I’m not going to lie, I thought of many alternate titles for this post. The runner up was Never Mind the B*llocks. Please be warned now there will be a fair bit of innuendo before this post is done. On my recent weekend in Copenhagen I had the chance to try that rarest of delicacy, the Prairie oyster, otherwise known as deep fried bull’s balls. I am not necessarily the most adventurous of eaters. I have under extreme duress tried eating a bird brain once, using the beak and skull as a spoon, but that was definitely a bad decision. It resembled nothing so strongly as having a really bad cold.

To put the deep fried testicles decision in context, I first have to explain the unusual set of circumstances building up to this. It was sunny. In Denmark. I mean really sunny. 25C and not a cloud in the sky. The kind of day when the world is your bar, at least in any Northern European city. In Copenhagen, every park and canal was lined with people enjoying beers and glasses of wine in reckless disregard for the unappealing combination that is a hangover and sunburn. We had joined in the festive spirit, and spent the hour before dinner enjoying white wine from plastic cups in the sunshine. When we got to the restaurant, BROR, we were perhaps ever so slightly tipsy. Bror has recently been opened by two graduates from the school of Noma, and features a similar style of New Nordic Cuisine. Where bull’s balls come into this, I do not know, but there they were, nestled on the menu below catfish cheeks and radishes with hazelnut cream. As soon as he laid eyes on this, my companion got the glimmer in his eye that says ‘I know a challenge when I see one’, and soon he was ordering away as I giggled like the convent schoolgirl I once was behind my menu.

When they arrived, they were laid out on a vintage plate, surprisingly flat and strangely small. They were adorned only with a light coating of breadcrumbs and sea salt, and looked for all the world like a miniature wiener schnitzel. I selflessly allowed my companion to dig in while closely monitoring his facial expressions for any indication of pain or disgust. When he had managed to swallow the first bite with relatively little discomfort, I felt it my duty to give them a shot. I sliced a piece from the edge for maximum breadcrumb to testicle ratio.

I’m not really sure what I was expecting in hindsight. They were very very soft, with a texture something like sweetbreads, and a light grey colour. I think I expected something more chewy, like a piece of gristle. For data collection purposes, I took a second mouthful, and realised they tasted like fish. This could be a link between breadcrumbs and fish buried deep in my subconscious. It could also be that they use the same deep fryer for their octopus dish. Or it could just be that they taste like fish. Whatever it was, once you had realised it, that was all you could taste.

When our waitress reappeared, I asked approximately how many smutty jokes she heard per day. With a slightly weary look, she said more than you can imagine, and reeled off a ‘best of’ selection from the kitchen. Behind us, I could hear the next table ordering the same.

I am sure there is some kind of inside story as to how these have come to appear on the menu. Maybe someone lost a bet. Maybe they realised it would be a good gimmick for a new restaurant. Maybe they just wanted to prove once and for all that deep frying makes everything better. I would not be rushing to order deep fried balls if I ever saw them on a menu again. But for now, the bird brain continues to occupy the space in memory reserved for ‘Most disgusting thing I have ever eaten’.

Restaurant BROR

Skt. Peders Stræde 24A
1453 København K
+45 3217 5999

This year was the first year I have worked on my birthday. I’ve sat exams on it and studied on it, but always managed to coincide it with a holiday so I’ve never actually been to work on it. One of the things about working on your birthday in Denmark (and as far as I can tell everywhere but Ireland) is that you have to make your birthday cake, and give it to other people, instead of the other way around. Apparently you are also meant to buy people drinks if you go to the bar, but given that a pint here costs around €8, I’m going to try and avoid that one as long as possible. This was meant to be a double layer Victoria sponge style cake, but I realised too late that my cake tin was in fact 9 inches instead of 7, so I ended up with two very thin sponge layers, and had to make a third one. The photos are a bit rubbish, they were taken in between wrapping presents for my other half who strangely shares my birthday, packing for a weekend in Copenhagen and putting together a grammar test for my pupils. It was a bit of a hectic day.

