Some pictures from Nami-Nami garden, October 2012

My dear K. took some pictures of our beautiful garden last weekend. The gardening season is more or less over for this year - we picked our last tomatoes and aubergines/eggplants a fortnight ago, this weekend we harvested the last of beets, carrots and potatoes, as well as Jerusalem artichokes (the latter could stay in the ground until the Spring, but we wanted them out from a certain raised bed).

Despite the cold nights and heavy rains, the garden still has some amazing colours on display.

Cornus alba "Sibirica" aka red bark dogwood or red twig dogwood:
 

Quercus rubra aka northern red oak or champion oak:

The bright red and ripe fruit of Podophyllum emodi aka Himalayan mayapple or Indian may apple:


Hydrangea paniculata 'Grandiflora' aka panicled hydrangea:


The autumn look of Ligularia stenocephala aka leopard plant:


Hylotelephium spectabile (Sedum spectabile) aka showy stonecrop or ice plant in its full glory, Echinacea purpurea aka Eastern purple coneflower or purple coneflowe is finally loosing its beautiful colour:


One of my favourite apples back in Scotland was Egremont Russet - perhaps because it's very dissimilar to all the popular apple varieties in Estonia. The russet apple is often described as having a sweet and dry "nutty" flavour, and I agree. When establishing our garden 4 years ago, we ordered two Egremont Russet plants from  England to complement some of our local varieties. Although we got 2 beautiful ripe apples last year, then this year we've been blessed with almost twenty large and perfect russet-coloured dessert apples:



Aster novae-angliae aka aster "New England" is still looking pretty:


Sambucus nigra or black elder (lace black elder), variety 'Dissectum', has really been thriving in our garden. Earlier this year I used the blossoms to flavour raspberry jam and make several bottles of cordial for the forthcoming winter. Now the berries are ripe and I hope to make some black elderberry jam next weekend:


And last, but not least - our beautiful Rosa rugosa aka rugosa rose "Ritausma" has began to blossom again, for the third time this season, if I'm not mistaken:


Here's the garden update from May 2012, and here's the garden update in Estonian.

A recipe for Shakshuka (shakshouka), or eggs nested in spicy tomato sauce

You'll find the recipe for this wonderfully simple and flavoursome basic shakshouka at the end of this post. The colourful selection of hot peppers and tiny tomatoes is from our greenhouse.  


I went to Israel back in June (see disclaimer at the end of this post), and fell in love with shakshuka (also spelled as shakshouka). Shakshuka is a northern African dish, originally from Tunesia or Algeria (depends who you ask from) that has become extremely popular in Israel over the last decades. We were told on several occasion that this is one of the two dishes that every Israeli man knows how to cook (I cannot recall what was the other one. Anyone?). I'm sure Israeli women are pretty good in making this dish as well, but yes, it's mainly men who boast who can make and eat the most fragrant and spicy shakshuka for breakfast :)

As with many traditional dishes, there are as many recipes around as there are cooks.  The hugely popular Yotam Ottolenghi has a version in his second bestselling book, Plenty, using onions and plenty of bell peppers and you can see him making his version of shakshuka in this video recipe on Guardian's website. The guru of Jewish food, Claudia Roden, includes a recipe for shakshouka in her epic The Book of Jewish Food. She notes that  

"This name us used for all kinds of dishes involving fried vegetables with eggs broken on top. A variety of vegetables, from potatoes and broad beans to artichoke hearts and courgettes, are used in Tunesia, where the dish originated, but it is the version with onions, peppers and tomatoes that has been adopted in Israel as a popular evening meal".

Claudia Roden also includes two variations in her book - one with spicy merquez sausage, the other with white Bulgarian cheese.  In another excellent book, Tamarind and Saffron, Claudia Roden provides two recipes, one with the merquez sausage, the other one with peppers and garlic instead of onions, which also happens to be my Allium of choice for this recipe.

Janna Gur - a popular and well-known Israeli food writer whom we had a pleasure of meeting twice during our trip to Israel (she's standing on the far left on this photo) - has included a recipe and several variations of shakshuka in her beautiful The Book of New Israeli Food: A Culinary Journey. Janna claims that there are just three mandatory ingredients - tomatoes, hot sauce and eggs, and her basic recipe includes garlic, fresh and canned tomatoes, seasonings and eggs (note: NO peppers!). She also includes varieties with onions and peppers, with spicy merquez or small cocktail sausages, "the Israeli Army shakshuka" with canned corn, baked beans and sausages, as well as the mild tomatoless shakshuka with spinach and feta.

