg whites, and removing flour from batter (because I like my cheesecake better without).

Ingredients:  (This will make one standard 9-inch form)

Shortbread crust:   Yes, I like that, but if you prefer crumb crust, it’s just some digestive biscuits crushed with a bit of melted butter.  In my personal and highly biased view (as in, it’s going to go into my mouth-biased), lightly spiced shortbread crust is far superior!

• 200g plain all-purpose flour (1.5 to 1.75 US cups)
• Small pinch of salt (1/5 tsp)
• 2 tsp ground ginger (optional, can be replaced with nutmeg or omitted)
• 1 tsp vanilla sugar
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1.5 dl confectioner’s sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 150g butter, cut into small pieces and slightly softened

Cheesecake batter:

• 1kg full-fat cream cheese.  In Europe that translates to 5 little tubs.
• 200g 10% (full-fat) quark cheese (Kesella or other brand – can be substituted with 10% Greek or Turkish strained yogurt)
• 1 dl full fat creme fraiche (I believe that is 34% fat here in Sweden).  This can be substituted with full-fat sour cream.
• 300ml caster sugar (I used golden caster).
• 2 teaspoons vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract.  I used sugar this time, as my vanilla extract isn’t ready yet (I make my own, it’s easy).
• Zest of 1 lemon+1 orange.  If you like your cake less citrusy, you can use either orange or lemon or half of each.
• 1 tablespoon (15ml) lemon juice from aforementioned lemon (try to avoid bottled lemon juice here, it does not taste nearly as good as fresh).
• 3 egg yolks
• OPTIONAL! 3 tablespoons of flour – I did not use those, but they can help the cake set and lessen the chance of cracks.  (Or so I am told.)

Method:

Make and bake the shortbread crust.

• Preheat oven to 175C.  Cut a circle of baking parchment to match the bottom of springform pan.
• Grease the pan and line the bottom with parchment.  Flour the sides thoroughly.
• Mix together all dry ingredients of crust except sugar.  Whisk to combine.
• In another bowl, mix sugar with butter until completely combined and light in color.
• Add egg yolks and mix until incorporated.  You may need to scrape down the sides of bowl at some point here.
• Add all the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until mixture resembles crumbs.  Remove mixer and squish with hands until dough comes together (should be very easy and quick).
• Place clumps of dough into the prepared springform pan, and push at it with your fingers till it is sort of uniform thickness on the bottom and up the sides.  Fork the bottom thoroughly to help avoid puffing up in the oven.  IF the bottom begins to puff up, open the oven, and fork it carefully at the edge of puffed up area.  That should deflate it.  Continue to bake as normal.
• Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes (watch it) until the top edge is just beginning to color and the crust is entirely baked through and opaque.
• Cool on rack without removing from the pan, until completely cool (this may take an hour).

In meantime, bring out the cheesecake batter ingredients out of the fridge and allow them to come to room temperature or close to it (don’t go nuts if it is a bit cool to the touch after sitting on the counter for that long, really).

A useful note on mixing the batter, which comes next – use low speed of mixer.  On low speed, you have far, far less chance of introducing excess air bubbles into it, and it is more than powerful enough to mix softened cream cheese, etc.

• Preheat oven to 250C (475F).  Yes you want it that hot!
• When the crust is completely cool, make the batter:
• Place all the cream cheese into a bowl.  I shook each little tub over the sink a bit to get rid of excess water that is sometimes found in the tubs.  Mix the cream cheese on low speed until it is smooth or close to.
• Add sugar, lemon and orange zest, and quark.  Mix to incorporate.
• Add egg yolks and mix in.  Add lemon juice and creme fraiche and mix until the batter is homogenous.

• Pour the batter into the cooled crust.  Some people suggest banging the cheesecake or such, but I did not bother as the batter mixed on low speed is not very bubbly at all.  It should more or less come up to the top (or over, which is fine) of your crust.

• Put your cheesecake on an oven pan to catch any drips, and slide that into the oven so that the cheesecake is roughly in the middle of it vertically.
• Sit and watch cheesecake for 12 minutes on 250C.  It may start to puff on sides a little bit towards the end of this period.  To reduce the chance of surface singing during this step, I turned the oven setting to only use the bottom element after preheating on top+bottom setting.  If the surface starts to brown at any point during this step, go to next step immediately.  Otherwise, proceed to next step at end of 12 minutes.
• Without opening the oven door, turn oven to use top+bottom elements (no fan setting if possible), and turn the thermostat to 95-100C.  Bake cheesecake at this setting for an hour and a half to an hour and a quarter, until the surface is set, but the center of the cake wobbles under the surface a little when it is jiggled gently back and forth.
• Turn oven off and use a piece of cookware (loaf pan?  Rolling pin?)  to prop the oven door ajar, or take the cake out of oven and set it on a rack to cool.  I used the oven method as it is supposed to reduce cracking.  I suppose I can use the take out onto rack method another time and see if that cracks more, but either is supposed to be fine.
• If using the oven to initially cool the cake, take cake out after another 15-20 minutes and continue to cool on the rack.  When pan is cool to the touch, carefully run a thin spatula or spreading knife around the crust to loosen it from the sides.
• Allow to cool until just warm to the touch before wrapping the springform pan in plastic wrap and placing in refrigerator.
• Refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours to set the cake completely.
• The next morning, check that the sides of the crust are not attached to the springform pan sides, carefully unlock and remove the sides.  Now you can either keep the cake on the bottom of the pan, or slide a thin spatula between the parchment paper and the pan bottom to loosen it and use the parchment to grab the cake and slide it over onto a serving plate.

The cake will keep for days in the refrigerator, but please do replace the pan sides (to prevent it from mashing and cover/wrap with plastic wrap to prevent it absorbing odors you and I would rather it didn’t – like garlic for example.

Now, I imagine this would have gone amazingly well with a topping, but after trying just one bite, my boyfriend decided he just liked it plain, and that the lemon-tinged lushness of this did not require any additional dressing.  So, I didn’t.  Does not mean you should not, you know.

The batter for this is very accommodating to added flavoring.  I think next time, I will get my hands on some pumpkin puree (or make it if I must), and make proper pumpkin-pie-spiced pumpkin cheesecake.  Or else go crazy and try a pineapple or mango flavored one, or plain with caramel and chocolate shavings… who knows?  The point is, because it is not baked on water bath, it sets much, much easier and less problematically.  If you are adding fruit or vegetable puree, I would suggest using the optional 3 tablespoons flour with the batter to help set the cake with lower cheese to batter ratio.  Or you know, you can always wait for me to test it first.  I promise you, I will.

Cheesecake baked in this manner, is both, easy, and incredibly forgiving, and yes, it tastes, looks and feels exactly like the really good luxury American cheesecakes that I had missed so much all those eight years.  The moral of the story is that if you want something done right, do it yourself.  I should have.  Years ago.

* As I understand it, the incredible necessity of the foil-wrapping cheesecake and cooking it in a tray of water in your oven harkens back to the times when you baked your cheesecake just outside your cave in the fire on that lightning-struck tree stump.  Yes, back then you’d have certainly needed a water bath to ensure it did not suffer from heat spikes when you tossed another log into the fire.  Or you know, if another tree branch got tossed in by the wind.  But really, with an oven that has 10-degree increments on a thermostat, saying water bath (and consequent mess, boiling water splashing, possible leaks and ruined soggy cheesecake) is necessary is just so much of you know what.