Stockholms Kök & Kafeteria

Artichoke & Jerusalem Artichoke

2010-09-12T23:23:00.001+10:00

Monthly Cake from My Boss - September

2010-09-12T22:45:00.000+10:00

End of August my boss at work asked me "Chika, what is marshmallow cream?"
Oh yeah, tomorrow is the beginning of month!
A day he bakes sweets for all employees

September was Whoopie Pie.
Loved it!

A whoopie pie (alternatively called a gob, black-and-white, bob, or "BFO" for Big Fat Oreo) is a baked good made of two round mound-shaped pieces of chocolate cake, sometimes pumpkin cake, with a sweet, creamy frosting sandwiched between them.[1] While considered a New England phenomenon and a Pennsylvania Amish tradition,[2] they are increasingly sold throughout the United States.[1] According to food historians, Amish women would bake these (known as hucklebucks at the time) and put them in farmers' lunchboxes. When farmers would find these treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!"[1] (from Wikipedia)

Monthly Cake from My Boss - August
Monthly Cake from My Boss - July

Kale and White Beans Lunch

2010-09-12T22:18:00.000+10:00

A bunch of kale sitting on a display at South Melbourne Market was very pretty.
Couldn't walk pass without taking that with me home.

The Bratwurst Shop @ Queen Victoria Market

2010-08-23T23:09:00.000+10:00

I can't leave Victoria Market without having this Bratwurst!

White bread, sausage, sauerkraut and hot mustard.
It's so simple, but it's always the best!

Neck Pain Walk

2010-08-23T22:59:00.001+10:00

I always wanted to take a photo of this. Stained-glass ceiling at NGV.

Went for a walk with my new friend.

An empty property nearby my place.
After 3 years staring at it and opening imaginary cafe, I noticed a sign on the wall for the first time.

Smell Spring from the sun these days. Longing for this season coming!

Look-up walking, so Neck-pain walking.

From Heaven's View Lunch

2010-08-23T22:34:00.000+10:00

Friday lunch at my friend's place with gorgeous view from 47th floor!

My New Friend

2010-08-15T23:23:00.000+10:00

After talking about this for 2 years, finally my new friend, Olympus PEN EP-1 is in my hands!
I just feel so happy and excited...this is almost Fall in Love, isn't it??

Long Weekend Lunch

2010-08-15T23:11:00.001+10:00

I had 2days off on Monday and Tuesday for my Birthday weekend and invited my best friend, her mum and her newborn baby for lunch.
Here is the chef special menu!

- Yellow-fin Tuna Sashimi
- Pan fried Barramundi & Monteray Prawns with Prawn Broth and Season Vegetables on side
- Lemon Tart

Monthly Cake from My Boss - August

2010-08-15T23:06:00.000+10:00

Monthly cake from Mr. Perfect as my boss at work for August was Pink Macaroon!!
Absolutely spot on!
I'm afraid he would bake Croquembouche by end of this year...

Welcome to the World & Chocolate Fondant Muffin

2010-07-17T23:14:00.001+10:00

My best friend just had a baby boy on this Thursday. In this afternoon Roger and myself went to a hospital, finally met him after 9 months talking to him through his mother's tummy.

As she is very close to me like a family, it was really emotional with full of happiness to meet him.

While she had been struggling with morning sickness Roger had cooked meatball a couple of times and delivered to her. And the first Roger's cook for them after he came to our world was Chocolate Fondant Muffin. Hope he will taste some from mummy milk.

Welcome to the world!!
And N&M., congratulations from bottom my heart.

A letter from Japan

2010-07-10T22:56:00.000+10:00

When I got home, I found an unexpected letter from Japan.
It was from a lady who had cooking lessons with us and went back to Japan.
The letter was a notification of new address and an appreciation for a little present that we made for her leaving. The massage really warmed us up and I thought if we are managing to have cooking classes connecting to students continuously, not just one-shot cooking class, it's real pleasure for us!