Makes 1 three layer 9 inch cake. If you want a two layer 7 inch cake, as was intended by Darina Allen who came up with this recipe, reduce the ingredients for the cake by 1/3.

Ingredients

• 190g butter, softened
• 260g caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• 260g flour
• 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-2 tablespoons buttermilk or milk
• Finely grated zest of one lemon
• Icing sugar to top

For the lemon curd

• 50g butter
• 110g caster sugar
• Finely grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
• 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk, beaten together

Method

• First, make the lemon curd.
• Melt the butter over a gentle heat.
• Mix in the sugar, lemon juice and rind.
• Add in the eggs.
• Stir over a low heat until the mixture thickens to a good coating consistency.
• If like mine yours goes a little clumpy at the end because you briefly got distracted, sieve after cooking.
• Leave to cool.
• To make the cake, first cream the butter, lemon zest and sugar together until fluffy.
• Add the eggs in one a time, mixing well.
• Sift the flour and baking powder in.
• Mix all the ingredients together and add in the milk if it needs a bit of moisture.
• Grease and line a 9 inch cake tin.
• Pour in 1/3 of the cake mix.
• Bake in the oven at 180C for approximately 20 minutes, until the top is a little bit golden and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
• Turn onto a wire rack to cool and repeat twice with the remaining mixture.
• When the cakes are entirely cooled, spread the lemon curd on one, sandwich another cake on top, spread lemon curd on that and sandwich with the top layer.
• How much of the lemon curd you use it up to you, I had about 1-2 tablespoons left which next time I’d probably horse on the cake as well.
• Top by sprinkling with icing sugar.

I would like to call this post La Vara: The Best Restaurant in New York, but that is probably a bit unfair since I was only there a week. I suppose it is safer to say the best restaurant I ate at in New York, by a long stretch. A small space on a quiet leafy street of brownstones in Cobble Hill, it is a relatively new opening serving Spanish and North African inspired tapas.

Berenjenas con Miel

There is of course a slight personal bias here. Tapas with Moorish influences are one of my favourite things to eat. I had as many meals as my paycheck would allow in Morito, my local tapas place in London and was never once bored. La Vara seems to have very much the same vibe. Slightly cramped, stylish and minimalist space? Lively bar? Located in quiet residential area beloved of the intelligentsia? A limited booking system that means you turn up an hour early and then get slightly tipsy in a local bar waiting for your table?  Check, check, check, check.

Escalavida

A group of four, we arrived after a gruelling hour wait drinking possibly the best cocktails I’ve ever had at Red Gravy nearby and crumpled into our table at half nine on a Wednesday. The size of the portions and the size of the group meant we could sample a fairly good selection of the menu. We had about 2-3 tapas each, all shared, which was absolutely more than enough (I saw Yelpers complaining that the portions meant you needed to order about 8 each, I find this slightly terrifying). Some portions were larger than others, but most were of the traditional saucer sized variety.

Ramps with Romesco

There were a healthy amount of specials available, all explained and recommended by our friendly Spanish waitress and we tried a few of these. Steamed ramps appeared in a brown paper bag we had to cut open, accompanied by a rich romesco sauce, the American take on the traditional Catalan calçot dish. Migas (of the Spanish, not tex mex variety) were a deliciously morish and large plate of crispy fried Chorizo, breadcrumbs and caramelized onions. I decided against ordering the berenjenas con miel, fried aubergines with cheese and honey, after an underwhelming experience with the same in Morito. When my Dad ordered them, I demolished them. The aubergine had been peeled and sliced into batons, the sauce, a mix of manchego and a creamy Mozzarella like cheese whose name escapes me, was the perfect blend of sweet, tangy and creamy.

Each dish that came out seemed better than the last. Alcachofa, fried artichokes with anchovy aioli were just the right mix of crispy and melting, the aioli having enough anchovy to give it a bite without being so much as to put off someone like me who doesn’t really like them. The cordero, cumin roasted lamb, tasted like a confit, with an addictive zingy preserved lemon and date condiment. Pan amb tomaca, the traditional tomato bread had a twist of mojama (air cured tuna) and nori. Escalavida, a traditional vegetable stew was paired with a light tahini sauce, an unusual take that combined richness with the fresh, lush taste of the vegetables. The croquettas were the only unremarkable dish of the night, being absolutely fine, but not amazing or a patch on those at Morito.

