writing, ideas, food, utopia
A few weeks ago I was thwarted in my plan to make Magnus Nilsson’s crispy lichen dish by my lack of a cured egg yolk. This weekend, it’s all come together: the egg yolks have had about a month to mature, and a walk on the North Downs produced a small bagful of beautiful grey-green… Continue reading Crispy lichens and cured egg yolks – the forbidden experiment?
I'm a major fan of porridge as my winter breakfast - but I now realise how limited my porridge horizon has been. Like any well brought up girl from Edinburgh, I'd only really considered oats as the proper content of my breakfast bowl. Needless to say, Magnus Nilsson (whose Fäviken cookbook I am currently obsessed with) has… Continue reading How many grains make a good porridge?
I've probably been living a sheltered life, but I'd never come across a semi-dried pickle - until I continued my investigation of Magnus Nilsson’s Fäviken cookbook. Never, it seems, a man to rush things, Nilsson recommends slightly drying out pickled vegetables until "they resemble vegetable raisins" to serve with a hot pork chop. I usually have a good… Continue reading Whoever heard of a semi-dried pickle?
Chef Magnus Nilsson was a guest on UK TV’s Saturday Kitchen last weekend. His hilarious performance in the ‘omelette challenge’, where chef guests compete to make an omelette at record-breaking speed, nicely summed up for me everything that is wonderful about his approach to food and cooking. While Nick Nairn had already finished throwing together… Continue reading Cooking steak at Fäviken speed
The yolks have entered their final stage - out of the cure and into the muslin. I don't have one of those cheffy meat cupboards (shocking omission, to be remedied in my next kitchen) so they are hanging at the back of the fridge. This is probably a little colder than the ideal, but I'm sure… Continue reading Cured egg yolk – day 17
I've managed to resist disturbing my yolks for almost a week. It's definitely time to see what they've been up to. Left undisturbed for a respectable interval the salt and sugar mix has set much more firmly - as hard as a rock in some places. I dug the yolks out quite cautiously, with the… Continue reading Cured egg yolk – day 10
I love shortbread. It’s plain simplicity makes it so much more delicious than other more complicated biscuits, and although it is easy to make it requires a lightness of touch that introduces a little skill into the process – just enough to make it satisfying. The ‘short’ in the name refers to the expected texture… Continue reading Fäviken shortbread
I was so excited by last night's autumn leaf broth that I needed to taste more - thank goodness I'd not used all the leaves in the first experiment! Even better, just a few pages on in the same book was another recipe with leaves at its heart: 'Vegetables cooked with autumn leaves' (p 194).… Continue reading The glory of cooking with autumn leaves – part 2
I'm still working through the Fäviken cookbook, and armed with the weekend's forage of autumn leaves in various stages of maturity tonight seemed like a good moment to try the 'Broth of autumn leaves' (p190). I wasn't convinced that I had exactly the right moss (or the perfect leaves), but I was confident that they were… Continue reading The glory of cooking with autumn leaves – part 1
Yesterday I started curing some egg yolks, in preparation for a recipe in Magnus Nilsson's Fäviken cookbook. I can't resist checking them to see how they are progressing, and today there is already a change! The yolks are visibly firmer, more intensely orange, and starting to hold a more solid shape. I ruffle up the dampened… Continue reading Cured egg yolk – day 2
Jane Levi 