Good example of homemade fries. Not mine, they're always eaten before I can get the camera out.
Oh yes. Perfect homemade french fries. No, you don’t need fancy equipment or a lot of time. You just need some guidance. And I’m here to give it to you.
What you need:
- Saucepan
- Knife
- Potatoes
- Sunflower oil
Steps
- Fill the saucepan 2/3 with water and heat to the boil while you:
- Peel the potatoes.
- Cut them into french fries size.
- Boil the fries for 10 minutes. Should be almost eating ready in consistency. When done, let them dry on some paper.
- Pour out all the water of the saucepan and make sure it is 100% dry.
- Fill the saucepan with 1/2 with sunflower oil.
- Put the saucepan back on the heat. Keep a lid close in case of fire. Don’t use full heat, but above medium.
- Put in one potato slice as your control.
- If you have a thermometer that can take the heat and oil, make sure you stay around 180 degrees centigrade.
- When the control slice is golden, take it out and carefully put in the rest of your fries.
- Use tongs to lift out fries when they’re done. Or use a slotted spoon if you have one. Let them dry on some paper.
Tips:
- If you’re making a lot, finished fries can be kept at 200 degrees centigrade in your owen while you make the rest.
- Season with french fries spice mix or salt before serving. Serve with ketchup. Perfect with all kinds of meat or fish.
- Don’t settle for the tiny size of McDonald’s fries. Double that is a good start.
- Experiment with different sizes and forms. Creative fries are well received at parties.
- You can reuse the sunflower oil. Just let it cool down and pour it into an empty bottle. Be sure to filter out any leftovers of the fries.
Enjoy!
Long time since I posted a food-related post. Only reason is my laziness me being busy. Today I made my first lamb dish in months, and it was a success. Here is the recipe:
- Lamb meat, cut in dices
- Onion
- Garlic
- Tomatoes diced/sliced seasoned with basil and oregano (with juice)
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Spice (rosmarin, thyme, black pepper, salt)
This dish is simple, but takes some time. Preheat the oven to 175C. Slice the potatoes and carrots. Boil them until almost done. Brown the lamb meat in a pan.
Cut onion slices to fill the bottom of the oven dish you use. Pour some olive oil over the onion slices. Mix the meat and vegetables and fill the oven dish. Cut some garlic cloves and spread it over. Add generously of the spice.
Pour the tomatoes and it’s juice over. Add a little bit of cream over if you want. Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes. Take it out and add grated cheese. Put it back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
This dish scales from 2 to infinite number of people if you have the right size oven dish. Serve with garlic bread as a starter.
This is an awesome dessert, so simple and tasty. It requires almost no explanation, but I’ll post it anyway for inspiration.
Ingredients
My favorite fruits to use are kiwifruit, pineapple, apple, orange/clementine, banana, pear and grapes. Almost anything goes, sweet fruits are best.
Recipe
Cut fruit into pieces, serve in dessert bowl covered with ice cream. Remember to let the ice cream melt just a little before covering it. Letting the ice cream sit in room temperature for 10-20 minutes while you cut the fruits is a good idea.
Enjoy!
Bonus tip: Yogurt works great too!
Salad lunch pack
I should’ve written this one earlier, but I just didn’t have the time. Last year I started to make some more comprehensive lunch packs, compared to the Norwegian traditional lunch pack with a couple of slices of bread.
I was just tired of eating dry, tasteless bread, and wanted to try something else. I have two variants I use now, one of which is pictured above.
The salad lunch pack is easy, and takes from 5-20 minutes to make, depending on what you put in it. My favorite is the one on the picture, with chicken and pasta.
Recipe #1 – Chicken salad lunch pack
- Pasta (I use Macaroni or Fusilli, but any pasta will do)
- Lettuce (I use iceberg or crispi)
- Red pepper
- Grilled or cooked chicken meat (you can often buy salad-specific chicken meat. If not, a whole grilled chicken works too)
- Onion
- Maize
- Spices and/or dressing (I use salt and ground pepper, sometimes a little bit of garlic powder)
Cook the pasta. Cut the chicken, red pepper and onion into pieces. Rip the lettuce into pieces (this way it stays fresh longer, compared to cutting it). Mix all ingredients in a airtight lunch box, and add spices. If you use dressing, you can put that in a separate box to preserve the salad better. Remember to bring a fork.
Tip: If you make the salad the night before, make sure to put the driest ingredients on top, and don’t blend them until you are ready to eat. Store the lunch box in the fridge. That way you will have the freshest possible salad.
Recipe #2 – Home-made baguette with ham and cheese
This one requires a bit more preparation, but it tastes great and is really cheap. You can bake baguettes twice a week and have one for lunch every day.
Baguette:
- 3/4 white wheat flour
- 1/4 coarse wheat flour
- yeast (50g per liter of flour)
- milk
- salt
- whole grain and seeds (optional)
If you use fresh yeast, mix it with lukewarm milk. If you use dried yeast, mix it with the flour. Mix together the ingredients until the dough lets go of the bowl. Let the dough raise for about an hour. Roll into sausage-shapes in the size you want. Remember that it will raise. Let it raise for another hour. Put on some whole grain and seeds if you like. Wet them slightly with water before you put them in the owen at 220C. They are ready when they are crispy and brown. Let them cool down before eating. Put them in a plastic bag if you want to use them later.
- Lettuce
- Red pepper
- Ham
- Cheese
- mayonnaise (optional)
Cut a baguette in half. Add ripped lettuce, slices of red pepper, ham and cheese. Add mayonnaise if you like. Wrap in plastic and bring as a lunch pack.
Both of these are great options to paying for expensive lunch in the cafeteria or bringing plain old dry bread.
Fårikål (image from wikipedia, I was too hungry to take a picture)
Today I bring you a traditional Norwegian dish. In fact, it is the Norwegian national dish. And it is so tasty and simple to make!
Fårikål literally means mutton in cabbage, and that is exactly what it is. The secret is the way you cook it.
Ingredients (per person)
250g mutton meat with bone
250g cabbage
Spices: Whole black pepper and salt
1-3 potatoes
Recipe
Cut a cabbage in roughly 1/8 parts. Add mutton meat and cut cabbage in layers, the thickest meat at the bottom, with the fat down.
spice with lots of whole black pepper and salt for each layer. End with a cabbage layer. Cover with water. Heat until it boils, and let it cook at low heat for at least two hours. Serve with boiled potatoes.