Pan amb Tomaca

We finished off, although by now thoroughly full, with two desserts. Olive oil ice-cream with sea salt tasted exactly like its ingredients, in the best possible way, though was not to my taste to be honest. The other dessert, a special, involved an elegant and light black sesame macaron and many other things I can’t remember.

Olive oil ice cream with sea salt

While the prices range from low to high, the bill for all the food with wine and sherry for four people came to a pretty reasonable (by New York standards) $230 which is worth noting as many reviews said you’d need to spend at least 100 a head to manage here. We spent the rest of our time in New York deliberating whether to return but never did. There is a danger of attempting to recreate the amazing experience of the first time trying something wonderful on holiday which can never really be repeated. But if I lived in Brooklyn, I would come here as often as my paycheck allowed.

La Vara, 268 Clinton St  Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States

+1 718-422-0065

After over a week of eating almost everything New York had to offer, I am back in uncharacteristically sunny Denmark, and the real world. The world where I do not have professional chefs providing my every meal and where eating five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day has transitioned back into rule rather than guideline. This means I am back to having to devise interesting lunches to help ease me into the concept of workdays, Denmark’s teacher lockout having finally and thankfully come to an end. To help with the transition, this is a recipe is slightly adapted from a New York based chef, April Bloomfield, by way of a wonderful New York based blog, Smitten Kitchen. This salad is so much more than the sum of its parts. It has a rich, complex flavour combining many ingredients I wouldn’t necessarily have put together. I always regarded feta and tahini as those two friends you know would just hate each other. You love them both, and want to spend time with them, but each requires their own space and time. Turns out they have some good banter together. This makes 2-3 lunch sized portions, if you are the kind of idiot like me who never eats breakfast and is starving by lunchtime, their hunger only accentuated by the five people who have chosen to impart the wisdom that ‘you know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day’..

Ingredients

For the salad

• 200g puy lentils or lentilles vert (not the same thing as green lentils despite their confusing name, basically you’re looking for the small little browny green yokes)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 bay leaf (the original recipe called for sage, I’m not a huge fan though)
• 1 tin chickpeas, drained
• 1 red onion
• 75g feta
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted.

For the dressing

• 2 tablespoons tahini paste
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice (if you had a preserved lemon you could chop it up and lob it in as per the original)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large garlic clove, crushed
• 2 teaspoons ground and toasted coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoons ground and toasted cumin seeds

Method

• First, cook the lentils according the direction on the pack with a bay leaf and the two cloves of garlic peeled until they are tender.
• I am a bit slapdash about lentil cooking, having cooked them a lot over the years, but it tends to be about 20-30 minutes over medium high heat with twice the amount of water as lentils, but I have seen huge variation in instructions.
• Drain the lentils once cooked.
• Drain the chickpeas.
• Meanwhile, toast both the cumin and coriander in a dry pan over a medium heat until they are fragrant (you need to watch this stage carefully, fragrant turns to burnt so very quickly).
• Remove and grind in a pestle and mortar (or a coffee grinder, though I am not sure how effectively you could clean that after to prevent having cumin coffee for the next month).
• Toast the sesame seeds carefully in the pan until they are a medium-dark brown colour, just before they burn.
• To make the salad dressing, mix the ingredients well in a jar, reserving half the cumin and coriander to sprinkle on top of the salad.
• You may want to adjust the dressing to make it more lemony, less lemony, more tahini-y or less tahini-y, this is a just a guideline.
• Finely chop the red onion.
• Finely chop the fresh coriander.
• To assemble, mix the chickpeas and cooked lentils.
• Toss with the dressing and most of the sesame seeds.
• Top with the feta, red onion, fresh coriander, maybe a drizzle more lemon, and the remaining sesame, coriander and cumin seeds.
• Season if required.

