fish and chips in the artic & an ode to skyr

You can't be in Iceland and not eat fish. All my of meat meals were fish save for a lamb lunch. Icelandic Fish an Chips has been on my want list for a long time and I was finally here. EXCITING TIMES. The best thing about this fish and chips place is that it is completely organic, they fry their fish in a healthier spelt & barley batter (crunchy), they use a dip made out of skyr (Icelandic yogurt that only contains 0.2% fat and doesn't have the lovely green tinge that American nonfat yogurts and milks do, yet it has all the flavor of a full fat yogurt and is as light as a feather), and their desserts are made using mostly agave syrup and not processed sugar.







I had the ling, which is a long skinny fish similar to cod, with cilantro skyr and Candice had the wolf fish which had a lovely texture, with basil and garlic skyr. I'm usually not one of sauce and dips, but with this skyr dip I wanted to eat a whole gallon of it.







Then I had skyr with berries.

If I could eat skyr everyday, I'd be a happy girl.

good baked goods

Any map of the city center in Reykjavik is a little deceiving. Everything looks like it's a bit of a trek when actually it's a 5-10 minute walk. Reykjavik is a tiny and low lying city. So when Candice and I set out for what we thought was the long walk to Sandholt bakery, the oldest bakery in Reykjavik, we stumbled upon it unexpectedly quickly and it was right opposite the record store that launched Bjork & Sigur Ros's careers.





On the second day of eating and nature, I had a twisty cinnamon and chocolate pastry that comes in a long braid and you can tell them how much you want. I didn't realise they weren't in serving size portions, so the lady who was serving me looked quite horrified when I said I'd like 1 piece and I'd like to eat in instead of taking it away.



It's the most cinnamon crammed into a pastry I've ever tasted. Candice got a meat and potato quiche which was tasty tasty tasty. We both had a bad case of food envy and ordered what each other had had the next day.




They also had some earl grey ice cream, the best tea flavored ice cream I've had. The other ice cream that makes my top 3 favourite ice creams of all time was a tiny scoop of lavender honey Cornish ice cream at Borough Market in London.



These were some confections at the bakery. I have no idea what the chocolate bottomed cream boat was, or the curious green flying saucer like thing chocolate around it was, but I was sadly too stuffed to be tempted.







Icelandic pastry is yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy. It doesn't look as golden and toasty as its French Croissant counterparts, but it is infinitely more tasty.


This is a picture of Mr Sandholt.

I met a couple who were raving about the gas station pastry they bought when they were driving around the perimeter of the whole country....mmmmm gas station food.



INCIDENTALLY, Icelandic gas stations have to be the most picturesque pit stops. This was the view from a gas station at Vik, which means bay in Icelandic. Reykavik means smokey/steamy bay) at the south coast (Suderland). Iceland is a hotbed for geothermal energy, so streets are heated by hot water that leaves the heating systems in the house so in the winter, they don't get icy. Verrrrry efficient. In older times, bread was baked not in a fire or coal oven, but in a cave heated by a hot spring.

Speaking of gas station food, this cafeteria was connected to a gas station and was where we stopped for lunch. I was a little hesitant about ordering lamb chops at what seemed to be a semi fast food joint. But all Icelandic lamb ranges free, and I am free to order it without too much of a how-was-this-food-raised struggle. In fact, this has been the one place where I can stop worrying about where the food comes from since land and fish are so abundant and there aren't that many people to feed – so enormous, crowded, dirty and unsafe farm monstrosities don't exist. I saw tons of sheep happily munching with tails wagging on artic herbs and grass on the way down and a happy sheep makes a tasty lamb. If you lived outside by enormous waterfalls, drinking glacial melt and eating angelica flowers, lounging in artic grass, you would be tasty too.





It was incredibly juicy!!!!!!!





I'm not sure what is up with the Zorro/Incredibles powerguy on the lime green juicebox, but there are plenty of weird food characters here. These jumpy frogs on ice cream boxes for example:



Finally, we had dinner at Fishmarket. I'm not sure if it was the surprisingly wonderful lunch that we had, or my tepid feelings towards Asian fusion food, but it was a litttttle bit of a disappointment. There is no reason to oversauce and over salt fish so fresh, and even though it was good, this restaurant was plenty hyped up and if you are ever in Reykjavik, there is better fish to be had.



They do make a mouthwatering passionfruit cocktail though!

