The Story of a Fermented Oat Flummery

Yesterday was the 100th birth anniversary of my maternal grandfather Ernst Johannes, known to his family and friends as Orika Ärni. A proud father of five, grandfather of 11. He died in 1981, when I was still just 6 years old, so I don't have many memories of him. I remember he was a big, quiet and stoic man, and know that he had worked hard in his farm all his life, mainly breeding pigs and milk cattle, as well as growing various grain crops (he had been lucky and wasn't deported to Siberia by the Soviets, but he did lose his large farm to the collectivisation, of course, leaving our family with just a fraction of the original farm). Although we spent at least a month every summer at our grandparents farm, and visited frequently, I cannot remember much of him. I have this image of him, sitting silently on the steps to one of the side-buildings of the house, just observing quietly what we, the kids, were doing. He wasn't the type of grandfather who'd play and chat with his grandchildren - I had my 'urban' grandfather for that :D - but I do remember forageing for wild mushrooms with him, even encountering a big brown bear on one occasion that we watched silently.

But there is one vivid food memory related to my grandfather that I wanted to share. During our annual month at the farm, my grandmother would regularly take a big saucepan, fill it with oatmeal and warm water, and leave it to ferment in a warm spot for a day or two. She'd then cook it on the huge stove in the corner of the old farm kitchen, stirring with a large wooden spoon, until it turned into a grey, gluey flummery ('kaerakile' or 'kaerakiisla' in Estonian). It was my grandfather's favourite dish, and there were always several bowls of cold flummery on the shelves in the large walk-in larder. It didn't look appetising - being a bland grey colour - and we avoided it at all cost, volunteering to pick berries from the orchard and eating these instead. But my granddad liked it, so my grandmother cooked it.

I spoke to my grandmother Senta (who celebrated her 88th birthday last week) yesterday, and she told me that she didn't like flummery to start with - actually found it pretty discusting, but gradually she grew fond of it. (Eks ta alguses oli üsna vastiku maitsega, aga pärast hakkas istuma :D) Well, I made the flummery yesterday to honour my grandfather Ärni. It definitely wasn't the most delicious dessert I've had, so I need to persist and learn to like this, just like my grandmother did. But it felt really good to eat my granddad's favourite dish on the day he would have turned 100.

Fermented Oat Flummery
(Kaerakile)

250 g old-fashioned oats or oatmeal
1 l lukewarm water
salt
sugar
butter

Mix oats and water in a large bowl, cover with cling film or a kitchen towel and leave to ferment in a warm spot for 24-30 hours. It needs to smell slightly sour, but pleasant at the end.
Pour the mixture through a fine sieve. Cook the resulting whitish liquid on a moderate heat, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon to avoid sticking, until it's thickened considerably and become gluey.
Season with salt and sugar.
Serve warm with a dollop of butter or cold with a spoonful of jam. Drink cold fresh milk alongside.

The 2008 wild mushroom season has officially begun...

... with this beautiful yellow morel (Morchella esculenta) we managed to pick last Saturday.

Isn't she pretty?

Ground-Elder and Vanilla Muffins

Ground-elder, you may wonder? Well, I wrote more about that healthy wild green about a year ago (check out my It's a Wild Thing: Hortapita or Greek Pie with Wild Greens post). Last weekend I managed to pick some new season's young ground-elder leaves, and tried a recipe for ground elder and vanilla muffins that was published in a local food magazine. I must admit I first thought 'ground elder muffins' are savoury ones, so seeing sugar and vanilla in the list of ingredients suprised me a little. However, I did follow the list of ingredients, changing the proportions and instructions a little, and was extremely pleased with the end result. The muffins were sweet, very slightly green-tasting, and very pleasant indeed.

Should you come across young and bright green ground-elder leaves in your garden, you should really try this recipe.

Ground-Elder and Vanilla Muffins
(Kevadised naadimuffinid vaniljega)
Recipe is based on Angelica Udeküll's muffin recipe in Estonian food magazine KÖÖK (April 2008)
Ready in 30 minutes
Makes 8

2 large eggs
100 ml caster sugar
100 g butter, melted
200 ml plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
30 g young ground-elder leaves (just over a cup when lightly pressed)

Pour some boiling water over ground elder leaves and leave to stand for a few minutes.
Whisk eggs with sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the cooled melted butter, vanilla. Mix flour, baking powder and salt, then fold into the batter.
Drain the ground-elder and squeeze dry. Chop finely, then stir into the batter.
Divide into 8 muffin cups and bake in the middle of 220 C oven for 12-15 minutes, until muffins are lovely light golden brown.

The first of many rhubarb desserts: Coconut Creams with Poached Rhubarb Recipe

Since spotting the first crisp and sour local rhubarb spears at the market last about a week ago, I've made no less than three different rhubarb desserts already. All of them - let me tell you - worth sharing with you. So if you don't mind, I start with the first one.

