Gazpacho 🌱

Today, the sun has been shining from a clear blue sky. No clouds. No wind. It has been one of those hot, lazy summer days. Hot, lazy summer days call for cold soups. Like this raw food Spanish classic. For optimal taste, use organic, sun-ripened veggies. And for optimal refreshing effect, serve the soup chilled….

Birthday number cake

Today, my big one turns six. It feels like she was a baby yesterday. I still remember holding her in my arms for the first time. She was so tiny and totally dependent on me. Now, she’s a big girl, who can cook risotto with a little help and ride the bus all by herself….

Feta cheese with cantaloupe and beluga lentil salad and fresh spinach 💚

I had this dish some years ago in a hip, local-oriental restaurant in Zurich called Bebek. It’s a really simple dish, where the harmonic combination of sweet and salty will make your mouth go wild. Start with the melon and lentil salad by boiling beluga lentils for 30 minutes. Cut the pulp of a cantaloupe…

Strawberry cake

Strawberries, especially served as a cake, are an integral part of Midsummer. These portion cakes consist of crisp waffle cups, soft vanilla pudding and sun-warm strawberries. A taste of summer. Start with the vanilla pudding. Mix 4 dl milk, 50 g brown sugar, 4 tbsp corn starch, 3 egg yolks and the seeds of one…

Chorizo lamb with pressed cucumber salad

Soft lamb sirloin, spicy chorizo and crunchy cucumber – this summery low-carb dish combines French haute cuisine, Spanish tradición culinaria and Nordic husmanskost at their finest. Start with the pressed cucumber salad. Slice a cucumber very thinly (e.g. with a mandoline). Salt the cucumber slices and place them into a sieve. Cover and weight down…

Midsummer tapas

My Midsummer tapas unites the traditional tastes of this festivity: pickled herring, egg, potato, onion, dill, chive and crème fraîche. I pickled the herring and baked the crispbread myself, but obviously you can opt for a bough version. The three tapas dishes can be served separately as appetizers or – as in this case –…

Midsummer feast menu

Midsummer – the longest day of the year, the astronomical beginning of summer and an important festivity in the Nordics. From a culinary point of view, I associate Midsummer with herring, new potatoes, spring onion, dill, strawberries and snaps. This year, our midsummer feast menu consisted of the following dishes: Midsummer tapas Chorizo lamb with…

Water melon on feta cheese and spring onion salad 💚

On a hot day like today, it’s important to stay well hydrated. Next to water, minerals like sodium and potassium are crucial. This beautiful and refreshing dish takes perfect care of your hydration status: The juicy water melon is great for your water balance, the salty feta cheese provides your body with much needed sodium…

Shrimp • Spinach • Red onion • Taleggio cheese

Last autumn, we visited Calabria. Calabria is famous a for its red onions and chilis. I immediately fell in love with a side combining these two ingredients with semisoft cheese. In this dish, the red onions are accompanied by spinach and shrimps. Red onions with Taleggio cheese: Chop red onions and mix them with salt,…

Perch • Orange • Blueberry • Lemon thyme

I associate fish with the Finnish archipelago, which – who’d’ve thought – is my favorite place on earth. So my passion for fish is quite natural. Fish makes me feel at home. When I grew up, there used to be a lot of perch in the brackish water surrounding our summer cottage. Perch is a…

Halloumi stuffed bell pepper with mint oil 💚

Lunch usually needs to be quick. Correspondingly, the work steps mustn’t be complicated and the number of ingredients has to be small. This only five-ingredient dish is flavorful and comes together really easily. Add some edible flowers and you’ll have yourself a lovely lunch. Remove the top of your bell peppers (I used white ones)….

Poached chicken with my mole variation and roasted sweet potato rounds

Haute cuisine presentation of traditional food fascinates me. It’s an art to be able to modernize a dish without losing its soul. The Mexican chef Enrique Olvera manages to do this with mole. Totally recognizing that I haven’t used exclusively authentic ingredients, this is my fine-dining adaptation of the traditional Mexican sauce. My mole variation:…

Steamed salmon on a lukewarm potato and radish salad with tarragon dressing

Steamed fish with boiled potatoes is as Nordic as food can get. We used to eat fish pretty much every day during my childhood Summer vacation. Which lasted ten to eleven weeks. No wonder fish is a soul food mine. This is a fast dinner recipe for a busy work day. Steam or boil quartered…

Loquat • Pistachio • Date • Yoghurt

I went to the market with my girls the other day and run into these amazing loquats. My younger daughter was immediately fascinated by them and – as a matter of fact – I couldn’t resist them either. I tried to emphasize the pleasant acidity of the fruits with sweet pistachio cookies and raw date…

Raspberry mousse in dark chocolate cups 🌱

Today, I treated myself to a new kitchen utensil – a silicon sphere freezer mold. I didn’t buy it in order to make ice, though. I intended to use it for spherical desserts, like this one. Chocolate cups: Melt 25 g dark chocolate and coat the bottom half of the sphere mold. Let set in…