Midtown Manhattan

Bread with tomato, nori and mojama at the amazing La Vara in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

The Chelsea Hotel. I’ve had Chelsea Hotel No.2 by Leonard Cohen stuck in my head ever since.

New York’s best lobster roll from the Red Hook Lobster Pound

Magnolias in Central Park

My local cheese shop in Williamsburg, which describes Reblochon as ‘remember when coke used to get you high instead of making you need to s***. Pair with Pinot.’. This was the least scandalous cheese description they had.

A couple got engaged in front of me in Central Park as I unsuccessfully tried to photograph the fountain beside them. Shortly after this he started running around waving his arms in the air screaming ‘she said yes’.

Obscure documentary reference alert.

Rice at my local grocery store.

Williamsburg Bridge from the East River Ferry.

]]> http://canalcook.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/new-york/feed/ 7 canalcook Brooklyn 2 004_phixr Brooklyn 2 027_phixr Brooklyn 2 021_phixr brooklyn 3 029_phixr brooklyn 3 003_phixr brooklyn 3 013_phixr brooklyn 3 008_phixr Brooklyn 2 011_phixr brooklyn 1 031_phixr Brooklyn 2 001_phixr http://canalcook.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/le-bistrot-paul-bert-paris/ http://canalcook.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/le-bistrot-paul-bert-paris/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 18:09:27 +0000 canalcook http://canalcook.wordpress.com/?p=1290 ]]>

The first time I went to Paris, I hated it. I’m not sure if it was just that I was a sullen fifteen year old who hated everything (every single photo from that holiday involves scowling) or something else, but Paris just didn’t click.  When I  returned as a  college student, that all changed and I suddenly understood the magic that makes Paris the only city in the world that is noisy, touristy, rude, expensive and romantic. Ever since then, I have been hooked, and return whenever an opportunity arises, even if it involved as many hours travel time as I would spend awake there.

Bistrot Paul Bert is a place that characterises everything that people love about Paris, and that make it special. It is exactly that kind of charming neighbourhood bistrot that you always hope to find there, but often don’t. On a quiet street in the up and coming 11th, it serves perfectly executed French bistrot classics as a reasonable (for Paris) price. The decor is quintessentially Parisian with  zinc bar, tiling, pot plants, heavy wood and vintage posters.The dinner consists of a set three course meal for €36. If you want to just have a main it is €25, with starters and desserts €10. The restaurant has two sittings a night, you really do need to book in advance, and bring your appetite as the portions are generous.The menu is chalked up on an unwieldy blackboard that is carted from table to table and precariously perched by your table. The same goes for the wine list of approximately 10-15 bottles of well chosen and reasonable French wine, with several whites, reds and rose available by the glass.I also spotted a third board explaining the provenance of the meat and fish. My heart felt a slight patriotic flutter when I saw the beef they serve is Irish.

I started with an elegant leek and foie gras terrine, presented like a lovely piece of stained glass. The delicate freshness of the leeks cut through the rich fat of the foie gras, making it a delicate but substantial starter. I followed it up with an ample rendition of classic Lapin Au Moutarde, served with a creamy mustard sauce and  tarragon mash. It was lovely, but I must admit at that point my eyes gazed longingly to the next table, where a couple were eating steaks the size of their faces with amazing looking chips and bearnaise.

To finish, my mum and I decided to get a dessert and cheese and share. She ordered a Paris Brest, two large hollow circles of pastry sandwiching a simultaneously rich and light hazelnut cream, so named because they resemble the wheels of the bikes on the Paris-Brest cycle race. My order of cheese consisted of the waiter leaving a large wooden board heaving with nicely room temperature aged cheeses from which I could help myself indefinitely. My dad was provided with a rum baba the size of  a hat. The desserts were as good as you would find in any patisserie and there is no possible criticism you can level at an all you can eat French cheeseboard.I think if my fifteen year old self had been to this place, it might not have taken me five more years to understand the appeal of Paris.