Last, but not least, there's a recipe for shakshuka in Rebbetzin G. H. Halpern's rather humorously written Confessions of a Kitchen Rebbetzin, using plenty of bell peppers (green, yellow and red), garlic cloves, eggs and spices. Rebbetzin goes as far as claiming that shakshouka is probably the dish Israelis enjoy eating most:

"What Israelis really dig is Shakshuka - a well seasoned North African dish of eggs in hot tomato sauce. The best and nicest (and most barbaric) way to eat it is straight from the pan, no utensils needed, by dipping thick chunks of simple bread."

Here are some of the shakshukas we  enjoyed during our trip to Israel*. First off, the large Shakshuka at restaurant Cordelia (Chef Nir Zook), Old Jaffa, Israel. Challah bread (on the background) is perfect for scooping up the spicy tomato and egg dish:
 

Here's a "single portion" shakshuka at Manta Ray, Jaffa, Israel - about to be devoured by the colourful Ms Marmite Lover. Note the thin layers of grilled cheese on top of the shakshuka - wonderful, if not traditional, addition. Another fellow traveller, David Lebovitz, mentions shakshuka in his extensive post about Israeli breakfast.
 

As the eggs play such an important role in this dish, it's best to use the freshest organic/free-range eggs you can afford. Luckily, our backyard chicken keep us well stocked with eggs at the moment and of course, I used eggs from our own chicken. Here are our Orpington chickens, Buffy and Fluffy, earlier this year. They're excellent layers:


My recipe below is pretty basic - just garlic, tomatoes, seasonings and eggs. Although you can use fresh tomatoes during the summer time, I'll include canned tomatoes in the recipe - the fresh tomato season is coming quickly to an end here in Estonia, and you wouldn't want to use the flavourless winter supermarket tomatoes here. You'll find links to fancier and more elaborate versions below. Somehow I prefer this dish to be very basic.

As hinted above, you need a good bread - no pita bread (that's for eating hummus!), but a nice challah or a bloomer or a crusty country bread to scoop up all the shakshuka from the pan!

A simple shakshuka recipe 
(Shakshuka ehk teravas tomatikastmes küpsetatud munad)
Serves one

1 Tbsp oil
1 large garlic clove, crushed
200 g chopped tomatoes
a generous pinch of chilli flakes or a scant teaspoon of harissa
a pinch of ground cumin
a pinch of ground caraway seeds
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs

Heat oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add garlic and fry gently, until garlic is golden.
Add the chopped tomatoes and the seasonings, stir, cover and let simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the tomato sauce is well flavoured and slightly thickened. Taste for seasonings - add more chilli or other spices, if necessary.
Using a spoon, make two dents into the tomato sauce and break an egg into each one. Sprinkle some salt on top and heat for another 5-6 minutes, until the egg white is thickened and the egg yolk is half-cooked (if you prefer your egg yolk fully cooked, cover the pan or transfer it under a hot grill for a few minutes.

Other foodbloggers writing about shakshouka (in English): 
Kitchen Parade (September 2012; Alanna hosted me generously - and fed me, of course - in June 2008. Do check out her blog, if you're not yet familiar with it)
The Wednesday Chef (September 2006)
Smitten Kitchen (April 2010; Deb crumbles feta cheese on top of her shakshouka)
The Bojon Gourmet (October 2011)
The Leftover Queen (May 2012)
The Shiksha in the Kitchen  (July 2010)
A Sweet Spoonful (March 2012, incl. fennel!)
Cook Republic (May 2011)

Other foodbloggers writing about shakshouka (in Estonian):
Ise tehtud. Hästi tehtud. (August 2011)

 * Disclaimer: I spent six days in Israel in late June/early July as a guest of a non-profit social start-up Kinetis, more specifically their Vibe Israel programme. This particular trip hosted five international food bloggers and writers, introducing them to the multifaceted and pluralist Israeli culture and cuisine. 

See other posts about my trip to Israel.

Some pictures from Nami-Nami garden, May 2012

I'm off to my high-school reunion today (20 years?!?!? How did that happen??), so instead of writing about food I quickly share some photos of our beautiful garden taken during the last few weeks.
Whereas I'm bossing around the kitchen these days, my dear K. is in charge of the garden. We have a very young garden - only established in 2009-2010. Last year K. submitted the garden to a major gardening competition, organised by the biggest selling monthly, Kodu & Aed. And we won the coveted main title :) Mind you, K. submitted the garden to the "Young Garden" competition category - most of the planting was done just a year or two earlier, so it's nowhere near the fully established garden. However, the jury liked the design and the ideas, the neat vegetable garden and the cool Coolaroo sun-shade and the chicken in an urban backyard and the fact that everything was designed to be enjoyed by the family (especially the children) and/or used for cooking purposes. And decided to give us the main price :)

Anyway, here are some pictures from May 2012, starting with the most recent ones:

 
Decorative apple "Liset" (31 May 2012)

 
Lilac "Catherine Havemeyer" (31 May 2012)

 
A gorgeous flowering quince that bears wonderful edible fruits (see here and here; do not confuse with "regular" quince, which also grows in our garden; 31 May 2012).