Love from Reykjavik

I've been in Iceland for just about a day and I am at once bewildered, excited, astounded and all around floored. It is a bizarre and delightful place and now that it's the summertime, the sun doesn't set. Today, after a long wallow in the blue lagoon, Candice insisted on eating at Orange. I'd heard of it, but truth be told, I wasn't very excited. Since the collapse of the Icelandic economy, I was more keen to milk it for what it was worth and eat at Vox or Fish Market. But I was persuaded to go to Orange and persuaded again to order the 5 course surprise 'Lets Go Crazy' menu and I nearly fell out of my chair.



The starters arrived in little buckets: Haddock lollypops. Too cute, but wait!



The bucket just hovered at the table and was tied to a big orange balloon...



that was three times the size of my head. The weight of the haddock pops were just enough to keep the bucket on the table and once we'd gobbled them up, the whole helium contraption floated to the ceiling.




the starters also came with these curious jars, resting on a box of coffee beans



we popped it open and inside was a spicy leaf, tuna, some sort of celery compote, mushrooms and mushroom foam. absolutely delightful.



then, this was supposed to be a lagoustine and artichoke milk soup with parmesean crackers, but was substituted with cod because of my unfortunate shellfish allergy.



then on a lava rock plate there was barely cooked salmon with citrus and pineapple, potato puree and a naga foam. there were these green sturdy furry leaves that looked very endearing but tasted like super green grass. Candice loved them and I tried hard to, but couldn't. Instead I slurped up th stripe of pesto.




This is the one that pushed me over the edge: beef with truffle and mushrooms and pumpkin puree. Annoyingly enough, the green watercress imposters made a comeback. I think it was this course where the food stopped being so inventive and started to play safe and tried to win me over with quantity. I was teetering in my chair.



INTERMISSION: pineapple sorbet palette cleanser



And this sealed the meal. I'm not sure what it was exactly because I was too stuffed to think properly. It was vanilla ice cream on brownie crumbles and some hazelnut chocolate moussey something with strawberry gel and strawberry sauce, mystery fruit on the side. Good thing it was an uphill climb to get back to the service apartment.

Tomorrow we're roughing it out on a 10 hour bus ride to the south coast of Iceland armed with tons of premade sandwiches, running on toast and scrambled eggs and filter coffee before we descend onto Fish Market for Reykjavik Dinner #2. Stay tuned!

Ode to the Artichoke

By Pablo Neruda

The artichoke
With a tender heart
Dressed up like a warrior,
Standing at attention, it built
A small helmet
Under its scales
It remained
Unshakeable,
By its side
The crazy vegetables
Uncurled
Their tendrills and leaf-crowns,
Throbbing bulbs,
In the sub-soil
The carrot
With its red mustaches
Was sleeping,
The grapevine
Hung out to dry its branches
Through which the wine will rise,
The cabbage
Dedicated itself
To trying on skirts,
The oregano
To perfuming the world,
And the sweet
Artichoke
There in the garden,
Dressed like a warrior,
Burnished
Like a proud
Pomegrante.
And one day
Side by side
In big wicker baskets
Walking through the market
To realize their dream
The artichoke army
In formation.
Never was it so military
Like on parade.
The men
In their white shirts
Among the vegetables
Were
The Marshals
Of the artichokes
Lines in close order
Command voices,
And the bang
Of a falling box.

But
Then
Maria
Comes
With her basket
She chooses
An artichoke,
She's not afraid of it.
She examines it, she observes it
Up against the light like it was an egg,
She buys it,
She mixes it up
In her handbag
With a pair of shoes
With a cabbage head and a
Bottle
Of vinegar
Until
She enters the kitchen
And submerges it in a pot.

Thus ends
In peace
This career
Of the armed vegetable
Which is called an artichoke,
Then
Scale by scale,
We strip off
The delicacy
And eat
The peaceful mush
Of its green heart.


Sent to me by a friend today.

Marmite Love

I have always had an insane craving for all things salty, spicy, and sour (someday I will tell you about my pickle fetish, or my S&M relationship with kim chi, or how many extra hot pepperettes I am embarassed to consume in a day). Other people love cupcakes, I love all things strange and savoury.

(I recently named the groundhog who lives on our property Polskie Ogorki, and I think if I ever got into meditation, UMAMI would be my chant word. UMAAAAMI UMAAAAMI.)

This morning, I made my idea of heaven on a plate: my new favourite breakfast is an open-faced toasted sesame bagel with a runny overeasy egg on either face, both bagel and egg slathered with MARMITE (a present from my sister who currently lives in the land of Marmite-lovers). A slight touch of sweet under the egg was the secret ingredient - a few very small dabs of President's Choice Spicy Szechuan Peanut Sauce rounds out the flavour and gives it a heavenly oomph.

Ooo, yeah. MArMIte, baby.

random gourmet: Shrimp, Olive and Fennel Orzo

My absolute favourite thing in the world as a cook is when a meal gets spontaneously invented with nothing but the random things in my fridge and my own creativity. There is nothing more satisfying.

