Mom's sauce

My mom grew up unspoiled from foreign influences, and she enjoyed a steady Norwegian diet containing few spices except from salt and pepper. Still, as a grown lady, she sometimes throws together really oriental-tasting dishes, mostly from what she finds in the local supermarket. It might be hard to decipher some of the dishes, but she taught me this one that's surprisingly simple and so good that just thinking of it makes me salivate. I might have morphed the receipt over the years, but the base is hers.

Feeds about 4.

What you'll need:

• Two cans (400g each) coconut milk.
• Two cans crushed tomatoes.
• 1 whole garlic.
• 2-3 tsp ginger.
• 2 tsp coriander.
• Chili to taste. Mine is 2-3 fresh chilies.
• Salt to taste (maybe 2 tsp).
• A bit of lemon balm gives the finishing touch.

• 800g diced chicken.
• Spring onion, chopped.
• Carrots, sliced to thin stripes.
• Rice or pasta.

The process.

What to do:

• Put a pot on the stove and turn on the heat.
• Mix coconut milk and tomatoes in the pot.
• Add the spices. By all means, peel the garlic.
• Use a hand blender in the pot until the sauce is quite smooth.
• The tastes are freed when the sauce becomes warm. It's not of much use to taste the cold sauce. Check that the spice mix is right and add what you miss.
• The sauce can now be stowed away in the fridge or freezer, or you can use it right away. 

• Fry the chicken. Feel free to let ghee, garlic and a chopped onion accompany the chicken in the skillet.
• Add the spring onion, carrots and other extras if you want to.
• Serve with rice or pasta. Boil the rice with some chopped spring onion if you like.

The meal.

For the health freaks:

• Use brown rice or pasta.

Garlic pasta sauce

I made this quick sauce as I made myself some warm lunch. It was so good, I felt obliged to share it with you. Unfortunately, it was so good I ate it all before I thought about taking pictures.


Enough for two helpings.

What you'll need:

• A 400g can of skinned or crushed tomatoes.
• 4 cloves of garlic.
• 1/2 tsp ginger, hot chili powder and coriander.
• 2-4 tsp salt (depends on the tomatoes you're using.
• Pepper to taste.
• 3-4 tbspoons of oil

What to do:

• Put it all in a blender.
• Bring to a boil and let it boil down until you've got a thick sauce.
• Serve on pasta.

I chopped a tomato and some yellow pepper and stirred it into the spaghetti. 

For the health freaks:

• Use whole wheat pasta. It tastes great!

Flour tortillas

From my youth I have loved taco, but I soon started to prefer tortillas over taco shells. But something was wrong. The tortillas was too small for my lavishly made tex mex feasts. It then occurred to me that I should check if it was possible to make them myself. As it turns out, it is. The only drawback is you have to have something big enough to cook them. A regular skillet won't make tortillas big enough to suit my needs for a lavishly prepared fajita. See what you can find. A comal is made for the job. Personally I've borrowed (indefinitely) my moms' takke (as depicted). These babies tastes wonderful, and have for ever changed our weekly taco meals to delicious fajita parties. 

Warm, moist tortillas.

If you want something other than fajitas, eat them with melted cheese (yum!), with butter and salsa or just as they are.


Feeds a family of four with plenty to spare for breakfast the next day.


What you'll need:

• 6 cups fine wheat flour. Use all-purpose or cake flour.
• 3 cups warm milk. 
• Hotter than lukewarm, but you should be able to check with your finger without burning yourself.
• 5-8 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 5-6 tsp baking powder
  

What to do:

• Mix the dry ingredients.
• Add oil.
• Add the warm milk.
• Not everything at once. You'll want to fine tune the amount of liquid.
• Stir the ingredients for at least five minutes. You'll want to end up with a sticky, loose dough.
• Adjust the flour/water mixture as needed.
• Let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes under a cloth or plastic.
• I've made my best tortillas from a dough that rested for 4 hours.
• Make small balls from the dough and place them on a plate. Let them rest for 10-20 minutes, again under (a damp) cloth or plastic.
• You'll really have to find out for yourself how big they should be. I make mine the size of small bread rolls, but make some smaller for the kids. What kind of skillet you have will also help decide the size.
• Roll out the tortillas on a floured surface. You'll be surprised how big a tortilla your little ball of dough can get. Roll from the center and out to help you make your tortillas round.
• If you roll the dough too thin, it won't rise much, then again, this is not necessarily all bad, when a thicker tortilla can be hard to handle and too much to eat if you're using it to make fajitas. It's all about personal preference. I stop just before I can't make it thinner.
• Cook them for about 30 seconds at each side. 
• Cook on high heat. Don't use any fat.
• Keep your tortillas in a cloth until you're ready to eat. Don't let them get cold.

For the health freaks:

• Substitute half of the white flour for whole-wheat flour.
• Fill your tortillas with as many vegetables you can.

Oriental-something-potato-or-rice-and-beans stew

This dish is a spicy, vegetarian dish that's excellent as a warm lunch or as a light dinner. It fills your belly and will keep it filled for a few hours without the need for snacking.

Oops! Forgot the beans. It's still delicious.

What you'll need:

• 1 large onion
• 3 potatoes (or 1 cup rice)
• 1 large carrot
• 1/2-1 cup canned beans
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1-2 tsp hot chili pepper
• 1 tsp cumin, coreander, paprika powder and salt
• Black pepper to taste
• Sour cream
• Ghee, oil or butter
• 2-3 cups of water

What to do:

• Chop the vegtables and the garlic.
• Wash the beans.
• Heat the fat in a frying pan.
• Add the garlic when the pan is getting hot. Fry for some seconds.
• If you're using whole chilies, add them with the garlic.
• If you're using powdered garlic, add it later.
• Add the chopped onion. Fry for some seconds.
• Add the potatoes (or rice) and the carrot. 
• If you're using rice, fry for a minute or two. Potatoes must probably be fried for about five minutes.
• Add the rest of the spices.
• Add water and stock.
• Let it boil until the water is mostly gone, leaving a delicious sauce. This takes about 20 minutes.
• Rice should not boil, but simmer gently.
• Add the beans about five minutes before the potatoes/rice is done. Turn down the heat so the beans don't get destroyed. 
• Serve with sour cream.

For the health freaks:

Fry without the fat.
Use brown rice.
Cut the sour cream.