Showing posts with label Blackcurrant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blackcurrant. Show all posts

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

Curd cheese mousse with blackcurrant sauce and kiwis

If there was one thing I'd eat for the rest of my life, it would be curd cheese. Or, well, curd cheese and rye bread. But still. I eat it in all kinds of combinations and for me it's mild flavour is so ordinary that I never use recipes. I just enjoy. Enjoy and ENJOY.

But from time to time a combination just nails it. Just like yesterday. And it makes me wanna share. Oh yes it does.

Although the sauce has quite a strong blackcurrant flavour on its own, it's lost a bit if the mousse has a strong cocoa flavour. Therefore, I suggest using a bit less cocoa powder.
Don't be bothered by the blackcurrant pieces in the jam - there actually an extra!

Curd cheese mousse with blackcurrant sauce and kiwis.
(serves 3-4)

400 g curd cheese
1 dl double cream
sugar (about 1/2 dl)
vanilla
1-2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
blackcurrant-cream sauce (see below)
2-4 kiwis
  1. Mix curd cheese with sugar and vanilla.
  2. Beat double cream with an electric mixer until fluffy and add (or if you're lazy - just mix it in and beat the mousse a bit).
  3. Add cocoa powder to taste, mix well.
  4. Peel and slice kiwis.
  5. Serve the mousse with warm or cold sauce and kiwi slices. Add cookie pieces, if desired.

Blackcurrant-cream sauce

1/2 dl blackcurrant jam
1 dl double cream
cinnamon, if desired
  1. Take a small pot and heat the jam until it's liquified.
  2. Add double cream, mixing. If desired, add cinnamon.
  3. Boil the sauce for 5 minutes, then serve warm or cold (might get too thick when waits overnight - then just add liquid) .
The blackcurrant-kiwi-cocoa combination truly is a nice find I've been wanting to try for quite some time and it really worked out well! An upside-down version could also be nice - with kiwi sauce and fresh blackcurrants...(summer, summer, come sooner!)

The mild mousse is well complemented by the strong-flavoured, but slightly sour sauce and exotic kiwis. Adding cookie bits adds crispness, serving the dessert while the sauce is still warm and adding some cinnamon to the sauce makes it more interesting.

More curd cheese coming to you soon enough;)

Saturday, 5 January 2008

The darkest spicy tipsy apples

Or, at first glance, more like beets with stalks on.

There must be a heap of recipes for pears in wine on the Internet and everywhere and everywhere, especially around Christmas holidays and New Year's Eve. Yet I'm here. Hmmm... but probably just because my apples turned out very cool-looking.

I don't have exact measurements, unfortunately. I used little-ish homegrown apples and threw in...everything. Feel free to use pears instead.


Spicy apples in red wine and blackcurrant juice

Apples (I had 10 small ones)
About 1/2 l of blackcurrant juice
About 7 dl of red wine
1 vanilla bean
cloves, about 10
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
  1. Take a pot large enough to fit all the apples onto the bottom of it.
  2. Add all ingredients (but not the apples) to the pot and bring to a boil.
  3. Meanwhile peel the apples, but leave their stalks on. Cut the core out from the bottom and also cut a slice off the bottom so that they stand better.
  4. Add the apples to the pot and boil them at low heat for about 30 minutes, until tender. As the liquid probably doesn't cover all the apples, turn them around for some times to get an even colour.
  5. Remove from heat and let the apples cool in the poaching liquid.
  6. Serve with vanilla sauce.

Blackcurrant juice is a strong flavourer. The apples do look like beets, but taste a lot like a lighter version of spiced blackcurrants. Tender, juicy. Screaming for vanilla sauce. They're as dark as it gets.

I guess it was the perfect dessert for surprising my granny. She knows how to prepare stunning dishes out of nothing, but after so many years of eating and cooking apples... who could have thought to throw the apples into some juice?

Thursday, 12 July 2007

Brie cheese goes international

'Brie cheese visiting Estonia' is what I wanted to call this post. But I was so wrong. What you see here, is a true mixture of different cuisines - put together into one weird, but wonderful tasting dessert. Into one weird, but wonderful tasting quick dessert.


It's Brie cheese from France, Blackcurrant jam from my granny's garden here in Estonia and coconut flakes from...well, God only knows where.

Brie cheese fried with blackcurrant and coconut

A small Brie cheese (125 g)
Blackcurrant jam
Coconut flakes (not toasted)

1. Place the coconut flakes onto a saucer or into a small bowl
2. Slice the cheese into thin rounds
3. Spread some jam onto both sides of the rounds and then press them onto coconut flakes, so that they're well covered with them.
4. Heat some oil in a skillet and fry the cheese rounds until the coconut flakes have turned golden brown.



This dessert fits just great with some cold ice cream. The crispy edges of the cheese, the soft jam with its deep taste and the exoticness from coconut...I didn't know what to expect when I tried this idea, but was positively surprised.
Brie cheese has visited Estonia successfully:)

The reason why my post was so short this time is that I'm actually leaving for Norway in less than an hour. Don't forget to eat while I'm away for the next two weeks!