Last night, I made this:

Shrimp, Olive and Fennel Orzo
served 2

Ingredients:

2 big handfuls of frozen shrimp
leftover orzo from last night's ratatouille
1/2 leftover fennel bulb
a big handful of canned black olives
leftover brine from marinated artichokes (i.e. oil and vinegar dressing)
1 lemon
1/3 lime (would have added more lime but that's what was in my fridge)
garlic
salt
fresh ground pepper

Directions:
1. Cover frozen shrimp with water in a pot and bring to boil. By the time it boils, the shrimp is probably defrosted and cooked.
2. Break up leftover orzo and season with artichoke dressing (or any other oil and vinegar).
3. Roughly dice up the black olives and garlic (as much as you like).
4. Slice the fennel as thinly as you can.
5. Cool the cooked shrimp and peel shells off.
6. Toss the shrimp in a hot wok or pan with chunky bashed black peppercorns, salt and oil till hot. If you have cumin, I think that would taste nice (I was a bit sore that we were out).
7. Throw in olives and garlic and toss for 30 sec or so.
8. Throw in fennel and toss for 30 sec (doesn't need much if you've sliced it thin).
9. Throw in the orzo and toss for another minute or so (just for warming).
10. Transfer to serving bowl and dress with citrus juice and a splash of olive oil. Serve with reserved fennel tops (I forgot to use them with last night's ratatouille).

Adapt as desired or necessary.

Beautiful.

(P.S. Sorry, no pics. Sometimes spontaneity doesn't allow for that.)

Tasty Cephalopods

I wanted to pay tribute to my all time favourite food blog: Deep End Dining, by showing you two posts that changed the way I look at food forever (for good or bad).

Eddie Lin, you are one deliciously sick man.

The first is imprinted forever in the cookbook of my brain as a piece of blog writing perfection. A lasting classic. In this piece, Eddie invents the peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich as a demonstration of environmental activism (with the rise in sea temperatures, jellyfish have begun to choke out all other underwater life):

Peanut Butter and Jellyfish



The video where he feeds the pb and jf sandwich to his unsuspecting wife is gold. You gotta love her for liking the stuff. She is adorable.

pb & jellyfish sandwich from eric alba on Vimeo.

Then there's the time Eddie eats live octopus tentacles. This was my first radical encounter with live food. It blew my mind. Since then I have discovered that people eat all kinds of things live: snake, lobster, whole octopus... all still wriggling. I don't know if I could do it.

Rude food. Live Octopus Tentacles.

Live Tentacles (High Res) from eric alba on Vimeo.

Would you? Have you?

bacon vodka

I am drawn to this recipe like a car accident. Would you try it if I made it?

via Brownie Points

Green Tea Pamplemousse

Ennju certainly sounds en francais. Pas francais. A simple Japanese place where it's always fresh. From seaweed salad to green tea mousse, adding an extra plate of something is easy and fun!

fish, delicious fish (and vegetables)

Salad season is finally upon me. FRESH FLAVORFUL CILANTRO, sprightly and green instead of supermarket wilty and pale. buttery mesclun instead of tasteless tracing paper. the most exquisite tomatoes i have ever had and sweet sweet fresh steamed corn. this salad is black beans, corn, tomato, avocado, cilantro, lime, salt and pepper and some olive oil. its so delicious.

I've been reading a variety of books on agricultural & food policy, food politics, gardening & farming misadventures and watching Michael Pollan profusely on youtube. I was a little lazy last week and didn't trek down to the farmers market because by the time I'd woken up, it was high noon and I didn't want to push and shove through a crowded market. I resorted to shopping at my local grocery store. (Michael Pollan says its ok, so I guess it must be) I tried to ignore the wilting looking vegetables and the nagging feeling in my gut as I bought something that was clearly NOT bio dynamic yogurt, cringed as i cracked open eggs from a blue Styrofoam box. as the week was drawing to a close, I was getting better about shopping at the grocery store around the corner. Then I decided that maybe I should replace the jar of peanut butter that my boyfriend left and I promptly finished.


Now I realise that this could just as well have happened at Whole Foods or whichever overpriced trendy grocers, but it was enough to snap me out of gristedes contentment. Skippys peanut butter NATURAL was made with 4 ingredients: Peanuts, Sugar, Salt, Palm Oil. Skippys peanut butter regular was made with a host of ingredients that I couldn't pronounce and hydrogenated soy products. why shouldn't food be natural in the first place?! i started to convulse at the thought of the tortellini pockets, unnecessarily made with hydrogenated something that I had consumed during the week, courtesy of convenience via gristedes. That was the last straw and waited and waited for Saturday morning so I could spring up bright and early and buy nothing but fresh produce. potentially pesticide, herbicide and fungicidally laden produce, but fresh nevertheless – one less layer of hidden processes that I didn't know about.

