Cold Rise: Potato Focaccia

These Focaccia buns are great for soup, but I find they work their best magic as burger buns. Because of the texture, your burger will not get soggy, and the salt and oily crust gives the burger experience a whole other dimension.

Lemon Chicken & New Potatoes

Ingredients

New potato salad
10 small new potatoes
Grated sea salt
Grated Pepper
1 small table-spoon of butter
1 table-spoon of olive oil
1 hand full of thyme

Lemon chicken
1-2 chicken breasts
Grated pepper and sea salt
1 lemon slice (1/2 -1 tablespoon of juice)
4 basil leaves
Butter and oil for the pan

Make Lemon Chicken & New Potato Salad

Wash the potatoes well to get rid of any dirt. Boil the potatoes until they are cooked, check with a knife, if it slides into the potato without resistance it is ready. Drain the ready boiled potatoes and add them to a bowl. Pour over olive oil and add the butter. Use a pair of scissors to cut the thyme and grate sea salt and black pepper over the potatoes,  mix well. Serve with Bean and Radish salad.

The potatoes and the salad fit well with other types of meat as well. The second time I made this dish I made it with pork chops. I used thyme instead of basil and I didn’t use lemon. Rub, salt, pepper and chopped thyme onto the meat and fry it on medium heat in a mix of butter and oil.

Oven Baked Chicken with Party Potatoes and Sauce Bretagne

Oven baked chicken and sauce Bretagne

450 grams of chicken filets
2-3 garlic cloves
3/4 of a red pepper
1 deciliter of water
40 grams of butter
1 small onion
1 finely chopped garlic clove
1 deciliter of  cream
1 deciliter of creme fraiche
1 small tablespoon of tomatpuré
1/2 a dice of chicken stock
Salt and pepper
One small handful of finely chopped parsley

Party Potatoes

6 medium sized potatoes
5-6 tomatoes
1 small bunch of spring onion
100 grams of bacon
75 grams of  cheddar
Sour cream
Milk
Butter
Salt and Pepper

Making Oven Baked Chicken with Party Potatoes

Wash the potatoes and put them in a preheated oven, 200 degrees Celsius for 40 minutes. While the potatoes bake you cut tomatoes and  spring onions, and  fry cut bacon strips crispy. You should now have time to start on the chicken.

When the potatoes are done, slice off 1/3 of the top and scoop out the pulp, making it into a boat-shaped shell. Prepare the pulp like you would mashed potatoes, using  sour cream (3 spoons), milk (3 splashes), and butter (2 spoons) to your taste. Season with salt and pepper. Paprika powder might also give it a nice flavour. Now add a little bit of shredded cheddar to the mix, then gradually the veggies & bacon (*but don’t use it all). Spoon the mashed mixture back into the boats til they are full. Decorate the top  with cheddar, then with veggies and bacon. Pop the potatoes back in the oven for 10-15 minutes so they can heat up again and the cheese becomes melted. When they are done you can have your potato NOMathon!!!

Rinse the chicken breasts and slice of any bits you don’t like. Make holes in the skin with a knife and stuff it with finely cut slices/pieces of garlic cloves, about 6 per chicken breast. Add the chicken breast to an oven proof dish. Now you start on the sauce. Add red pepper and water to a food processor and spin until it is nicely mixed. Add butter to a sauce pan and toss in finely chopped garlic. Add the rest of the ingredients except for parsley, salt and pepper and let boil up. Let boil for five minutes and add parsley, salt and pepper by taste. Pour the sauce over the chicken and kick it in the oven. Takes about 13-15 minutes, it differs from oven to oven. Try to time it so that you put the chicken in at the same time as the oven potatoes.

Inspired by Christina

Beef stew with Norwegian Brown Cheese

Ingredients

1 yellow onion
4 carrots
600 grams of potatoes
3-4 slices of bacon
4-6  champignons (depending on size)
2,5 deciliters of crème fraîche
40 grams of Norwegian brown cheese
400-500 grams of red meat in cubes
Chives

Making Beef stew with Brown Cheese

Peel potatoes and carrots and cut them into big cubes, the champignon you cut in slices. Add potatoes and carrots to a casserole with boiling water and boil shortly until they are a little tender. This way they won’t take to long to cook through in the finished stew.

Finely chop onion and bacon and add it to a casserole where you let it sizzle away on medium heat until golden in colour.  Add diced beef and let brown in the pan, add some butter if the grease of the bacon does not suffice. When the meat has gotten some colour you add potatoes, carrots and mushrooms and let fry for 5 minutes while stirring occasionally. Finally you add the  crème fraîche and finely chopped brown cheese. Leave to boil until the vegetable and the meat is tender and the sauce begins to thicken. This shouldn’t take long now that you have pre cooked the vegetables (which by the way is up to you).

Add salt and pepper by taste, sprinkle some freshly cut chives on top and serve with a side of lingonberry jam.

Homemade Burgers and Fries

Homemade Burger Buns

200 ml warm water
3 tablespoons warm milk
2 teaspoons dried yeast
2,5 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons warm butter
1,5 teaspoons salt
1 beaten egg
750 ml white flour
Sesame seeds

Making Homemade Burger Buns

Combine the warm water, milk, sugar and yeast in a cup and let it stay for about 5 minutes until it becomes foamy.

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter so it becomes very small crumbs. Then add in the yeast mixture and the beaten egg and combine it into a non-sticky dough. After that put the dough onto a non-floured surface and start working it for about 5 or 10 minutes. Form the dough into a round shape and leave it to rest at a warm place until it has doubled in size.

Line a baking tray with baking paper and part the dough into 8-10 pieces, depending how big you want the buns to be. shape them into a round and put them onto the baking paper with at least 3 cm between them. Let rise for another hour.

At the bottom of your oven, set a baking tray or pan with water and preheat the oven to 200° celsius. If you want, put some sesame onto the buns, and brush them with some milk or another beaten egg. Bake the buns for about 15 minutes until the tops are golden brown.

Homemade Burgers

500 grams of minced beef
1 onion
1 egg
Bread crumbs
Salt
Pepper
1 teaspoon paprika powder

Making homemade burgers 

Chop up the onion in small pieces (they have to be pretty small, otherwise the burger patties tend to fall apart) and kick them with the mince and the egg into a bowl. Also add a good bit of salt (it is important you give the mince plenty of salt so that it has enough taste), some pepper and 1 teaspoon paprika powder. Of course you can also add other spices to you burgers, that is really up to you. now mix the mince-mix together and add as much breadcrumbs as you need to get a sticky mixture. Before you shape the patties, fry up a little bit of your meat to check if it has enough salt.

When you are happy with the taste of your meat, shape it into patties and fry them up on a medium heat in a good bit of oil or butter.

Now you only need to assemble your burgers with whichever ingredients you like best. We often use lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sweetcorn, pickles and/or pineapple. Also we use some hamburger dressing or ketchup.

Oven-fried Potatoes

6 Potatoes
Salt, pepper and paprika powder

Making Oven-fried Potatoes

Well, this is really easy actually: Peel the potatoes, cut them into boats or chips-like shapes and boil them until they are done, but not falling apart. Then take the potatoes out of the water, slightly bruise them by shaking in the pot with a lid on, and after put them onto a baking paper-lined baking tray. Drizzle the chips with oil and spices and bake them in a 200°C oven until they are crisp (that won’t take long, probably about 20 minutes).

After that just put the burgers and chips onto a plate and enjoy.

This might seem like a bit of work, but it is absolutely worth it, you will have really really delicious burgers!