18 Rue Paul Bert  75011 Paris, France +33 1 43 72 24 01

Over the past few weeks, I have been making the transition from studying all hours of day and night combined with two part-time jobs, to a more leisurely life working a part-time job that currently involves sitting around a room complaining about the industrial conflict which currently prevents me from doing my job. It’s been a challenge. To fill the void in my life that was once filled with making flashcards, I’ve turned to making bread. Having a loaf of fresh bread on the table feels like an achievement. It gives the impression that you have something to show for a day that has mainly involved flicking between The Guardian, Broadsheet and old episodes of The Colbert Report, interspersed with napping. Moreover, being able to make bread seems to be an intrinsic part of Danish culture.  Most young Danish people I’ve met make their own, and every supermarket will sell both fresh and dried yeast. I saw this recipe on Food 52 (originally from Jim Lahey’s ‘My Bread’) and decided I had to try a recipe that compared making bread to having a pet cat. It requires minimum effort, a little bit of waiting, and given that I have used it six times with five perfect results, and one almost perfect result*, I would have to say it is foolproof. I’ve adapted a plain loaf to make a tomato and fennel loaf, which is fantastic with some very seasonal wild garlic pesto and a schmear of goats cheese. This makes a decent 500g loaf, and just requires you to plan a day ahead.

*This recipe is designed for white flour. If you use wholemeal flour you will get a denser loaf that doesn’t rise as much. A 50/50 mix yields good results.

Ingredients

• 400g white flour
• 300ml cold water
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1g (1/4 teaspoon) dried yeast, or 3g fresh yeast
• 1-2 tablespoons fennel seeds
• 2 tablespoons tomato puree
• 2-3 tablespoons finely chopped sun dried tomato

Method

• Put the flour and salt in a large bowl.
• Dissolve the tomato puree and yeast in the water.
• Stir into the flour with a wooden spoon until you have a dough.
• Mix in the fennel seeds and sundried tomato.
• Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave for 12-18 hours covered (it will rise massively).
• Take it out of the bowl with floured hands, and knead together for a minute or so on a floured surface until it forms a coherent ball coated in flour.
• It will still be more sticky than you think is right, but it is, you don’t need to add more flour.
• Wrap in a tea towel and leave for 1-2 hours.
• It’s ready when you stick your finger in it and it leaves an indentation.
• During the last half hour or so of this, put a big casserole dish (apparently called a Dutch oven in the States?) or metal pot with a lid big enough to fit the dough almost doubling in size) in the oven at 250C to preheat.
• When the dough is raised, shape it into a loaf.
• Dust the now heated pot (carefully) with flour.
• Add the loaf to the heated pot and put in the oven with the lid on for 30 minutes.
• Take off the lid and cook in the oven for about another ten minutes, until the outside is crispy and golden brown.
• Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack for 30-45 minutes.

For the last few years, my favourite presents to receive have been anything kitchen related. Sad, but true. A few years ago my parents gave me my first proper kitchen knife, brought back from Paris. It was the year I learned the value of lying when someone asks ‘what did Santa bring you for Christmas’ (especially if you’re on a date). The shop they bought it in,  E.Dehillerin,  is the ultimate cooking shop. Nearly 200 years old, and based in the heart of the former market quarter of Les Halles in central Paris, it supplies every conceivable kitchen utensil, pot, pan and gadget.  Walking through the front door, you are met with a wall of copper moulds and pans of every imaginable shape and size.

On the ground floor, they sell every utensil you never knew you needed in a labyrinthine tangle of aisles. If you are the kind of person who looks at their 23cm kitchen knife and think you really could also do with a 25cm knife, this is the place for you. Petit fours moulds, knives, spatulas, sieves and pots leave floor to ceiling shelves groaning, and even then, once you look up you will find whisks the size of your legs adorning the ceiling beside frying pans and cake tins. Downstairs is geared towards professional kitchens, with  copper pots big enough for me to be able to hide inside them, should I ever need.

