Shrimp salad a´la moi

We've tried to get a healthy start on the new year as far as the food goes. It has slipped a couple of times I must admit, but now I think we're going somewhere... 

The first healthy dish I made this year was a Shrimp salad with bread on the side (not the healthiest of bread and not home made as I had a bit of bad luck trying out some new bread recipes) but I'd like to share this salad with you, as it's become one of my favourite. 

 

Shrimp salad a´la Agnethe 

(4 lunch portions or 2 dinner portions)

You'll need:

200 grams Greenlandic or North Sea Shrimp
125 grams cottage cheese
2 spring onions
salt and pepper
1 avocado
10 cm cucumber
3 cocktail tomatoes
1/4 of a lettuce head
1 baguette

Let the shrimp drain and chop the spring onions finely. Mix the cottage cheese and the spring onions and add in the shrimp. Season with salt and pepper, mix it well and set aside.

Dice the avocado, cucumber and tomatoes and chop the lettuce finely. Mix the avocado, cucumber and tomatoes in with the lettuce.

Toast the baguette and slice it. Arrange the lettuce mix in the bottom of a large bowl, top with the cottage cheese and shrimp mix and garnish with dill or another fresh herb you like. Serve the bread along side with butter.

Bon appetit...

Waldorf salad

The Waldorf salad is really a seasonal salad for me because it's traditional to serve along side some Danish Christmas dinners. I could eat it all year and I really love it but somehow I manage to forget about it for a while and usually it pops right back into my mind again when Christmas starts knocking.

This year has been no exception and it was only because I had apples in my fruit basket I thought of making it for my family gathering this weekend. Sadly I forgot to take pictures and had to borrow this one from another website. I hope you'll like this salad as much as I do and maybe it'll become one of your traditional Christmas side dishes...

Picture borrowed from: Den store danske

Waldorf salad (8 servings)

6 apples (your favourite kind with a slightly acidic taste to them)

500 grams seedless grapes (blue or green which ever you prefer)

150 grams walnuts (save some of the whole ones for decoration)

500 ml sour cream

2-3 stalks of celery or 1/4 - ½ teaspoon of celery salt (I use the celery salt)

If you want to use fresh celery then skip ahead and start from number 2. 

1. Start by preparing the dressing for the salad: Pour the sour cream into a bowl and mix in 1/4 teaspoon celery salt to begin with. Let it sit for about 5-6 minutes and have a taste. It has to taste of celery but not too salty. If your up for more taste of celery then add in the remaining 1/4 teaspoon. Just be careful - I season this 3 or 4 times before I have a flavour that I'm satisfied with, so go slow and add in the celery salt little by little.

 

2. Cut the grapes into halves and cube the celery (if you haven't used the salt instead). Put them into a large bowl and give the apples a good wash. Cube the apples and add them into the bowl.

3. Chop the walnuts coarsely and put them in with the rest of the salad.

4. Pour the dressing/sour-cream into the bowl as well and mix it all together so that the dressing/sour-cream covers it all. 

And that's that - let the salad rest in the fridge for a couple of hours or make it the day before (it only gets better!) and serve it along side a good roast, beefsteak, roast duck, goose or even turkey.

Bon appetit...

Funky prawn cocktail with mango and tiger prawns

This our 17th dish in the food project is probably the dish where I've deviated the most from the recipe. My husband and I are not very big fans of basil, romaine lettuce and well asparagus is just so darn expensive. I replaced those ingredients with ones we liked and so I got a really good result. I also made another dressing as we don't get along with chili at all in our household. We really liked this dish with my small adjustments and I will defiantly make this again. It was so easy to make and healthy as well. I served bread along side my cocktail just to get a bit carbohydrates in there as well.  

I'll post both my dressing and the one in the original recipe. Once again Carina beat me to the punch and has been so kind as to translate the recipe, so I'll just repost what she has already posted a few days ago - see her experience with this recipe on her blog HERE

Funky prawn cocktail with mango and tiger prawns
16 tiger prawns without shell, but with tail (I used Royal Greenland shrimp)
1 mango
2 romaine lettuces (I used iceberg lettuce)
8 green asparagus (I replaced this with freshly podded peas and cucumber)
50 grams of sunflower sprouts or bean sprouts (I used small bean sprouts)
20 leaves of basil (I left this out)
2 tablespoons of extra virgin oil (I left this out)
2 limes cut in halves (I left this out)
salt

Phi Phi Island-dressing:
1 dl of mayonnaise
1 dl of crème fraiche (9%)
1-2 teaspoons of Sriracha chili-sauce
Zest of one lime

My dressing:

1½ dl sour cream

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon tomato paste

 

Boil the shrimps in lightly salted water for 2 minutes  (This is only if you use uncooked tiger prawns or shrimp)

Peel and cut the mango into 3×1 cm slices (I cubed the thing when I was done cutting around that darn stone in the middle)
Chop the salad finely. Break the “wooden” lower part of the asparagus and boil them in lightly salted water for 2-3 minutes. Let them cool down and cut them into mouthpieces. (If you use peas and cucumber instead then pod the peas and rinse them under running cold water and let them dry off. Meanwhile cut the cucumber into smaller cubes. You can remove the seeds if you don't like them.)

