Yumi Yumi

I love rhubarb. I've just checked my Flickr photostream and it seems that I've made no less than seven rhubarb cakes, six different rhubarb puddings, one type of jam and one drink during the last few weeks alone. But I was determined to try something savoury as well, so I combined this BBC Good Food recipe and this Delicious magazine recipe (they're remarkably similar, aren't they?), and made this Persian lamb stew. Not sure this is my favourite new way of serving lamb, but it's definitely a nice and different recipe for using rhubarb. Frying of the herbs in butter is essential for the success of this recipe, as the flavour and aroma of fried parsley and mint is rather special, so no skipping of that part! Persian Lamb and Rhubarb Stew ( Pärsia lambahautis rabarbriga ) Serves 4 to 5 75 g butter, divided 1 Tbsp sunflower or rapeseed oil 2 large onions, halved and sliced 750 g lamb, chopped into cubes (I used the leg) 2 tsp ground coriander seeds 1 litre vegetable ...

Photo by K. Not related to the blog post :) I've been to the Americas before ( Mexico in October 2005 ), but next Wednesday I'm flying over to the USA for the first time. I'll be in three different places, first at a conference in Bloomington, Indiana, then visiting the very lovely Alanna in St Louis, MO, and finally explore New York for a few days. Here's the plan at the moment (post-conference, that is): June 1st - food blog lunch with Christine and Alanna in Bloomingon , then drive to St Louis June 2nd - a St Louis food blogger party @ Alanna's place June 4th - arrive in New York June 5th - food blogger potluck dinner in New York (very kindly organised by Danielle of Habeas Brulee) June 8th - Sunday brunch with my friends Priit & Pirjo in East Village June 9th - fly back to Tallinn I'm hoping to visit moma , do some food & clothes shopping (thanks, David , for your food-shopping tips!), see a good stand-up comedy show (any ideas/volunteers?), a...

Wild garlic season is almost over, but I wanted to share another simple recipe for that wild plant. Need something zesty on your grilled steak? Want to lend garlicky flavour to your steamed spring vegetables? Fancy some toasted garlic (rye) bread? Well, what about this wild garlic butter? Wild Garlic Butter ( Karulauguvõi ) Yields 150 g 150 g butter, at room temperature 30 g wild garlic (about 20 leaves) grated zest of 1 lemon a generous pinch of Maldon sea salt Wash and dry the wild garlic leaves, then chop very finely. Mix with soft butter and grated lemon zest, until combined. Season with salt. Keeps in the fridge for a few days (can be successfully frozen).

... few weeks later for me than for many foodbloggers in the UK, Germany, US and elsewhere. But it's been worth the wait. My first batch of green asparagus spears - bought from the Uus-Kongo stall at the Tallinn Central Market - were turned into two excellent dishes tonight, both savoured with gusto. First, roasted asparagus with parmesan cheese (or local Valio Forte cheese this time): ( Röstitud sparglid parmesaniga ) Secondly, Sam's excellent Asparagus on Asparagus : ( 'Spargel sparglis' ehk aurutatud sparglivarred sparglidipiga ) I'm ashamed I threw away all those snapped-off asparagus spears last year, and wish I had known about this excellent asparagus dip last year. Thank you, Sam!!

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 w...

... with this beautiful yellow morel ( Morchella esculenta ) we managed to pick last Saturday. Isn't she pretty?

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. Sq...

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 lar...