Castella from Japan

2010-07-10T22:48:00.000+10:00

My best friend is expected to deliver a boy in this next a couple of days.
And her mum came from Japan to help her with sweets gift for us.
Baumkuchen and Castella(the first photo)!!
Castella is is a popular Japanese sponge cake originally came from Portuguese and made of sugar, flour, eggs, and starch syrup.

Japanese sweets are so precise and very gentle taste!!
Absolutely loved it!!!!!!!

Stockholms Kök 2010/07/05 Corned Beef

2010-07-10T22:37:00.000+10:00

One student came back to the class with her friend.
It's been pretty chill in Melbourne these days, so we decided to cook something warm and nice meal. It was Corned Beef in buljong with vegetable and Dijon Mustard.

Tempura Hajime

2010-07-04T23:22:00.000+10:00

(Photo form The Age)

We went to Tempura Hajime this Friday night.

When I read a review of this restaurant a couple years ago, it was quite surprising at the fact that we finally could have Tempura on counter in Australia !

In this restaurant you hardly believe you are in Australia, almost feeling like in Japan.

Food was much better than expected and if you could have more chance to talk with a new owner chef who is cooking right in front of you, it would be even better !

Try for your special occasion.

Tempura Hajime
60 Park St, South Melbourne
03 9696 0051

Monthly Cake from My Boss

2010-07-04T22:29:00.001+10:00

On every first working day of the moonth my boss at work brings in home-made cakes for all employees. He does every single months even just after coming back from overseas business trip.

For July it was coconuts base and raspberry jam with coconuts flakes on top.
His cakes are getting as good as ones sold in a shop in this half year,, really tasty.

Thank you for this month too!

Midsummer Festival

2010-07-04T22:07:00.004+10:00

26th June was the Swedish Midsummer Festival and we had a little Midsummer dinner at friend's place. It's , however, middle of winter in Melbourne here, so Roger cooked classic Swedish winter meal called "Laxpudding", which is layers of salmon, potato, dill and onion covered with milk and egg mixture.
Canneles we had as desert were really yummy!

I'm happy that daylight is getting longer towards to summer!!

Stockholms Kök 2010/06/21 Bread Mater Course

2010-07-04T17:37:00.000+10:00

The first bread lesson!
The student made home-made Hamburger with this bread at home! Lovely!!

Chef's Birthday

2010-06-13T20:51:00.001+10:00

Roger's birthday was this weekend.
His meat supplier gave his a Tasmanian black truffle as his birthday present !
This is my first fresh truffle ever!! Yahoooooooo!!

And strawberry drink for the celebration..

Croque Monsieur

2010-06-08T21:02:00.000+10:00

We went to a cafe for Sunday brunch and had a Croque-Monsieur-like sandwich, but it was hardly called "Croque Monsieur"......!! Then we straightaway moved to our favorite cafe to have another Croque Monsieur. Additionally he cooked above hot sandwich for the nigh dinner.. is this a sort of revenge ???

Stockholms Kök 2010/05/24 Meat with Polenta Roger's Style

2010-05-24T21:23:00.002+10:00

- Sirloin Stake and Eye Fillet with Polenta Roger's Style

- Sirloin Stake and Eye Fillet with Polenta Cake

- Ranaka (Potato Cake)

Swedish Vinegar - Ättika 24%

2010-05-17T21:30:00.000+10:00

Stockholms Kök 2010/05/17 Duck Master Course

2010-05-17T21:28:00.001+10:00

Stockholms Kök 2010/05/17 Fish Master Course

2010-05-17T21:26:00.001+10:00

Stockholms Kök 2009/3/26 Salmon Pansanella

2009-03-27T00:07:00.008+11:00

We didn’t have a class last 2 weeks and Damien came back from such a stressful world! We started from catching-up talk even though I work with him everyday, but anyway it was so good to get the class back on track.

