Tomato

It is a great year to enjoy ripe tomato, medium red St Sulpice and yellow cherry Sun Viva, from early July. I do like to eat them transformed, cooked or semi-dried, more than raw. A simple way is to cut half, spread with pesto sauce and bake in the oven while cooking other stuff. 

The first time to grow indeterminate tomato, attracted by the name Tibet Apple. The plant is really vigorous, spreading fast and bearing a lot of fruits. Have yet to find out the taste of the fruit, hope delicious, otherwise will be the last time to grow indeterminate type, a bit messy. 

Venison Wellington

Found frozen puff pastry made with only pure butter and flour, great. 

So thought of making a simplified wellington with venison loin. Season venison with salt and pepper for a couple hours. Sear at medium heat until pink inside (the cooking degree you like), quite long around 20 minutes. Let it cool down. 

Roll puff pastry between 2 sheets of baking paper to 3mm thick, cut to right size for the size of meat used. Spread pesto sauce on all sides of meat and lay on puff pastry, wrap up. Brush with melted butter and cut a cross in the middle to let steam out. Bake at 220˚C until surface golden, around 18 minutes. The meat inside will be warm through and still pink.

Melon, potato and pepper

Finally found 2 cantaloupe melons formed, such a pretty sight, they are from seeds saved from the only cantaloupe successfully formed and ripen last year

 

Also peppers are developing, they are supposed to be Padron pepper but looks more squarish and balloon up like a bell pepper!

Dug up some potatoes, 3 varieties, colour of blue potatoe is intense, nutty flavour of red skin yellow flesh is great and waxy texture of white one is lovely.

Khol rabi ‘bruschetta’

This year’s kohl rabi, grown outdoor, is sweet and have fine smooth texture, love to have them raw to enjoy the crunchiness and unique flavour, which disappear when cooked. 

Use last year’s remaining semi-dried tomatoes to make a sauce, with basil, salt, black pepper, olive oil and a little water. 

Serve kohl rabi instead of bread and eat like bruschetta. 

Mackerel ceviche

Fisherman brought back mackerels and so fresh we like to eat it raw/cooked with lemon in ceviche style. 

Soak and stir pieces of mackerel in lemon juice for 5 minutes, pour away juice, mix with coriander and grated carrot for colour and flavour, season with salt and olive oil.

Spit roasting lamb lap

The lamb lap from the whole lamb bought and butchered recently is big enough for 4 to enjoy. So while weather is great, invited friends and prepare slow wood fired spit roasting with a tray of freshly dug parboiled new potatoes below to catch the drips. 

The lamb lap is seasoned with salt, pepper and a lot of fresh rosemary infused oil for half a day. Slowly rotating in front of wood fire for 3 hours, meat falls of the bones and rosemary flavour goes will into the meat, delicious. 

2025年7月10日 哥本哈根民生細事

有回看到倫敦人到哥本哈根旅行後，說真的好想留下居住，因為路闊屋矮廣場運河多，空間感好，且空氣清新車少人亦不多，和倫敦相差好遠。看完很好奇，來到 Copenhagen 後一面參觀，一面研究民生各事。

衣
以天氣論衣著，哥本哈根緯度和愛爾蘭首都差不多，看全年天氣也大致相同，冬季多數最低零度夏天廿二度，雲多雨天多，在愛爾蘭住了五年後，已適應這陰涼天氣，舒服過南歐式漫長熱辣辣夏天。

食
多得餐廳Noma 團隊的帶領，把丹麥烹調技術大幅提升，現在講究用本土時令材料，用心烹調。能在十多年間極速提升水平，有賴丹麥人的傳統合作互助精神，大廚們把食譜放上網址，無私分享，成績有目共睹。這個旅程，午餐和晚餐都吃得滿意，只恨胃口不比從前，不能多吃甜點餅食。

住
走過地產公司，改不了香港人習慣，張看價錢和大小。粗看千呎單位港幣六百至近千萬，以首都來說價錢可以，裝修以寛闊簡約北歐風格為主，看見舒服。

行
哥本哈根基本上完全平坦，路旁有單車徑，踩單車是人民日常，火車站貼近地鐵站，去機場和附近城市都好方便，住在二線城市，往返首都亦好容易。

語言
丹麥人平均英文水準是歐洲之冠，今趟旅行，遇上的服務人員和路人等，都可以即時轉以英語交談。

來前好奇，以Duolingo 學些丹麥基本旅遊常用字，以前一直覺得北歐語發音特別，以為會難上手。上了幾個Duolingo 單元後，意外發現和英文、法文有很多相似的字，且短些，例如 father 是 far, mother 是 mor, bread 是 brod  等，只是發音些少不同，掌握了就覺容易些。

