Author: Blondie

Brazilian Fish Stew – Moqueca

Brazilian Fish Stew – Moqueca
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Brazilian Fish Stew – Moqueca is a beautiful, full flavoured fish stew with coconut milk, heat from chilies, sweetness from the capsicum with a zing of lime juice… such gorgeous flavours all in one bowl.

You could use any seafood/crustacean in this recipe, actually, more the merrier. If I had more on hand I certainly would have thrown them in. I like to keep the fish fillets whole rather than cut into pieces and to very quickly sear the fish and prawns, remove them and then de-glaze the pan with the stock. It’s incredibly fast so just have all your ingredients ready to be thrown into the pan.

Eat it with a bowl of rice, crusty bread or like a soup with rice noodles – yes, not very Brazilian but oh so good!

Slurp away… Blondie  xx

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Mushroom foraging trip #2

We went for our second mushroom forage for this year, back to our usual spot at Belanglo.

Finding Feasts - Mushroom-Foraging-in-NSW_Belanglo_8

Our first trip, about 3 weeks ago gave us a promising outlook for the season. Although there weren’t many, we did come across a decent selection of our favourites – Saffron Milk Caps and Slippery Jacks. Our thinking was that because there were quite a few so early in the season, that when we arrive this weekend there should be loads more… So wrong!

Continue reading “Mushroom foraging trip #2” →

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Joulutorttu – Finnish Prune Tarts

Finding Feasts - Finnish Prune Tarts - joulutorttu
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One of the most traditional of traditions for a Finn is the making of joulutorttu – finnish prune tarts.

These are a labour of love if you choose to make your own jam and dough. The pastry needs to be made the day before and left overnight in the fridge. The Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup can be made weeks prior… just make sure you make enough so you can have them on ice cream!

You can use any jam of your choice but traditionally it’s a prune jam.

These are wonderful and festive, Christmas just isn’t Christmas till these come out.

Have a very Merry Christmas everyone!

Blondie 🙂

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Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup

Finding Feasts - Prunes in Spiced Port Syrup
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Prunes in Port and Spice Syrup, Christmas is only 10 weeks away so Bella and I are going to start getting our traditional Finnish and Polish recipes together.

This one is in preparation for the Finnish prune tarts that are eaten at Christmas time, although I have done it slightly different to traditional recipes, in that I have added some traditional Christmas spices to the port.

Finnish Christmas’ are celebrated on the 24th of December (in case you were wondering, Santa generally sneaks into the house while we are all around the dinner table, or conveniently distracted by something amazing) with huge feasts of hams and other roast meats, casseroles and salads – mum does an incredible beetroot and herring salad that’s just so scrumptious and works perfectly with the heat of the Australian Christmas. There are also lots of sweet dishes eaten but the main two that we grew up with are gingerbread biscuits and Finnish prune tarts – joulutorttu.

This prune in port syrup recipe is for making the prune jam that goes into the centre of the tarts – the jam is normally made with just prunes, sugar and water then pushed through a sieve or blitzed in a processor till it’s to a jam consistency. I have decided to have the prunes soak in the port and spice syrup till I make the tarts, which will be in a couple of weeks… I was also craving the syrup, warmed up, on ice cream – a girls to satisfy her cravings!

Don’t be put off with the idea of prunes as once you have tried them this way there’s no going back…

Blondie 🙂

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Korvapuusti – Pulla aka Finnish Cardamom Scrolls

Finding Feasts | Pulla Sweet Finnish Cardamom Bread
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Pulla – a cardamom laced, sweet Finnish bread – that is devoured by the truck load by the Finns! Eaten with coffee, this bread is as traditional as Karelian Pies.

There are 3 main ways of having them… round like a plain bun, plaited into a loaf which is sliced (grandpa’s favourite, along with a very thick slathering of butter on top, dipped into his strong coffee) and finally the scrolls with sugar and cinnamon rolled through it. The later is my favourite way of having them, along with every kid who ever gets a chance to try them.

I have done two recipes for this Pulla, one for hand kneading and one if using a bread maker (coming up shortly). They are slightly different, but both work beautifully.

I also have another recipe coming up – Pulla bread and butter pudding – after burning my first batch of hand kneaded Pulla. There was no way I was going to let all that effort go to waste!

Finding Feasts | Pulla Sweet Finnish Cardamom Bread

Enjoy!

Blondie

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Shiitake and Pork Spring Rolls

FinSkis Pork and Shiitake Spring Rolls
Shiitake and Pork Spring Rolls recipe

Shiitake and Pork Spring Rolls… One of my favourite recipe books at the moment is Thai Street Food by David Thompson. It’s a massive book both in content and actual size, brimming with gorgeous Thai recipes and stunning photography.

I often go through stages of food styles and my latest one is Thai – although this one has been going on for a while – as soon as there is a warm day I find myself drawn back into the heady aroma of Asian cooking.

This is my first attempt at this one, well, it’s my first attempt at spring rolls so I was quite surprised at how difficult it was to separate the spring roll sheets, but was equally surprised at just how stretchy they were. I was certain I was going to tear them to pieces trying to pull them apart, and I wasn’t being at all gentle!

I got 8 large spring rolls from this recipe so when I do them again I will be at least tripling the ingredients just so I have leftovers to freeze. I like to have emergency rations for when family or friends drop around or to take with me when it’s my family doing the drop-ins.

Happy folding!

Blondie

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