Category Archives: Food

Forced blanched Udo Baccalao

Inspired by my visit in the spring to Tokyo’s underground blanching of Udo (Aralia cordata), see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=8299, I dug up a couple of roots in the autumn for indoors forcing.  I kept them cold in the cellar until about a month ago and then progressively moving  them first to a cool room at about 10C and then the living room at about 18C when I’m at home  (about the same temperature as down the Udo underground forcing caverns!)
I used them both in salads and also in a mixed vegetable baccalao dish. Baccalao is a Norwegian / Portuguese stew based on dried and salted cod.

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Roots dug up in the autumn and planted in a large bucket which was put in my cold cellar for 4 months
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Shoots appearing in my living room with another bucket over the top to keep light out! Note the thin white shoots appearing around the edges…this reminds me of the video from Mountain Gardens telling that Udo spreads by rhizomes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNzCpfSQWks&feature=youtu.be
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Tasty blanched Udo was used to decorate the salad I made for Credo Restaurant in Trondheim during the Kosmorama festival!
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Blanched Udo at the back!
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I didn’t use all the shoots and I let two continue to grow and was used this week in a Baccalao dish

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Ingredients in the Udo Baccalao dish including odds and ends left in the cellar, forced dandelion (top right), Jerusalem artichokes, Udo, chicories, turnips, Tragopogon, burdock, leeks and carrots
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Forced blanched dandelions with flower buds
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Assembling the baccalao with Udo on top

Extreme winter record salad

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Proof one more time that north is best for growing a diversity of tasty salad greens ;)  Presenting (and claiming) my new world winter salad diversity record, a salad with over 140 ingredients all harvested locally without using any additional energy than is available in my house and cellar (no greenhouse; no freezer; no fermenting involved and only dried fruit and seed used apart from fresh vegetables!). Despite the snow cover I was able to harvest some 20-30 edibles outside. More on how this can be done will be the subject of a separate post!

The salad was presented and eagerly devoured by those who had bought tickets for the Gourmet Cinema event on 9th March 2017 as part of the Trondheim Kosmorama Film Festival! It went so quickly, I didn’t even get a taste myself!

The film was followed by a Food talk with a panel including the film’s director Michael Schwarz, the head chef at Credo Heidi Bjerkan, myself and Carl Erik Nielsen Østlund, the owner of the biodynamic organic farm that supplies much of the food to Credo, moderated by Yoshi!

http://kosmorama.no/en/2016/12/gourmet-cinema-in-defense-of-food

As Michael Pollan concludes in the film:
Eat Food, Not too much and (as many as possible) mostly vegetables!

The day before, I had prepared a 105 ingredient salad for the festival dinner at Credo restaurant (http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=10184). While preparing that salad, I made a second salad with the same 105 ingredients…and then added almost 40 additional ingredients that I hadn’t had time to harvest the day before!

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Food diversity events in Trondheim next week!

Winter recordI was very pleased earlier in the winter to be asked to take part in the Trondheim Kosmorama Film Festival’s culinary programme, set up around the showing of two food related films:

Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food  http://kosmorama.no/program/gourmet-cinema-in-defense-of-food  and NOMA – My Perfect Storm  http://kosmorama.no/program/gourmet-cinema-noma-my-perfect-storm

In connection with both films I am collaborating with Trondheim’s leading restaurant Credo in putting together the most diverse locally-sourced winter food ever in Norway, if not the world…. ;)
After the Michael Pollan film on Thursday 9th March,  participants will be able to sample one of my multi-species edimental dishes and other snacks, see a cavalcade of pictures from over 50 of my fantasy salads and other multi-species dishes and there will also be a Food Talk with myself, the film’s producer Michael Schwartz and Credo’s Heidi Bjerkan and local farmer and supplier of gourmet raw ingredients Carl Erik Nielsen Østlund!  As Pollan concludes, Eat Food, Not too Much, Mostly (a diversity of) Plants!