Today’s menu is Salmon Pansanella as he requested something easy and quick to cook, still tasty!! A short introduction what he’s gonna do today. He looked quite comfortable in the kitchen with apron and whisk after 2 weeks blank.

Pansanella is an Italian salad with crispy pan-fried baugette, so he tried home made dressing tonight. I have to say this,, the recipe of this dressing is champion! This is absolutely my favorite ever!

Thanks for the nice meal for tonight too, Damien and Roger.

I got a funny feeling tonight when we were having the meal on our sofa. Watching the first footy match in this season on TV and having meal all together, then I thought “Oh, this is like my older brother coming over to our place”.. After Damien left Roger also admitted “Tonight was like dinner with young brother”

!!Viva, regular visitors!!

Chika

Stockholms Kök 2009/3/5

2009-03-06T00:02:00.009+11:00

3rd cooking class!
From today Damien joined us who missed last week and tried his first cooking ever! So more photos of him are attached to today’s post to prove a fact that actually he is in a cooking class to his friends who don’t believe it.
OK, here are our guys!
“Look at me! I’m cooking! I’m actually cooking!” and already-very-professional-look Kosti.

Seriously chefs are chopping everything and preparing all ingredients from scratch.
Of course they are using a pan too. Damien! it won’t catch fire on you, a bit more close to the stove!!

We cooked prawns with spicy sauce tonight and they cooked in separate pans on their own responsibilities from very begging to the end. Both dishes are cooked from exact same ingredients, but Kosti’s dish was much hotter and more soy sauce flavor, Damien’s had more sourness in. Surprisingly Food always reflects its taste with how you are feeing and who you are.

Anyway check this excellent smile! Yes, he can cook yummy yummy prawn mean!

Stockholms Kök 2009/2/26

2009-02-27T00:45:00.009+11:00

Second cooking class!! We finally started actual cooking from tonight. The day before we gave them a shopping list for tonight including some of Chinese ingredients which must be never recognized in their entire life. But 3 guys grabbing the shopping list went to a supermarket together and did their best to buy ingredients on lunch break!!

The menu was “Sour and Sweet Stir Fried Pork Neck with Rice”

Kosti is actually really good cook, he seems to know basic of cooking and how to chop.

Chop..chop..chop.. Roger is right hand side and Kosti is left, so it’s bit tricky.

Stir..stir..stir with a little bit smile.
It was a very quick meal, spent more time for chopping than actual cooking process with heat. But taste was very very nice, pork was juicy. Thank you very much for your nice cooking, Kosti!

If you go to Asian market or meat shop, there is pork neck available in very reasonable price. It’s worth to try it for BBQ!!

Chiky

Stockholms Kök 2009/2/19

2009-02-20T02:04:00.004+11:00

The first lesson wasn’t really first lesson. Roger and two guys starting today hadn’t met before, so today was more greeting and introduction by watching and tasting Roger’s cook. And discussed what they are looking at, what they can cook and can’t.

Anyway first meeting is always bit nervous for everyone, but sitting together, having same meal and drinking often work really well to break ice. Especially tonight we had absolutely common topic, “Food!”
We cooked Chicken Penne with Mascarpone Cheese sauce for tonight. they were standing next to Roger and tasting flake salt, Mascarpone cheese, basic soup before adding salt or anything in,,, It’s so good to see people more getting into food and finding new taste.

They seem to be looking at more quick simple meal (we have one more class with 2 Japanese guys focusing on Pastas). So we may try bit Asian cuisine plus fish meal.

Their goal is cooking for our company Christmas Party end of this year! ( isn’t is? Kosit, Damien!)

Anyway OZ guys finally took first huge steps into the KITCHEN!! Good luck from next week.
Chiky

Stockholms Kök

2009-02-20T01:21:00.002+11:00

Well, we started to open a cooking class from last week, which was totally unexpected.