This is not the place to bag a bargain, and the pricing system is a little hard to work out, each item being coded with books of codes located at the end of each shelf. Everything sold here is designed to last, the kind of thing you will pass on to the next generation. Defying Parisian guide book stereotypes, the staff are friendly, speak English, and turn a blind eye to annoying tourists like me taking photos of their shop.

E.Dehillerin: 18 et 20, rue Coquillière – 51, rue Jean- Jacques Rousseau – 75001 PARIS
Phone: +33 1 42 36 53 13 – Fax: +33 1 42 36 54 80

Frikadeller are a quintessential Danish tradition. They are so commonly eaten that supermarkets sell mixed packs of pork and beef mince for making them at home. Everyone has their own recipe, and different ideas on what makes them work. In the South of Denmark, some people add sparkling  water to the mix instead of milk to make them lighter and puffier (I have no idea if this works, it sounds like an old wives tale). I made these recently for my first overseas guests who came to see me in Aarhus undaunted by four hour train journeys, the prospect of sleeping on my kitchen floor and the exorbitant cost of just about everything you’d like to do on a holiday.

You can add in different things to flavour these or just keep them plain and traditional. The mustard sauce is not in any way traditional, it is meant to be served with gravadlax, but I have a debilitating mustard addiction (if by debilitating you mean regular sneezing due to eating too much mustard) and it does complement the pork nicely.

Photos courtesy of the lovely and talented Caoileann Appleby

Ingredients

• 250g pork mince
• 250g beef mince
• 1/2 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 100ml milk
• 100-115g oatmeal
• 75g finely chopped cooked bacon, basil, or whatever else you fancy.

Mustard sauce

• 4 tablespoons mustard
• 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
• 1 tablespoon chopped dill
• 1-2 teaspoons sugar or honey

Method

• Mix all the ingredients together and season very well.
• Add more oatmeal if the mixture is too liquid.
• If the onion is not finely chopped enough, it will make the mixture quite watery.
• Fry off a small piece over medium heat to check seasoning, they will probably need a lot more salt than you would think.
• Form the mince into golfball sized balls.
• Either pan fry in batches over medium heat until browned all over (10-15 minutes), turning often. If they feel soft they aren’t finished yet.
• Alternatively, the far more hassle free way is to brush them with olive oil and bake on a tray lined with baking paper in an oven at 250C for 20-25 minutes until browned.
• To make the sauce, whisk the ingredients together into a bowl until you get an emulsified mayonnaise consistency sauce.

This post would perhaps be better entitled the triumph of hope over experience. It is mid-March and snow is whirling outside my window. This morning Rene Redzepi tweeted a picture of snow covered patio chairs and announced spring had come to Copenhagen. Up in Aarhus we are on snow warnings so severe there are threats that schools and businesses will close (I did not think an actual snow day was possible in Denmark). And yet, despite this, I have just bought a basil plant. For my herb garden. The herb garden I have been attempting to cultivate on my window sill. Through a Scandinavian winter. Let that sink in for a minute…

This will be my fourth basil plant. I am currently nursing the fifth mint, third thyme, and god only knows what parsley. I have come to accept that dill will be an unrequited love. I have a valiant, tragic, moribund tarragon plant languishing in the corner like a consumptive Belle Époque heroine. It was the only plant waiting for me after a weeks holiday in Holland, and now in the last throes of winter, it is giving up the ghost. I like to think of my herb garden as the triumph of hope over experience, but more likely it is just undeniable evidence that I am an absolute eejit. If you are lucky enough to live further from the Arctic tundra, or have a better grasp of horticulture, this dip is a lovely way to use up some herbs.

Makes a big cereal bowl party sharing sized amount.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
• 3-4 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour cream
• 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon buttermilk (optional)
• 1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
• 1/2 to 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 chopped shallot
• 1 chopped garlic clove
• Salt and pepper

Method

• Blend all the ingredients in a large bowl with a stick blender.
• Use your own judgement and taste to decide how much vinegar to add in and whether or not to add a bit of sugar.
• Season according to taste and serve.