Lithuanian Cuisine

We were inspired by N's earlier nationality, and decided to prepare a two course Lithuanian dinner. We wanted to make foods that he would have lovely childhood memories of, and so chose kibinai and tinginys.

Kibinai is a salty pastry which is filled with meat. Us not being so handy with our hands, didn't make it exactly as it's supposed to look like, but according to N the taste was exactly as it was supposed to be, which we're both proud of. 

The original recipe which we used can be found both in Lithuanian and English from here. We didn't touch the recipe of the dough but tried to follow that as closely as possible. The only change we made was dividing the amounts in half, because they sounded way too large for just the two of us to eat. 

In the filling we used minced pork meat, onions, pepper, salt and some herbs.

Kibinai is commonly served with a soup. We made it from vegetable stock and a bunch of fresh parsley. Simple, but fits really well.

Then the tinginys. A dessert which will silence the cravings for sweetness and chocolate immediately. It was a bit difficult to try to find the proper recipe for it in English. Finally we ended up in a forum where we could find the translated and an authentic one.

I read that condensed milk can be produced at home easily, it's just quite time consuming. It's as easy as pouring milk into a wide based saucepan (preferably teflon) and leaving it on the stove on low heat for a few hours to condense/evaporate. So if you're feeling like being a true homemaker, go ahead. We just bought a can from the store. If you're unfamiliar with this ingredient and are wondering whether to buy the sweetened one or the other one, we recommend the other one. The unsweetened one is already so sweet that you can eat only a few spoonfuls. 

We used half the amount of nuts and half the amount of biscuits that the recipe suggested (because the packages I bought were too small...) but it turned out amazing nevertheless. This way it just turned out more chocolaty, which is not in this household considered a minus at all. 

Lastly, if you're busy or just feeling an uncontrollable desire to eat the dessert already, it's possible to reduce the freezing time by instead of a fridge putting it in a freezer, where it will turn good in about an hour already. If you'd ever decide to make this, we guarantee, it's totally worth it (especially because it's really easy to make) if you love sweet things. 

Posted by K & N

First Year Anniversary

Hello everyone, N&K are back! 

We're deeply sorry for this break of two months without a single post, but we've been too busy to write it. Though that doesn't mean that we would've been too busy to cook!

 A couple months ago we celebrated our 1st year together. Our goal was to make it fancy, and that succeeded perfectly. We got each other presents on this occasion also. N gave me a photo frame with a picture of us on our holiday trip last summer, with a box of self made chocolate truffles (can be seen in the picture). I couldn't have been more impressed and delighted about a gift! I gave him a CK perfume. Dressed up in a suit and a dress we prepared together a three course dinner for two.

We started off with a sure-to-succeed appetizer, something that we  recommend for everyone, in case they want to make an elegant and fancy evening with almost no effort (when there's not a lack of money): All different kinds of cheeses with crackers and grapes. It looks beautiful and smells absolutely gorgeous when served. There's of course no recipe for this, just buy the cheeses that you enjoy the most, or some new ones if feeling adventurous. We recommend at least blue cheese, strength depending on your personal taste. At least if you choose to go with something as strong as Roquefort for example, it would be a good idea to take milder cheeses on the side to balance it out, such as creamy French country brie.

We were hungry and impatient and almost filled ourselves up with the starters. Elegance is a skill to practice for the future, with some self control... But that did not steal the enjoyment of the main course: oven baked salmon and rice served with creamy and fresh lemon sauce. The salmon was prepared the way I've been used to in my childhood.

A salmon fillet is placed whole on an oven tray. Some lemon or lime (or both) juice is sprinkled on it. If available, you should also try some whiskey too, it gives a nice flavour. Unfortunately we didn't have any. Next, some salt. You shouldn't use small grained salt, it may ruin the texture of the fish. Large grained sea salt is traditional, but to our delight I had some Himalayan salt (somewhere also known as rose salt, due to it's colour that is finely red/pink). The salt is followed by lemon pepper and dill. Then it's put in the oven in about 200 C or less, for about half an hour, depending on the size and thickness of the fish.

The sauce was composed of the following:
- vegetable stock
- lime juice
- cream
- a couple of table spoons of wheat flour mixed in water (to thicken the texture to "sauce-like")
- dill
- pepper
- and lastly, I just can't remember whether it was blue cheese or goat cheese that I took from the remains of the cheese plate, but use the one you like the most, both fit excellently in my opinion

For dessert, we prepared pannacotta. There are different ways to make it, but we chose the one without gelatin, since that ingredient seems to have some personal issues with me. So our recipe was the following:

2,5 dl cream (or milk, or both)
1 dl jelly sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar

Mix all ingredients in a pot, heat until boiling, and let the mixture boil for around half a minute. Poor into glasses from which they'll be served and take them to cool down in the fridge. We recommend you to make these already the day before. We didn't, but let them be in the cold for only 2-3 hours, which left them still runny. It didn't matter though, it tasted great still! Decorate the portions with any fruits or berries of your desire. Chocolate(sauce) could also fit, but if and only if the meal before the dessert was not too heavy. Pannacotta is very sweet and surprisingly filling, and so some berries are a good way to lighten it up and make it "easier to eat". As you can see from the picture, we used strawberries. Unfortunately fresh and good ones weren't available in the winter here in Finland (oh how we love the arctic conditions...) so we used ones melted from the freezer.

After a good and huge meal, the best thing to do is to watch a great movie. After a romantic meal would've been too syrupy to watch some boring 100 times seen romance chick flick, and we chose to see the Naked Gun 2.

Posted by K&N