The our new challenge was suddenly begun from a day when one of my colleagues grabbing newspaper with cooking page on came to me and said “Chika, what does this ’Brunch beans’” mean? I think I need to start cooking, but even don’t understand the first sentence of this recipe!”

I looked around myself and realized actually there are many males willing to lean food, but cooking class is far too expensive. So I talked with my husband about this, then he just said

“Alright, if they can bring in food, I can teach them”

Actually we are living in standard town house with very ordinary kitchen, but we’ve got plenty knives, aprons and all equipments, Yes We Can! Yes We Can Have Cooking Class!!

So,, cooking class named “Stockholms Kök” Stockholm’s Kitchen was opened.

The class concept is to feel like cooking at friend’s place and eat, drink happily, in the end you will get a little bit cooking skill and food knowledge as well,

I lesson up to 2 participants, no time limit - take you time until you enjoy and feel full.
Basically there is no menu, cook whatever you want, whatever you want to learn.
Start from where you are, what you can.
Cost is $60pp excluding ingredients.

Anyway, so far all the participants are males who cook little before but keen on cooking!
It would be very interesting,, Cook with Guys !

I will update the class onto this blog as much as I can.
Step by step, do what we can do from small things..
Chiky

Blog in Japanese
http://stockholmkafeteria.blogspot.com/

Chicken & Duck Soup Stock (ENG)

2009-02-12T22:46:00.000+11:00

日本語版　JPN Ed. <http://iamafoodlover.blogspot.com/2008/07/chicken-duck-soup-stock-jpn.html>

It’s been more than 1 month since posted last time. As mentioned in the begging, yes I am　lazy, can’t stick to anything ! After a couple of busy week for both of us this weekend was really relaxing nice and slow weekend. Specially when it comes with raining, it’s perfect to be home. So we decided to go up the market and cook something slowly then spend quiet night at home.

As beginning Roger started from preparing a soup stock. We bought whole fresh chicken and duck (with head on!!) from the market, probably it’s not easy to find whole chicken, specially duck in Japan, but if you try a local meat shop they should sell pork bones for stock or ask them to chop a whole lot. Of course I don’t know how to open a whole chicken or duck, but thank god! Yes! I have a professional chef at home who easily chops down them. So he took fillets, drum sticks and thighs off, then chopped rest of them for stock. Prepared duck same as chicken

Firstly fill up water in a big pot and add chunky chopped onion, leek, celery, carrot, skin-on ginger, skin-on garlic, bay leave, whole black paper, nutmeg and above chopped meat. Then put on the fire about for 3 or 4 hours. The most important points are 1) remove scum frequently and take all the fat away 2) Keep adding water when reduced.

After slow cooked, rest it for a while then strain it(Of course you can eat the vegetable and meant ! we ate with salt & pepper and olive oil, also used for demiglace sauce).

You will get a clean golden soup stock!

This will be continued to a duck dish cooked with this soup stock !

Chika

Easiest Snack Ever ! (ENG)

2009-02-12T22:44:00.000+11:00

日本語版　JPN Ed. <http://iamafoodlover.blogspot.com/2008/05/easiest-snack-ever-jpn.html>

Same as previous week, this one week was also crazily busy and it will be from tomorrow too. And Roger has been tired too. Thus we didn't cook a kind of special food for this week, however I prepared some dishes for following week, chicken cakes and frozen it, slow cooked Daikon (white radish) and chicken balls in Chinese flavor soup, and sweet-soy sauce flavor chicken mince. All of them are packed in container and waiting for being finished up easily in following busy week (The photos will be up here next weekend.).

The only food Roger taught me for this week was.......Easiest night snack

"Cauliflower and Budweiser"

,,, That's it !!! (Apology for this slipshod advise...)

According to a long long food study of great Swedish chef, this is easiest and best combination snack, the beer has to be "Budweiser", specially "Bottled Budweiser" !!
At the beginning you may feel like a rabbit to eat fresh cauliflower, but wait until drink up Budweiser! Well, actually it brings a very clear and crisp cauliflower's sweetness.
Try it instead of eating chips in midnight,, definitely healthier for your beer belly !

