Vegan Magenta Food 🌱

When I saw that lovely Lim organized a one color food challenge on Instagram, I couldn’t resist participating. Lim had one ask for me – to create a purple dish. Obviously, I wanted to comply. My contribution has the color magenta – a shade of purple (I checked!). Chokeberry jelly: Mix 250 ml chokeberry juice…

Vegan Rispor 🌱

Today, I’m super excited to be cooking for Across Kitchen Lines together with Tarun Sehgal. I’ve prepared a very traditional Swiss dish from the canton of Uri featuring rice and leek. As always, I veganized it and plated it à la Heidi. Risotto: Toast Riso Venere. Add an equal amount of finely chopped leek and…

Vegan Leek Variations 🌱

Combining different textures creates a culinary sensation of a completely new dimension. In this dish, which works equally well as a side and on its own, silky, soft, firm and crunchy elements are all married on the plate. Dried leek: Clean the green part of a leak thoroughly. Separate the leaves and dry at 80°C…

Shallot • Potato • Flower sprout • Cashew 🌱

High–quality produce with a long history of togetherness are again married in this plant-based dish. The mellow pastel colors with darker accents cater for a pleasant experience for the eye and the palate. Shallot pickles: Peel and halve shallots. Pickle in a pickling liquid consisting of equal parts of water and vinegar seasoned with agave…

Turnip • Skirret • Raisin • Yellow beet 🌱

When moving abroad, you don’t only leave people and places behind, but also tastes. For me, turnip was a veggie I greatly missed after moving to Switzerland. It’s fairly uncommon in the German-speaking part of the country, so you can imagine the joy I felt, when I found it on the farmers’ market. In Finland,…

Color My Food White 🌱

Leek, black salsify, parsley root, Jerusalem artichoke, beer radish, black radish, Japanese artichoke and fennel. So different and yet – so similar. The pulp of all these wonderful winter veggies is white. And that’s the theme of this plant-based dish: White. Sous vide leek: Cut the white part of the leek into pieces of 2…

Salmon • Beetroot • Grapefruit • Onion

A Christmas wreath on a plate – that’s what I’d like to think this dish represents. Soft tones of purple, pink and terracotta with dark highlights. A feast for both mouth and eye. And a perfect dish to kick off Christmas – Glad Lillajul! Finely blend 250 g of canned chickpeas with aquafaba, 150 g…

Pumpkin • Apple • Cabbage • Hazelnut • Leek • Brussels sprout 🌱

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a plating class organized by amazing Sabrina Cipolla. Her elevated and elegant, yet light and playful plates are simply awe-inspiring. When I saw this month’s food basket for the November challenge by Foodblogs Schweiz, I couldn’t resist trying to capture all the ingredients in a way she taught…

Herb soup 🌱

Summer is long gone and autumn is taking over. The chilly temperatures turn nature orange; green will soon be a past memory. Before that happens to my kitchen garden, I collected the very last herbs and turned them into a hearty, plant-based soup. Peel and chop parsnip, parsley root, yellow carrot and shallot. Sauté the…

Scallop • Elderberry • Carrot • Bean

For the second dish I created on the occasion of this month’s Food Blog Challenge by Foodblogs Schweiz, I paired elderberries, different beans and heirloom carrots with scallops. This is the outcome. For the broth, combine fish stock with elderberry juice. You can use store bought products or make your own. For the fish stock, cover fish…

Fennel • Carrot • Onion • Tamarind 💚

When experimenting in the kitchen, I like combining components with different textures. Soft. Crunchy. Creamy. Chewy. You’ll find all these textures in this dish: Grilled fennel with a fresh carrot green salad, tart pickled red onions and a sweet tamarind dressing. Start with the pickled onions. Bring the pickling liquid consisting of one part water…

Pickled chard and rhubarb with wild garlic coated Vacherin Mont-d’Or and fried wild garlic bulbs

And the challenge continues. Last month, I wrote about the Food Blog Challenge organized by Foodblogs Schweiz and my three vegetarian dishes featuring hazelnut and carrots (a pie, pasta and a soup). This month, the provided food basket contained wild garlic, rhubarb, chicory, mint, spinach and chard. Challenging. Very challenging, indeed. I pulled all my…

Agretti • Scallop • Onion • Prosecco

Salsola soda. Barilla plant. Barba di frate. Friar’s beard. Agretti. We find many names for those we love. And we do love this springtime Mediterranean succulent. It has a grassy spinach-y taste, a crisp texture and a vibrantly green colour. Last week, I stumbled across it in the newly opened gourmet shop Frischeparadies in Basel….

Gift in a jar: Good Luck Soup 🌱

On New Year’s Eve, lentils are traditionally eaten in Italy for good fortune and prosperity in the new year. An edible Christmas present embracing this lovely custom – is there a more suitable giveaway by a food blogger? This hearty lentil soup has a nice balance thanks to the sweet coconut and tart apricot. The…

Peanut buttered carrot soup 🌱

I love the idea of how talented chefs invent new dishes by combining tastes they store in their flavor memory. Once in a while, I venture that kind of creative cooking myself. I’m limited by my personal flavor memory, though. And one flavor that seems to be missing is peanut butter. The reason is probably…

Bœuf bourguignon

Brown bistro food or “certainly one of the most delicious beef dishes concocted by man” to quote the French cuisine guru Julia Child. That’s bœuf bourguignon. Even though visually not the most appealing dish there is, the strong flavors enhanced by slow cooking make this red wine braised beef stew perfect for Sunday feast. For…

Steamed perch

As I told you in a former blog post, perch used to be really common in the waters surrounding our summer cottage. Today, it’s hard to catch any at all. This summer, we had perch only once. As always, it was seasoned with coarse salt, allspice and bay leaves, poached and served with buttered crispbread….

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,…

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:…

Homemade chicken broth

Do you remember my deboning operation in connection with my green springtime menu? And the mountain of chicken bones as a result thereof. Those chicken bones transformed into a delicious, full-flavored chicken broth. Fry spring onions, garlic, a carrot and the chicken bones in some olive oil. Taste with salt, black pepper, chili and parsley….

Pickled lemons à la marocaine 🌱

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade, they said. I made pickles. But then again, I’ve always been a rebel. Thoroughly rinse and scrub organic lemons. Cut off the ends and quarter the lemons leaving the bases attached. Gently pull the lemons open and sprinkle each with 1 tbsp sea salt. Place the lemons with…