After the NOMA film on the day before (Wednesday 8th March), guests can purchase tickets to a dinner at Credo or Jossa Mat og Drikke (upstairs at Credo). The Extreme Salad Man (that’s me!) will be at the Credo dinner and will inform the guests about some of the weird and wonderful veggies from Trøndelag to be included in this 10-12 dish meal. A multi-species dish will also be served at Credo!

Please join us for one or both of these two unique film-food diversity events!
Buy tickets here:
https://kosmoramafilmfest.hoopla.no/sales/kulinarisk-jossa (Noma)

https://kosmoramafilmfest.hoopla.no/sales/kulinarisk-in-defense-of-food  (In Defence of Food)
See also Credo’s blog about the Kosmorama culinary events here:

http://us10.campaign-archive1.com/?u=02c6cd43bc54fa6b9821680b9&id=3881be9ef6

All ingredients in my multi-species dishes apart from a simple dressing will be freshly harvested either outside in the garden, from my cold cellar or from living rooms in the house without additional heat, lights nor freezer (no greenhouse). My previous winter diversity records can be seen by following the links below! How many will it be this time? ;)
30th March 2014 (81) Salad   http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=4064

February 2015  (55) Salad  http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?page_id=815

January 2017   (56)  Salad    http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=9559

January 2017   (57)  Green pasta sauce http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=9577

NB! TRONDHEIM and Trøndelag is the best place anywhere to grow tasty veggidiversity!

Kosmorama Film (and Food) Festival

Join me at Trondheim’s Kosmorama Film Festival’s Gourmet Cinema on Thursday March 9th at 1600! You will see a special screening of Michael Pollan’s  documentary “In Defense of Food”, experience among other things a multi-species dish showing off the incredible abundance of food available to us in Trøndelag, even early in March. The food will be a collaboration between myself, gourmet restaurant Credo in Trondheim (Heidi Bjerkan) and the organic farm they work with, Skjølberg Søndre (Carl Erik Nielsen Østlund and Elin Östlund). There will also be a Food Talk after the film between us 3 (Heidi, Carl Erik and myself) together with producer and director Michael Schwarz! This will be a fun evening (English)…
In addition, I’m taking part in the so-called Kulinarisk Kino which is the screening of the film NOMA – My Perfect Storm followed by dinner at Credo, which I hope will include a very special Nodic perennial vegetable served for the first time in a restaurant in Norway :)

Tonight’s barlotto

Tonight’s mix of veg for a barlotto (Norw: byggotto) in which you can put what you want.

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Yacon (bottom left) and (middle top) sprouted edible rooted chicory “Cicoria di Chiavari”. The roots had been stored in damp leaf mould in the cellar and had some nice long blanched sprouts…both the roots and sprouts were used

 

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Sprouted edible rooted chicory “Cicoria di Chiavari”
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Barlotto: stir-fry all the vegetables, cook the whole grain barley, mix and serve…

 

Golpared onion bhajis

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Gram or chick pea flour with golpar and black onion seed
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The batter (add the sliced onions and water to make a thickish batter with a little salt).
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Deep fried onion bhajis Persian style!

Indian bhajis are a popular snack or side dish in UK Indian restaurants…deep fried onions in  a batter made of chick pea flour with various spices usually including cumin, coriander, black onion seed or kalonji (Nigella sativa), I replaced the cumin with golpar (ground seed of Heracleum persicum collected from a wild stand in Trondheim)! Delicious!
P.S: Mental note: try with broad bean flour!

113 veggies in the first week of January!

The ingredients list for last night’s extreme green pasta sauce ended at 57 (all collected inside in the living areas or the cellar stores), which together with Sunday’s 56 variety salad (all collected outside before the snow obscured everything) means I’m already over 113 veggies for 2017! Will this be the year my world record salad will be smashed?

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Skirret-chufa stir-fry

Tonight’s dinner, skirret-chufa stir-fry.