Hope you will have an another great week.
Chiky

Pork Neck BBQ & Charred Cabbage w Mashed Sweet Potato (ENG)

2009-02-12T22:37:00.001+11:00

日本語版　JPN Ed.
<http://iamafoodlover.blogspot.com/2008/05/pork-neck-bbq-charred-cabbage-w-mashed_12.html>

I
didn't have time to cook or even didn't have enough time to eat for
this week. My skin started to be really awful since last Wednesday due
to unbalanced food and probably stress as well. So to eat something
proper food I went to my favorite exciting Asian market this morning
after dropping Roger at his work which was busy for Mother's day lunch
today.

So a main dish for today is from the morning shopping, "Pork Neck BBQ & Charred Cabbage w Mashed Sweet potato".(Photo is not that good,, taken after we'd eatten)
I was planning to cook something else, but change to put BBQ on by Roger's request, as result it came a typical Swedish food which is also good with Japanese style steamed rice as usual.

Salt and pepper on 2 cm sliced pork neck stake and put olive oil all over pork, cabbage, half- cut whole garlic (leave skin on). Put everything on BBQ and cook cabbage until surface turn to black and garlic until become clear color. Dress cabbage with white vinegar and olive oil in the end.

For mashed potato, boil Asian(?) sweet potato(skin is purple, inside is white) and pumpkin in water until cooked (you can steam or cook in microwave). mash all together (I prefer chunky) and add butter and sugar. If you like creamy one, you can add milk.

Then Bon appetit!
Try to eat pork, cabbage, garlic, mash all together. If you like "sweet & salty" taste, you are already on the way to Swedish. "sweet & sour" "sweet & salty" may sound funny for some people, but these are significant Swedish flavors, once you start to enjoy it, I bet you that you will be addicted soon.

Also don't worry to overcook cabbage. The charcoal bring another beautiful flavor from sweetness & bitterness, which will notice you how sweet cabbage is and how simple cook is! Garlic also reduce its strong smell and dramatically increase sweetness, texture is like a potato when cooked well.

I'm often amazed by this Roger's simple cook bringing soooo much better taste and the Swedish "sweet & salty" combination.
Hope you will find out too.

Chiky

Herring w boiled potato & lumpfish roe (ENG)

2009-02-12T22:35:00.000+11:00

日本語版　JPN ed.
<http://iamafoodlover.blogspot.com/2008/05/herring-w-boiled-potato-lamp-fish-roe_04.html>

IKEA,,IKEA,, ahh! my favorite place!!
To fill up our food storage with lovely pepparkaka (ginger biscuit) which is best bikie I've ever tasted, we went IKEA this afternoon. I guess I can spend whole one day with playing every single room demos and still remember I was sooooo excited the first time visiting there while IKEA launching in Japan was still under plan at the time. In this spring 2nd IKEA Japan was opened in Kobe where I'm from, then I heard a rumor about more than 320,000 people visit IKEA in a couple of weeks !! You can see how much Japanese people love IKEA including me and how we love SWEEEEEDEN !!

Anyway the today's one dish is Herring served w boiled potato & lumpfish roe.
Probably this is nothing special for Swedish people, however, grantee the great combination.
Finely chopped red onion, boiled potato w little bit olive oil and pine nuts, lamp fish roe and herring (classic flavor). Dill on top, salt & paper if you want.
It comes really well with beer also Roger mentioned it will be good with a shot of vodka.

Surprisingly Swedish food and Japanese food are really similar from ingredient to cooking process, even storing. As only difference we eat more rice and they eat more potato. So there are so many dishes actually I would love to have rice with. This was also one of it.

You can buy lumpfish roe and herring from IKEA food in very reasonable price. Herring is available in many flavors, should be nice too. To be honest I wantted it with steamed rice.

Chiky