Dressing: Whisk the mayonnaise together with crème fraiche and chilisauce. Season it with lime zest and salt.
Turn the shrimps, bean sprouts, asparagus and basil leaves together olive oil and season it with salt. 

My dressing: stir together sour cream and tomato paste. Then add in the Worcestershire sauce and the soy sauce to your liking. I don't use exact measurements for this dressing as it comes out best if you just feel your way. 

Arrange the shrimp cocktails: Pour the dressing in the bottom of the glasses and then salad. Add the shrimp/mango salad on top and serve it with a half lime.(I didn't bother with the whole arrangement as you can see in the picture below - I didn't have glasses that would fit a whole dinner size cocktail so I just used our regular dinner plates)

Bon appetit...

Fish burger with fish steak chopped by hand and soft onions

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of fish of almost any sort so when I got the pick between a fish burger and some veggie dishes it was an easy pick... It was kind of weird eating fish like a burger but it really tasted good! I made a dressing for our burgers that just made it all come together and because we don't like chewing on onion pieces I just minced it in with the fish. Well I have a small confession to make as well... This recipe says that the fish steak is to be chopped by hand but I took out my food processor and minced the fish with all the other ingredients in that... It came out good but I cheated a little... I could do it so you can do it too...

For four people you'll need:

500 grams white boneless skinless fish fillet (e.g. codfish, haddock or pollack)

3 tablespoons chopped dill

1 tablespoon coarse mustard (I used recept mustard from Søstrene Grene)

1 egg

2 tablespoons bread crumbs

Butter

Salt and pepper

Soft onions:

3 large onions

1 tablespoon oil or butter

Salt and pepper

Fresh salad leaves

1 handful rocket

1 bundle watercress

4 large whole wheat buns

4 tablespoons mayonnaise

1 tablespoon coarse mustard

Chop the fish thoroughly with a sharp knife on a cutting board until it has the desired texture. Fold together the fish, dill, mustard, egg and bread crumbs in a bowl (add the onions here too if you don't like onions on the side) and then shape the mixture into 4 fish steaks. Fry the steaks in a skillet with a little butter and season with salt and pepper.

Peel the onions into thin slices and fry them in butter in a skillet over low to medium heat. Fry them for about 10 minutes so they go soft and become somewhat caramelized. Season with salt and pepper.

Rinse and fling the salad and the watercress free of water. Split the buns into halves and heat them up on the toaster. Stir together the mayo and mustard and spread it on the buns. Put the salad and fish steak on the bottom of the bun and top it of with watercress and onion and put the lid on.

Bon appetit...

Take a look at Carina's experiences with this dish - HERE 

Oatmeal chicken with onionsalad and a cold springsauce

Now today's recipe was one I had looked forward to for some time. The 9th dish of our experiment did contain a lot of onion for my taste and I left most of it out as I saw fit. Like Carina I made my own take on the salad and the sauce too, not because I had trouble finding the ingredients but because I'm not a huge fan of smoked fresh cheese either. This was a simple dish. Super easy to make when you haven't got a lot of time and it tastes really good! I loved the crunchiness of the oatmeal and the spring tast of the sauce. Definitely a recommendable recipe... Now for the sharing - Carina beat me to the punch today and all the credit for translating the original recipe goes to her - watch her experience with this recipe HERE 

For four people you'll need:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1½dl oatmeal
1 teaspoon of curry
3 tablespoons of olive oil or coldpressed rapeseed oil
salt and pepper for seasoning

Mild onion salad (Original recipe)

1 regular onion
1 red onion
1 tablespoon of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
400 grams of brussels sprouts
½ cucumber
A little lovage leaves or parsley
A little olive oil or coldpressed rapeseed oil

My salad

Iceberg lettuce
1/4 Cucumber
½ yellow bell pepper
2 spring onions


(chop up the salad and scrape out the seeds of the cucumber. Dice the bell pepper and finely chop the spring onions. Mix it all together in a small bowl and serve it with the chicken and spring sauce)

Cold spring sauce (original recipe)

1dl drained yoghurt (you can use Greek yoghurt)

1dl smoked fresh cheese
2 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley
1 tablespoon of finely chopped lovage
salt and pepper

My springsauce
1dl light yoghurt *
1dl of light Philadelphia cream cheese
2 tablespoons of finely chopped parsley

1 tablespoon of finely chopped lovage

salt and pepper

Accompaniment: potatoes (I didn’t serve that)

Cut the chicken breasts lengthways and turn them in a mix of oatmeal and curry and fry them on a frying pan with oil till they are golden on all sides and cook thoroughly, Sprinkle some salt and pepper over.

Cut the onions as thin as possible and leave them on a plate. Sprinkle over salt and sugar and leave them to drain for at least one hour. Rinse the onions thorough under cold water till the salt is gone. Leave them on a clean tea towel. Cut the brussels sprouts into “boats” and blanch them in boiling water for 1-2 minutes and then rinse them under cold water. Cut the cucumber in slices and then into halves. Mix the cucumber with onion, brussels sprouts and Lovage leaves. Drissle a little oil over. 

Whisk together the sauce and eat it with the chicken breast, onion salad and potatoes.

Bon appetit...