I've started buying lots of fish lately because they cook so easily and are good for you in general. once I'd gotten over my fishy mishap of 2003 where i never wanted to cook ocean produce in my apartment ever again, I've been consuming fish like a starved pelican. I also read that fish swim all over the place and fill up on good stuff, gathering from the ocean a myriad of nutrients which humans consume. Human hunters and gatherers also had better immune systems and generally were in better health than sedentary farmers (does this mean, in modern times, that I should be shopping at grocery stores far and wide???) because of a wider variety of nutrients that they consumed by running around and foraging. In this way, by eating fish, you're reaping the benefits of their oceanic hunting and gathering. Scarily, this is not too far from the truth of my boyfriend's multiple pleads to first feed me with tasty food he would not ordinarily consume (extravagant cheese, ice cream, cake, muffins, general tasty stuff) and thennnn have me hop in the oven tom and jerry style and roast and consume me, as weird sort of human Turducken (Jan-chees-en?), claiming it would increase the tastiness by two fold and be a very efficient way of consuming both double flavor and double nutrients. The fact that there is some truth in that makes me very wary.

Now I buy fish from the farmers market - something I'd only recently attempted because the fish isn't individually labelled so I didn't want seem like an idiot and annoy the 15 people behind me asking what every type of fish was. Fish has been a recent thing for me, unlike steak where I can pick out my cut blindfolded. Therefore, to minimize embarrassment, I went to Whole Foods and spent an unusually long time studying labelled fish and fish fillets, not unlike studying for a test. after a while, fish monger said to me "just get it, whatever it is, you know you want it" yes I wanted it, but not at Whole Foods. I chirped cheerfully that I couldn't make up my mind and that I'd be back later, scurrying quickly to the long island fish stand in Union Square, deftly ordering some grey sole, seabass and black fish. I then bought my weight in vegetables that I'll have to eat in a week.

The couple behind me in line for fish were the cutest, discussing fish rations and proportions for the week.
"squid?"
"no, I don't care for that, but if you buy it, I'll make it."
"Lets get that really tasty fish we had last summer and grill it!"
"I'm going to go to Staples and get some index cards and pens, you know what to do right?"
"how many days do you want to eat fish this week?"
mmm tasty fish. Usually, food tastes much better when someone else cooks it for you. Being a sort of recent convert to vegetables (i ate my first salad in its entirety 6 or 7 years ago), and definitely a recent fish maker, I find that if I cook it myself, I enjoy it infinitely more. Maybe it's because of my past mega scallop failure which makes successful seafood a double triumph. I'm also very picky about what type of cooking my vegetables have been subjected to. and the grassy flavor of my salad greens. In many ways, this weekly trek to the farmers market has turned me into a food nazi. why eat fake food when you can eat real food?

in an ambitious attempt inspired by fresh fish (it shouldn't even be so hard to make it AMBITIOUS), I'm cutting out hydrogenated nonsense and high fructose corn syrup for a week. this sounds doable. but it also makes you commit to cooking and making EVERYTHING. and not even! lets double check that bag of chocolate chips in the chocolate cherry bread. oh wait, don't buy any of that pasta sauce. CHECK the CEREAL and the GRANOLA. do NOT eat burgers with ketchup. eating real food is a pain in the ass! just look: I make my own jam, pasta sauce and salad dressing. I make my own bread so I know what I'm eating for breakfast. I buy bio dynamic all organically produced granola, I only buy certain types of chocolate milk. its so easy to revert to the supermarket, but YOU CAN'T TRUST THE SUPERMARKET. or at least its time consuming to trust the supermarket. some people think I'm nuts to spend so much time thinking about food, but you eat food everyday how can you not?

cool weather = more bread

my quick fix spring meal has been this asparagus pasta which is nothing but pasta, a little creme fraiche for a fake sauce and then lottttts of Parmesan. 2 bunches from the farmer market on Saturday is plenty asparagus for the week.

BUT, onto bread and more bread. the weather has been surprisingly forgiving for late may. usually by this time I have given up on all food except salad or a quick pasta, limiting all stove use to 15 minutes and prohibiting any food that needs an oven. I probably should be eating more salad, but until I have no appetite left for food because of extreme heat, I probably won't have an appetite for salad.

