Yumi Yumi

What's your standby side dish? Pasta? Rice? Couscous? Bulghur? Potatoes? While these figure most frequently in our kitchen as well, then we also have buckwheat about once a fortnight or so. It's easy to cook and the slightly nutty flavour of this pseudo-grain complements quite a few dishes nicely. Despite its name, buckwheat is not a wheat nor a cereal grain, but belongs to the same family with rhubarb and sorrel. The flavour is hearty and earthy, and it's quite a health food, being nutritionally high in all eight amino acids, calcium, vitamins B and E, and low-GI. Just some years ago, the buckwheat meant just three things to most people - the Japanese soba noodles , Russian blini  and the Breton crepes - all made with buckwheat flour. The hulled and roasted buckwheat kernels - buckwheat groats (kasha)  - didn't figure at all, unless you lived somewhere in the Northern and Eastern outskirts of Europe. The Flavour Bible   (2009), an excellent compendium of what-goes-wi...

There was a day in early December last year that involved a small round turning table, a batch of beautifully styled Saucy Asian Meatballs from Ali's Gimme Some Oven blog , one of my favourite white serving plates, our beautiful white and heavy cotton living room curtains, and our almost-two-year-old son Aksel. I don't want to go into details, but let me assure you that when you immediately remove those curtains and tuck them immediately into your washing machine, the sticky sauce consisting of hoisin sauce and dark soy sauce does wash off. Eventually. And luckily, the recipe makes loads. So even if you have to throw half of the saucy meatballs away, as the tiny shards of your favourite serving plate and white sesame seeds are almost indistinguishable from each other, and we're not really encouraging eating stuff off the floor in our household anyway, then you still have enough to eat - and photograph - as well. These have a pretty strong flavour, so they're more for...

I'll be compiling my annual " Where to eat out in Tallinn and elsewhere in Estonia "  2013 round-up soon (yep, even with three small kids I've been able to visit a café and restaurant or two, quite surprisingly :)), but until I do that, I leave you with some links about Estonian food and/or food in Estonia. Based in Toronto ? Then listen to David Sax  and head over to The Estonian House for some lovely "pirukad":  Pass the pirukas! At the Estonian House Café, meaty mains and deadly desserts bring the Baltic to Broadview  (The Grid, March 20, 2013) A first generation American of Estonian descent, Andres Simonson , explains the concept of Estonian smörgåsbord: Külmlaud - the guided tour ( Estonian World , March 10, 2013) London-based Swedish food writer  Ana Maria Espsäter  shares her impressions about the Estonian food and recommends places in Tallinn and outside the capital:  Tallinn's mix of traditional and new  ( Just About Food , April 8, 201...

Some home-made candy bars for a change. If you live in the US, then you'd think of these as Mounds , the candy bar produced by Hershey's. Everywhere else - including UK and Canada - you'd recognise these as Bounty , the candy bar produced by Mars Inc. A dense and sweet coconut centre, enrobed with either dark or milk chocolate. I used milk chocolate (the American equivalent would be Almond Joy without the almonds :)), and made small cubes instead of the traditional oblong bar shape. I must admit we ate half of the coconut cubes before we even dipped them into chocolate :) There are links to several homemade Bounty/Mounds recipes at the end of this post - do check these out as well. DIY Bounty bites aka home-made Mounds candy bars ( Kodune Bounty ) Makes about 3 dozen Coconut filling: 300 g desiccated unsweetened coconut flakes 300 g sweetened condensed milk 150 g butter, at room temperature Chocolate glaze: 300 g dark or milk chocolate I used the mixing bowl of my standing...

This Estonian classic - purukook (crumb cake, streusel cake) - is another recipe request. Over the last few years I've got several e-mails asking for this simple cake recipe, yet somehow I've never managed to blog about it until now. The basic ingredients are few - butter, flour, sugar (for the crumb), and some kind of thick jam filling. That simple. There are several "schools" of making purukook . Some use cold butter, some soft (I find using cold butter makes for a crumblier crumb). Some use just the crumb base, some add an egg to the bottom mixture to make it firmer (I do). Most jams would work, I prefer something tart like thick apple or apple and cranberry or apple and lingonberry jam. The cake on the photos is made with raspberry jam - in that case I also throw in a handful of shredded or desiccated coconut into the topping mixture. I've got a special question to väliseestlased aka Estonian expats. Have you tried making purukook before? Is it something...

Although I like my coffee - a lot - I've been drinking more tea again recently. My tea-loving friends are to blame - first KAFO sent me nine jars of their just t's Black Label No X teas  to try (I'm still in love with their Luxury Earl Grey tea that I used to me those dainty Earl Grey cookies ). Then a Tallinn-born and London-based food blogger Katrina of The Gastronomical Me mentioned that she and her food-loving friend Karina have created a tea blend. Tea blend? I knew that film stars, singers, models and such like always end up creating their own perfume, but apparently that's so old-fashioned. Nowadays you blend your own tea :D Karina and Katrina together run a supper club in London, called The Russian Revels , hosting  Russian feasts with Slavic generosity, Soviet attitude and British humour . These two Russians  joined forces with London-based tea club Tea Horse and  came up with their own tea blend, called " Russian Revels ". The tea was included i...

Another Easter Sunday , another traditional Easter brunch at the Nami-Nami household. We were no less that 25 this time, including lots of kids. The number keeps growing and growing - no wonder considering that our own little family consists of five persons already! Had all the invitees made it, we would have been no less than 36 :) The weather was bright and sunny, but pretty cold. It was snowing in the morning, and the children actually made two snowmen while playing outside during the afternoon! Not something you associate with Easter Sunday, I'd say, but then Easter was pretty early this year. Still, some of the guests ventured outside for a while and were basking in the sun on our south-facing patio. Very spring-like :) As always, I tried to devise a menu that'd be light and spring-like, colourful and bright. I outsourced some of the dishes, and prepared some myself on Saturday evening and the rest on Sunday morning. Considering how quickly everything disappeared, we ...