且文法簡單好多，不分男女眾數，只分生物和死物，非常理性，見容易便不停自學玩了幾天。以為丹麥人醒目，抄襲英、法語且簡化了，細看歷史，才知道北歐語言源自八世紀，由維京人創造，在八至十一世紀維京人攻入佔領英國和部份西歐後，把語言也引入，往後混合拉丁文，文法較丹麥文複雜了。

人所共知，丹麥稅率高，但教育、醫療、失業救濟等都理想，且公共設施上佳，又注重環境保育，算得上政策優長，稅收用得其所，確是個宜居地方。

Wild bilberry muffin

A hike up the hill behind the house confirms that bilberry is also ready to harvest, half a month earlier than last year. A good 1.5kg easily scooped using the special rake from Norway. 

Some used to make bilberry muffin immediately and the rest kept in freezer to enjoy gradually.

The muffin looks and tastes great and the colour of bilberry is amazing. 

180gm flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
90gm butter
90gm water/milk
3 tbsp sugar

big handful of bilberry

Bake at 170˚C until golden, around 25 minutes. 

Khol rabi

Khol rabi grown outdoor, are ready to harvest, very good size and growing so well (not attacked) this year. Though I like to eat them raw, sweet and crunchy, someone prefer them cooked. 
I got the inspiration from ratatouille, making a spiral of alternating pieces of kohl rabi, red beetroot, semi dried tomato, then drizzle olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Bake at 180˚C until soft, around 20 minutes. 

Cauliflower dishes

When I am rushed to make meals, I will cut cauliflower into small pieces, they cook very fast, either stir-fry or baked. 

Stir-fry cauliflower with garlic, carrots and a lot of coriander, season with salt, pretty and tasty.

Bake cauliflower with peas, left behind lamb or another other meat, and coriander stalks, season with soy sauce, pepper and olive oil, bake at 180˚C until golden, around 15 minutes, stir in coriander leaves just before serving. 

Wild flowers

The afternoon turned sunny, time to have a wander around in the meadow. Can’t help to look at small flowers around, well zoomed in, to appreciated the pretty details. 

Purple & green perilla

I have been trying to grow perilla, for its unique flavour, but germination proved difficult. This year I sowed 3 times, from germinating inside bathroom in March, to greenhouse in April and again in May. Finally one purple and a few green ones germinated, guess the plant, especially the purple variety, like to germinate and grow in warm day and night temperatures. 

To celebrate the first harvest of purple perilla, I grilled hanger steak, seasoned with rice wine lees, miso, soy sauce and black pepper, to be eaten with perilla or basil Neapolitan leaves. 

Elderflower cordial gin tonic

Mini heat wave now, 25 ˚C plus, time to enjoy ice cold sundowner. I used elderflower cordial ice cubes to make gin tonic, nice. 

Good berry year

Everything ripen like 2 weeks earlier this year, from garlic to tomato to berries. Harvested 5 kgs each of raspberries and blackcurrants, some blueberries and black mulberries.

Blackcurrants are cooked with honey and sugar, then blended smooth with pips and skins to make jam, or thick coulis. 

Raspberries are too watery, first squashed and placed in oven to dry at 75C for 4 hours to reduce water content. Cook with brown sugar and pass through Kitchenaid to get the pips out, a much thicker coulis. 

Summer veg garden

Come back from holiday to find both greenhouses are like jungles inside, seems like there is much more growth while I am not looking!

For cauliflowers, all of them grow at the same speed, meaning all ripen at the same time. That means I have been eating cauliflower dishes for a few days. 

Corns Painted Mountain are ripening, harvested 3 cobs. Amazing to see they are all of different colours, so pretty. They are the harder with more starch less sweet type and have to boil for at least 20 minutes to soften. 

The violet one is especially unique with the heart not beige but also deep bluish violet. I boil the heart in water to get the colour/nutrients out to make soup.

Also surprising to see tomato St Sulpice, medium size, turned red, so early in the season. The first time in my experience, a hot May do make a big difference.