Just the other day I was having a burger with a friend and was asked if I wanted a salad, fries or onion rings. taking into account my quick fix asparagus pasta earlier, I winced HARD and said salad as my friend laughed in absolute disgust. my burger arrived with more vegetables than meat and plate combined, unruly leaves overspilling the edges like some green monster from the wild, never ending and continuous, threatening the small stack of lettuce, onion, pickle and tomato on the side. i had neglected to consider a burger's core constituents! which, between two buns and a piece of meat (yikes) was a salad in itself! I looked longingly at the onion rings across the table. The ruffles of mesclun were mocking me.

It was way, way too early to be eating that many raw vegetables. It'll be a few more loaves of bread and grilled asparagus yet before I go on guacamole overdrive, and embark on the serious mission to eat a differernt salad everyday.

snacks

Balthazar Bakery charges $8 for a goat cheese tart. Taking into account the laborious task of caramalizing onions, it's still absolutely outrageous and completely unacceptable. i decided to make my own, with an easy peasy puff pastry crust. the original recipe is here. kinda like a mini pizza but much much better - and reversed. it uses the onions as a base with whole tomatoes on top.

in search of the American Savory Snack

My biggest grumble about being in America is that lack of savory snacks. sometimes i just want something quick and easy - 3 fishballs on a skewer. or a curry puff. or some tako pachi octopus balls with kewpie and bonito flakes. when i don't really care for Another Boring Sandwich, or a Very Messy Falafel, or a bag of junk like potato chips god forbid, City Bakery's mac and cheese (the downfall of many a waning afternoon when i'd been so, SO good during the day gorging on raw vegetables and a nasty but tasty looking carrot and orange juice).

I was munching on grapes this afternoon, contemplating the quarts of yogurt that get consumed in my apartment every week. it usually gets mixed with honey, granola and fresh berries in the morning. but today, the compulsion for a savory snack took over. Also, I knew I'd be in trouble if i didn't make dinner with some sort of healthy sauce/decoy chutney accompaniment for a saucehungry sauceconsumer pottering around my apartment with eyes for sauce and sauce alone.

completely unaware of what i was actually making (tzatziki), i absentmindedly chopped up some cucumbers, and garlic, and dished out yogurt and squeezed lemon into it. okay, so it's not really an American Savory Snack (still elusive), the other delicous dip i make is a mean guacamole (still not American), but this dip scratches a couple of snack taste buds for sure.

the bread making warparth

I've started making my own bread. I've made about 4 loaves in the past 3 weeks. This is my latest specimen: chocolate cherry bread
nutritional power up: it's whole wheat

my previous loaves were eaten up too quickly to be photographed, but they were a marsala, raisin walnut and olive breads.

given that the chocolate cherry bread at the farmers market is a whopping $8, i went a little overboard with this baby, with an overly generous amount of chocolate chips and sour cherries. it was like i baked a large, lazy and crusty muffin that i felt just a little odd about eating it for breakfast. i'm not sure if i've mastered the fine art of making bread such that i could go on a breadmaking throwdown, but hey they are pretty tasty and they toast well and have structural integrity, so i'm not too worried.

what i am worried about is my new snuggly yet lethal night time snack: chocolate cherry bread and iced coffee with ice cream.

the easiest most delicious meal ever

i finally caved yesterday from making every single meal at home (sometimes having pancakes for dinner) and bought a pizza from a block away. it was so decadent, wolfing it down, while watching the simpsons on prime time television, while it was still bright outside. oh working life. i never want to work again. the pizza was enough to kick me back into action today, making this month's speciality - broiled salmon with assorted spring vegetables and occasionally potatoes with a lemon creme fraiche sauce. i've had this twice in a week now, once with asparagus, and today's with fiddleheads.

this is surprisingly easy to make. half an hour! (TAKE THAT RACHEL RAY. i know your meals take more than half an hour to make anyway) and you can prepare the fish while the asparagus/fiddleheads are roasting happily in the oven for 15 minutes. i love the eaaaasssse - proving that it doesn't have to take an entire large slab of ribeye to win over someone's heart (stomach?):
after slathering a bunch of asparagus with olive oil, sprinkling with salt and pepper, roast at 400 degrees (farenheit) for 15 minutes.

while roasting, take salmon fillets, about 6oz each, rub with salt, sprinkle with pepper. maybe massage with lemon thyme and then squeeze lemon over it. set aside.

for the winning "sauce", take a couple of tablespoons of creme fraiche, mix with a few squeezes of lemon juice, a few grates of lemon zest and a little lemon thyme.

take asparagus out from the oven, set it to BROIL, and pop the fish in for 7 1/2 minutes.

VOILA. c'est delicioux: serve fish with asparagus and drizzle creme fraiche over.