The recipe is from BBC Good Food website, and the only change I've done is reducing the amount of sugar. Most British - and pretty much all American recipes - use more sugar than I'm accustomed to, so by reducing the sugar I've 'Estonified' the recipe :)

Coconut Creams with Poached Rhubarb
Serves 4

For the coconut creams:
2 gelatine leaves
400 ml creamy coconut milk
2 Tbsp sugar

For poached rhubarb:
300 g young rhubarb stalks, cut into 3 cm chunks*
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
2 Tbsp sugar

To make coconut creams, first soak gelatine leaves in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes, until softened.
Heat the coconut milk and sugar in a small saucepan until simmering, then remove from the heat. Squeeze softened gelatine leaves slightly, then stir into the coconut milk, until dissolved.
Let cool a little, then pour into four small 200 ml dessert ramekins or glasses.
When cool, cover with clingfilm and transfer to the fridge for about 4 hours or overnight to set.

To poach rhubarb, place rhubarb, sugar and split vanilla pod into a small saucepan. Spring slowly to a boil (you may want to add a tablespoonful or two of water, but young rhubarb should yield plenty of juice itself, so it's not absolutely necessary) and then simmer, covered, for 7-10 minutes, until rhubarb is softened, but not too mushy.

Leave to cool, then spoon over the coconut creams and serve.

* There's no need to 'peel' young rosy rhubarb stalks, and unpeeling means much 'rosier' desserts.

Delicious Red Onion and Orange Salad Recipe

Here's an unusual salad I served on my birthday party just over a week ago. I had got some really beautiful and juicy, easy-peel Sicilian blood oranges from the grocery store, and I wanted to include them as part of the savoury buffet table. Having bookmarked this savoury orange salad recipe a while ago, it seemed like an obvious recipe to try. With just the tiniest of changes (improvements, obviously:), I made this salad. Alongside Ximena's wonderful balsamic-glazed sausages, this salad was another dish I had to make more of in the middle of the party, as it disappeared from the table in no time.

The sweet oranges, fruity olive oil, sharp red onions, acidic red wine vinegar, fiercy pink peppercorns - it's definitely a combination to try. Lovely. I used sweet blood oranges, as these look much more dramatic, but ordinary yellow ones would be just fine obviously.

Red Onion and Blood Orange Salad
(Apelsinisalat punase sibulaga)
Adapted from Piltti
Serves 4 to 6

2 to 3 large and juicy blood oranges
1 small red onion, diced
1 tsp caster sugar
a dash of red wine vinegar
a dash of extra virgin olive oil (I used Borges Organic)
whole pink peppercorns (dry ones, not in brine!)

Peel the oranges and slice thinly. Place on a serving tray, overlapping each other slightly.
Sprinkle with finely chopped red onion, then drizzle with wine vinegar and olive oil.
Season with sugar and scatter some pink peppercorns on top.

Wild Garlic Pesto Recipe

It's the brief season for wild garlic (aka ramsons or bear's garlic, Allium ursinum), and I'm excited. I only discovered wild garlic a year ago (see post here), and have been looking forward to them again.

There's a plentiful supply of wild garlic near our house, and early last week I picked some* to make some wild garlic recipes I had spotted elsewhere or 'created' myself. So far I've made the same cucumber and wild garlic salad mentioned last year; a delicious cold tzatziki sauce (wild garlic, cucumber, sour cream, salt); one cold sauce to accompany simple boiled potatoes (wild garlic, cornichons, kefir milk); and this delicious pesto recipe.

The idea behind the pesto is simple. If your usual Pesto Genovese is basil + garlic + parmesan cheese + pine nuts, then instead of basil and garlic I decided to use mild-tasting wild garlic instead. It was a very successful substitution indeed, and I'll be certainly making it again next year.

Have you tried wild garlic before? And what's your favourite use for this delicious wild food?

* Karulauk on Eestis III kategooria kaitsealune taim. Karulaugu korjamine isiklikuks kasutamiseks määral, mis ei ohusta liigi säilimist antud elupaigas, on lubatud; rangelt on keelatud looduslikust kasvukohast korjatud karulauguga kauplemine.

Wild Garlic Pesto
(Karulaugupesto)
Makes 200 ml



100 g wild garlic, rinsed, drained and chopped
50 g toasted pine nuts
150 ml extra virgin olive oil
50 g parmesan cheese, grated
Maldon sea salt, to taste

Place chopped wild garlic and toasted pine nuts into a blender, add about 1/3 of the olive oil and puree until smooth. Stir in the rest of the oil and the grated cheese, season to taste with salt.

Serve with pasta (see above) or stir into your risotto. Keeps covered in the fridge for about a week.

* Toasting pine nuts: heat pinenuts of a hot dry frying pan for a few minutes, shaking the pan regularly, until the nuts are golden brown and aromatic. Cool before use.

WHB: This is also my entry to the Weekend Herb Blogging, this time hosted by Anh of Food Lover's Journey. Click on the logo below for more information about this foodblogging event started by Kalyn.