BLT Baguette

I love sandwiches. I love them with just a bit of cheese, and maybe a few thin slices of cucumber, and now I'm just starving, I wonder if there's any roe paste left in the fridge... erm. Yes. Sandwiches. Are good made with toast, and usually even better made with rolls or baguettes or rye bread or... you know, any bread is good, really. (I wouldn't last a day on a low-carb diet. Possibly this was already glaringly evident.)

I haven't necessarily had enough BLTs to judge, but it is my firm belief that this is the best BLT known to man. Of course, it's not so much bacon-lettuce-tomato as parmesan-lemon-avocado-red-onion-bacon-lettuce-tomato. But that makes for an unwieldy acronym, so.

As a bonus, it travels really well, wrapped in clingfilm, and is popular not just with the two-legged-crowd.

BLT
adapted from the Swedish TV show Mat med Tina, serves 2

2 20-cm (or so) pieces of baguette
1 avocado (make sure it's nice and soft)
half a red onion
juice from half a lemon
4 slices of bacon
some sliced tomato
lettuce

1 tbsp mayo
2 tbsp crème fraîche
2 tbsp finely grated parmesan
½ clove garlic, finely minced

Slice the red onion finely, rinse in cold water and drain well. Chop the avocado and sprinkle with about half of the lemon juice. Sprinkle the rest over the bacon and fry in a large pan (this will be important later) until nice and crisp. Drain on paper towels, leaving the bacon fat in the pan.

Mix together mayo, crème fraîche, parmesan and garlic and season with salt and pepper to taste. Mix together avocado and red onion and season those as well.

Split the baguette pieces and toast them in the bacon fat until nice and crispy. Spread the baguettes with the mayo mix and assemble the sandwiches. I'm sure you have your quirks about which ingredient goes next to which. It's OK, I won't judge.

Recipe after the jump!

Tartar Sauce

This little bowl of sauce doesn't exactly look like a momentuous occasion or anything, but it actually contains my first-ever batch of homemade mayo. (Usually when I call for mayo in the recipes posted here, what I actually use isn't even the best commercial stuff, but low-fat artificial gunk. Where do I hand in my food cred, again?) To summarize: mayonnaise - not impossible. Also quite high-fat. Funny how making stuff from scratch drives these things home (puff pastry, I'm looking at you).

Although invented to go with steak tartare (duh), tartar sauce is generally served with fish over here (fish fingers in particular - this was a regular and popular lunch at school) and we had some of this with simple breaded fish fillets that were devoured before I had any chance to take pictures and then threw the rest in a potato salad - this makes a lot of sauce but the batch is easily halved.

Tartar Sauce
adapted from the Swedish food blog Kärlek, mat och folköl, served three people twice, but your mileage may vary

2 egg yolks
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tsp cider vinegar
a few drops tabasco sauce
250 ml oil
150 ml finely chopped pickled cucumber
100 ml capers, rinsed, drained and chopped
a big bunch each of parsley and chives, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together egg yolks, mustard, vinegar and tabasco until well combined. Add the oil a little at a time in a slooooow trickle, still whisking (I did this in a food processor). Mix in the cucumber, capers and herbs. Season with salt (if needed) and pepper to taste.

Recipe after the jump!

Crystallized Ginger

This may sound a tiny bit twee (making your own candied ginger?), but as a mitigating circumstance I should say that this isn't a condiment to be readily found in the shops here - I'm sure you could get it, but I've never come across any. Which is kind of a pity, because I have a weird obsession with it: I could eat it like candy! At first, there is the pronounced sweetness of the sugar it's rolled in, then the slight tang of ooh, fruity, and then finally the wonderful burn. Oh, how I love it.


Sadly, I'm the only one who does, it seems. Someone should really hide that jar from me, because I can't walk past it without grabbing a slice or two of ginger and gobbling it up. I had plans for this batch! Plans which included doing stuff with it. Other than coating it in chocolate and eating it all up (instead I settled for mixing it with some mocha beans I got for my birthday - one of each, open mouth, savor).


I'm not going to post the recipe here, since it's available on the internet and I followed it to the letter (how could I not - there was 7-up! steaming! 6 hours of cooking!). Just keep in mind when starting out that although there's not much actual work involved, it does take the better part of a day to finish, so make a big batch. Supposedly it will keep forever, but I doubt I'll ever find out.


Oh, and don't throw away the syrup! Make mead with it instead.

Recipe after the jump!

A Healthy(er) Snack

I'm a girl who likes to munch on things. You know those diet quizzes where you're asked about your weaknesses - is it chocolate, salted nuts, cheese, candy, potato chips? Surely I can't be the only person whose instinctive response to this question is "um, yes, ALL OF THOSE, gimme!"

Luckily (for me, that is), I also like chickpeas. Specifically, crunchy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside, nutty and fragrant roasted chickpeas.




Indian Roasted Chickpeas
I feel silly calling a recipe, because there's really nothing to it (plus I didn't exactly measure anything, so you'll have to go by feel with the spices - not that you shouldn't, anyway). Nevertheless...

1 can chickpeas (or you could soak and cook your own)
1 tbsp olive oil
whatever spices you fancy: I used turmeric, ground cumin, amchoor powder, cayenne, a dash of garlic powder and salt & pepper

Rinse and drain the chickpeas. Mix oil and spices and toss the chickpeas in them to coat. Roast in a large-ish pan at 200°C (400°F) for 20-35 minutes, until crisp and golden brown, stirring a few times in between.

Eat warm.

Recipe after the jump!