DAD'S PICKLED SUMMER GHERKINS

Ooooooh

Pickled Gherkins

Gherkin - what a funny name isn't it?

:)

Ingredients: 

As many small gherkins as you want

For 1 l water:

1.5 tbsp corser/sea salt

0.5 tbsp sugar

handful dill

handful black currant leaves

2-3 garlic cloves / halved

Add cold water in a big bowl and leave the gherkins there for 1 hour.

Cook the water with salt and sugar. Let it cool down.

In a large jar place some black currant leaves, some dill and garlic. Put 1 layer of gherkins on the top. Then add again black currant leaves, dill and garlic and put another layer of gherkins on the top. Do it as long as the jar is full. Add some black currant leaves on the top.
Add salt/sugar water.

Leave it overnight in fridge.

You can already enjoy them the next day.

This recipe is linked to Foodie Friends Friday 

BUCKWHEAT CRACKERS

Midsommer is soon here.

This is perfect little snack for summer solstice party.

Or however you call it in your country:

Adonia

St. John's Feast Day

Ligo

Lida

Midsommar

Ivan Kupala Day

Juhannus

Alban Hefin

Gwyl Ganol yr Haf

Sankthans

Jaanipäev

Keskikesä

Rasos

Ingredients:

1 cup/ 150g plain flour

1 cup/ 100g buckwheat flour 

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground pepper

1 tbsp sesam seeds

1 tbsp linseeds

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 cup/ 115 g heavy cream (a bit more if needed)

Combine the flour, sugar, salt and pepper. Add butter (I am doing it with a food processor but you can make the dough by hand if you wish so). Mix well.

Pour in the cream and pulse until rough mass forms.

Scrape the dough out onto a clean work surface and gently squeeze it together. Add a few more drops of cream if the dough will not hold a soft shape. Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for at least 20 minutes for up to1 hour.

Preheat an oven to 350F / 177C.

Unwrap the dough, cut it half and place one half on lightly floured baking paper. Roll out the dough into a rectangular sheet as thin as possible. Add the seeds evenly on the top of the dough. Roll over the sheet once more. Cut the sheet of dough into shapes now if you wish.

Place the sheet with the baking paper on the oven pan and bake until they are crisp and light brown, 12 to 15 minutes.

Do the same with the second half of the dough.

Eat with cream cheese&avocado spread.

The Crackers recipe is modified after Williams-Sonoma recipe.

This is Bake Along event organized by Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT DREAM WITH HOMEMADE BUTTER AND KNÄCKEBRÖD

There is a beautiful Midsummer fairy tale of two eternal Nordic lovers, the beautiful girl called Dust and a handsome boy called Dawn. They only meet once a year, on the shortest night of the year and kiss briefly.

To wait the whole year for this one kiss. Wow. This has to be something special :).




For the midsummer buffet I made homemade butter and swedish flatbread called knäckebröd. Unbelievably easy and tasty.


HOMEMADE BUTTER WITH CHILI & CHIVES

500g heavy cream
Sea salt
1 little red chili pepper
handful chopped fresh chives

Process heavy cream with electric mixer until buttermilk separates from the solid butter. Pour off (or save) the buttermilk. Remove the butter from the machine, squeeze it into a ball and wash it under cold running water several times until the water runs clear.
Add seasalt, chopped red chili, chives and mix it all together.


KNÄCKEBRÖD & SWEDISH FLATBREAD

150g flour
ca 50g water
sesame seeds
sea salt

Mix flour with salt. Knead together flour, sesame seeds and water until the dough is smooth. Add more water if necessary. Make little dough balls. Roll them out very thin on the floured surface. It is important that the dough is as thin as possible. Then bake each of them on the frying pan without oil until crisp on the both sides.

Enjoy with homemade butter.

Smakligt maltid!

KOHUPIIMAKORBID - ESTONIAN CURD CHEESE BUNS

Summer is short. I can't believe it is already June. Time flies. One of the biggest festive activities in Nordics - Midsummer - is almost here.
There are different midsummer traditions in north. In Sweden you eat herring with new boiled potatoes, jump around the maypole and sing a song of little frog
Estonians jump over fire, eat a lot of bbq meat and traditional curd cheese buns. Estonians love their curd cheese. They eating it in various forms, salty and sweet, in porridge and with chocolate.
And in Switzerland people don't celibrate midsummer at all :(. It is just not enough north. But I decided to celibrate it anyway and baked those lovely little estonian curd cheese buns. It feels almost like home even with Alps and cows as background :).

SOULFOOD:
VILLE VALO " SUMMER WINE"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8VpOJeUBhY

First you need to make the yeast dough from my white loaf recipe http://mumsfilibaba-mumsfilibaba.blogspot.com/2011/05/braided-white-loaf.html.

Divide the dough in 12 little parts. Cover and let rise for 30 minutes. Then press the dough balls down with a bottom of a glass that has smaller diameter than the dough ball. Fill it with the following filling:

Curd cheese mix:
250g curd cheese or ricotta
0.5g sugar
1 egg
100g sour cream
1 tsp lemon juice
I have added 2-3 mashed strawberries.

Mix everything and fill the buns. Brush the edges with cold egg.
Bake at 200C for 15 minutes.

Head Jaanipäeva!