Tag Archives: grass

The Count and the Vegetable Garden (guest post)

My first male guest here on kokblog is Johan Kohnke. Johan is a trained cook and worked for Restaurant Savoy in Malmö for some time. Today Johan has left professional cooking behind him and works with refugees. As Johan still likes to cook he often involves cooking in his job as a way for people from all over the world to get to know each other. Johan and I met years ago through my brother but never really got to know each other until Johan got me some rooks* this summer. The summer had just begun when he showed me his impressive summer project; a 225 square meter vegetable lot.

The Count and the Vegetable Garden
by Johan Kohnke

Divorced, rebooted in life, everything was piss! Desperate! But I found a home through blocket.se (like a Swedish Craigslist), a laborer’s cottage attached to a manor house, a place with history, people and lots of farming. The requirement to move in was that you had to be interested in gardening.

–  ”I’m more than interested, my thought was to grow vegetables in the park”.
–  ”No, dammit”, my new landlord, the count answered.
The lawn is treated meticulously by the count himself. He cuts the grass several times a week using three different grass-cutters.
– “Come here I’ll show you!”
The count thought it was more appropriate – a 100 meter patch behind the pigsty.
– ”Am I in heaven?”
Against the stable wall hung wires that used to hold up blackberries, pears, peaches, that previously were growing along the entire wall. The former gardener used to grow artichokes and had vegetable beds for melons.

I went there with my shovel intending to hand-dig the assigned plot!
– “Come with me, there is a plough in the barn! “
In the barn stood a Massey Ferguson 135 with a plough attached.
– “But I can’t drive!”
Okay, then I got a short lesson that was faster than you can read this sentence. The soil had been neglected for years, but probably because it was fun to drive a tractor, it took two hours to work the soil!
– “Would you like manure?” asked the count.
– “Well, damn yes!”
Old pig manure that had been left in the stable and newly “burnt” pig manure was driven out to the plot. Up in the tractor again and now it took just an hour for me to plough down the whole thing. The count looked damn pleased with the earth, when he squeezed a handful of soil in his hand.
-“This smells really good, it will be great, here it will grow”.
And it has been growing! Before my vacation I almost lost control over the plot, but I didn’t. The reward for all the hard work are my own potatoes, carrots, corn, radishes, dill, onions, spinach, beans and beets in decent quantities. Next year I will double the plot. Then there will be more of everything.

Baked Vegetables
Potatoes are served best cut into quarters, rinsed in a bowl with plenty of water, let it run or change the water a few times so the starch will drain away. Then place the potatoes in a colander to dry. Bake for 30-45 minutes. Peeled carrots and parsnips can be baked in the oven for 20 minutes. Split in half and place on a baking sheet. Dab with olive oil and rosemary before baking.
Splitting a whole garlic in half, brushed with olive oil, is a luxurious treat. Make sure that everyone gets at least half a garlic head each. Beets takes the longest time. According to the rulebook, they should be baked on a bed of salt for almost an hour. It’s tasty!

You can also bake all the vegetables in one go. Trying to cut all the vegetables to the correct size so that they are ready at the same time is almost impossible. But worth a try.
Cut the potatoes into small wedges, slice peeled beets into pennies and halve the parsnips and carrots. Get all the root vegetables mixed together with plenty of olive oil, thyme and rosemary. Bake at 225ºC (440ºF) until the vegetables are baked through and have a great golden brown color (about 30-45 minutes). Fresh summer produce need much less time in the oven than vegetables you buy in the winter. Instead of burnt BBQ-ed meat, when the baking sheet is out of the oven it will be the centerpiece of the table!
Serve with a simple tsatsiki or a ”lazy” mixture of creme fraiche, freshly pressed garlic and salt. Or a piece of plain butter that will melt nicely with the cooked vegetables on the plate.

 

* The bird rook is an almost forgotten culinary specialty of South Sweden! If cooked together with shallots, celery and wine – it becomes an unforgettable treat.

Lamb Patties for BBQ

kokblog_lamb

This summer we went to a great barbecue in one of our friend’s lovely garden. We all (about 60 people) brought our favorites to have on the grill and the hosts served us with lots of joy and a great bean salad. The evening started with some drops of rain but that didn’t really bothered anyone. Everyone was busy making fires and preparing for their treats. Eventually the sun showed up, just in time for us to sit down in the grass and be able to really enjoy the evening.

for the patties

0.4 kg (almost 1 lb) minced lamb or beef
1 egg
1-2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
¼ cup (50 ml) milk
salt and pepper
10 black olives
one or two shallots
2 gloves garlic
1 tablespoon brown mustard seeds
chili flakes
some rosemary
feta cheese

Mix together the minced meat together with the egg yolk, breadcrumbs and milk. Slice the olives in small pieces and add them to the mixture. Season with salt and pepper. Let the mixture rest for at least an hour in the fridge. Chop the shallots fine. Sauté with butter on low heat until soft. Heat up a frying pan with some olive oil and sauté the mustard seeds with some chili flakes. When they start to pop, lower the heat and add squeezed garlic and rosemary. When they start to get color its done. Let the shallots and the mustard mixture cool before adding them to the patties batter. Cut up the feta cheese in pieces. Start to form the patties and place some feta in the middle. Wet your hands in between each pattie, that will make them easier to form!

Now they are ready for a barbecue with a fine mesh. Please don’t grill them over too high a heat, that will only make them dry and boring instead of juicy and tasty.

These patties also work with brown rice and sautéed bok choy (Chinese cabbage).

Zubrówka

kokblog_bisongrass

Our friend Russel is growing Sweet Grass (or bison grass) in his garden. Sweet grass is the main flavoring in M:s and my favorite vodka, Zubrowka. Zubrowka is based on rye distilled vodka and the grass gives it a smooth herby taste with a touch of bitterness. The smell is grassy and has a barely noticeable vanilla accent.

Sweet grass has been used for ages by the Native Indians for ceremonies and healing rituals. In many places it’s still grown for basketry. In the 70-ies the US discovered that Sweet grass contains a small amount of coumarin and decided to ban the import of Zubrowka. Coumarin has the ability to thin your blood, the same effect Aspirin has. Well whenever I will need to prevent my blood from clotting, I will prefer a Zubrowka to an aspirin. I also think a cold Zubrowka goes better with herring. Today you can find artificially flavored “Zubrowka” in the US but it’s very distant from the real thing.

In some parts of the world, Sweet grass is growing wild but you can also find Sweet grass clogs on the Internet. Russel planted his clogs last spring and was able to harvest his first straws in September the same year. Russel grew up on a farm so we were quite certain the result would be lovely. As the Sweet grass is a perennial, Russel will soon be able to harvest it again. This time we think the result will be even better as the straws will be fresh and delicate!

for the essence you will need
1/3 liter rye vodka (however we used the wheat grain vodka, Svedka)
8 fresh blades of sweet grass cut into one inch lengths

Let the blades soak in a the vodka in a sealed glass jar for seven days. Any longer and this ‘essence’ tastes too bitter. Take the blades out, filter the essence through a coffee filter and mix approximately two parts vodka with one part essence.

If you mix Zubrowka with apple juice topped with a slice of lime you will have the cocktail that we call a boy scout. In Poland they call the cocktail tatanka or szarlotka (apple pastry).

There is off course other ways to make your own Zubrowka.