Spiraea cinerea (31 May 2012)

 
(20 May 2012)

 
Cushion Spurge (20 May 2012)

 
(20 May 2012)

 
Umbrella plant aka Indian rhubarb (20 May 2012)

 
 
Bergenias (20 May 2012)

 
(14 May 2012)

 
 Forsythia (14 May 2012)

 
(2 May 2012)

Our Chicken, spring 2012

Photo-shoot from earlier today, when we let our for chicks out from their winter hideaway. We first got the chicken in April 2010. Carol (the black Araucana hybrid) and Evita (the lavender Araucana) are with us from that period, the Orpingtons Buffy (black) and Fluffy ("blue") joined us in December 2011. All are still strong egg-layers :)

Buffy, Evita, Carol, Fluffy (and their Eglu in the background):


Fluffy:




Carol:




Buffy, Fluffy, Evita:


Evita:




Buffy & Fluffy:


More posts about chicken on this blog:
2010 overview (scroll down to April)

Our mushrooms

Last year we were picking morels (and turned them into a spectacular morel tatin), this time it's pennybuns :)

Which mushrooms are you picking from your own garden? ;)

Beautiful

Today is my little sister's birthday - no food post today, just a pretty flower from our garden :)

Delicious and crispy elderflower fritters

We're in the mood for fritters over here - which is weird, considering the heat-wave we've been having for the umpteenth day now. Last Friday I made deep-fried crispy stuffed courgette flowers, few days before that we all enjoyed these delicious elderflower fritters.

Elderflower as such is not new to Nami-Nami household. I've been using elderflower cordial to lend some floral notes and delicate flavour to a number of dishes - cold buttermilk soup 'koldskål', quick elderflower mousse, elderflower curd, strawberries with elderflower zabaglione, to name just a few that have made it to this food blog. We've been drinking elderflower fizz at home a lot. But I've always used a shop-bought cordial, as we didn't have an elderflower (Sambucus nigra) bush growing in our garden (they grow wild pretty much only on the Western isles). Two years ago, when we had to finalize the list of plants we wanted to have in our garden, elderflower was at the top of the list (alongside a proper quince tree and an Egremont Russet apple tree). Last year the elderflower was still too young to bear any blossoms, but this year was different.

When I first spotted this tiny promise back in late June, I was very, very excited, to say the least:


Some patience was needed, but eventually our black elder gave us these:



Like with all other fritters and donuts, these are best right after frying, doused with plenty of icing/confectioner's sugar that you can season with some vanilla powder or ground cinnamon.

Crispy elderflower fritters
(Frititud leedripuuõisikud)
Makes about 20-30 small fritters, enough for 5-6 hungry eaters

about 20-30 small elderflower clusters

Batter:
200 g plain flour (330 ml)
a pinch of salt
1 large egg
300 ml soda water or light beer or milk
a generous splash of grappa, Limoncello or rum

mild-tasting oil for deep-frying (I used rapeseed oil)

icing sugar/confectioner's sugar to serve

Sift the flour into a bowl, add salt and mix. Make a hole in the middle, break the egg into the hole. Whisk until combined, adding the liquid (water, beer or milk) gradually and finally mixing in the alcohol. Put into the fridge for about half an hour.
Meanwhile, clean the elderflower clusters from various critters and bugs (if you cannot see any, you can place the flowers into the freezer for 10 minutes or so - apparently this "scares" them out. To keep as much of the precious pollen, it's advisable not to rinse the blossoms). Cut the stem end as short as possible.
Heat about 4-5 cm (about 2 inches) of oil in a small saucepan. The temperature is about right when a little peeled potato cube or bread cube begins to sizzle and turns into nice golden brown when you drop it into the oil.



Now, working with couple of elderflowers at the time, dip them into the batter, then lower them into hot oil. Fry for about 2-3 minutes, then gently turn them over and let them brown on the other side as well. (I loved how they puffed up so nicely when lowered into the hot oil).
Using a slotted spoon, transfer them into a double layer of kitchen paper to drain off the excess oil.
Fry the rest of the batter-dipped elderflower blossoms in a similar fashion.

Dust with plenty of icing sugar/confectioner's sugar that you can season with vanilla powder or cinnamon first.



More elderflower fritters:
Delicious Days
Nigel Slater
Lottie + Doof
Georgia Pellegrini
Hunter. Hanger. Gardener. Cook.
Doves Farm