Alaska, more cooking in campervan

Wild huckleberry, pecan nut and yogurt

 At first sight, I thought this is wild blueberry, similar looking plant and taste, but the flesh is deep purple instead of white, and more seedy too. Found out that this is wild huckleberry. 

Poached Rainbow trout

Caught and cooked right away, this is the juiciest trout that I have eaten.

1. Put butter and salt in the belly of trout, wrap up in aluminium foil.

2. Place in a frying pan with half an inch of water, cover with lid and cook for around 10 minutes.

Wild blueberry

Blueberry plant like boggy and acid soil, grows wild around lakes here.

Mosquito sucks nectar from blueberry flowers and hence fertilise them, this is the first time I find mosquito has a reason to exit.

Oval blueberry

Found this oval shaped berry from similar looking plant as normal blueberry. After consulting the Alaska berry book, confirm that there is oval blueberry too.

Blueberry muffin

1. Mix 400gm flour with a sachet (10gm) of baking power and 60gm sugar.

2. Melt 60gm butter in 180gm water, keeping the water as cool as possible. Mix in 2 eggs then add 2 cups of wild blueberry.

3. Mix gently the flour into the liquid, then spoon into coffee filter paper (handy to use in the campervan!) until half the height.

4. Bake at 180˚C, with a shallow tray of boiling water at the bottom to help the rise, for 45 minutes.

Roasted butternut squash

The campervan is equipped with a gas barbeque, great for outdoor cooking.

Cut butternut squash with skin on into chunks, shake in a pot to cover them well with olive oil. Grill until soft, I cook more than I could eat for one serving, keep the remaining for soup or salad later.

Rose hip

Roses are growing everywhere in Alaska, very small plant barely a meter high with small leaves too. They do produce big and fleshy rose hips, I collected a lot hoping to grow them in my garden so that I could make rose hip jam one day.

Red salmon sashimi

This Red salmon caught at middle Gulkana River, it has only a light pink flush on the skin, meaning it has not left the sea too long.

Indeed the flesh is unbelievably ruby red, true to this species of salmon, that eat crustaceans mainly in their adult life. 

The texture is firm, with a mild sweet taste, and in the influence of the colour, could easily think of eating raw beef.

Poached red salmon filet

Season filet with salt, wrap in aluminium foil, place in a pan with an inch of hot water. Cook for 5 minutes, just enough for the outside to be cooked, the middle is still raw.

Alaska, cooking in campervan

Many ways to enjoy freshly caught salmon in Alaska. They are turned into salmon sashimi, pan fried filet, salmon scramble egg, cured salmon eggs, gravlax and salmon sweet corn soup etc.

Salmon eggs

When fresh, they are pink and translucent, tasted mild with viscous texture, like a raw chicken egg yolk. After curing in 10% weight of half salt and half sugar, salmon eggs become more reddish and transparent, like what we eat in restaurant, curing brings out a sweet flavour and a more liquid texture.

Salmon scramble egg

Cooking with a stainless steel pan on propane gas stove, it is very difficult to fry anything that does not end up sticking to the pan, causing extra work and use of water in cleaning up.

This is a different way of making scramble egg.

Warm up half an inch of milk in a pot, add pre-cooked salmon to warm up, season with salt and pepper, add 2 eggs, stir and mix gently with salmon until cooked.

Gravlax

I used male Chum Salmon to make this Gravlax, the texture is more gelatinous that normal.

1. Filet salmon and remove skin, cut 2 pieces of roughly similar size, weigh them.

2. Make a curing mixture that is 10% of the weight of salmon, of half salt, half sugar and a pinch of white pepper, sprinkle on both sides of filets.

3. In a freezer bag, place filets face to face, put sprigs of dill in the middle, fold the bag and put on a plate.

4. Keep in the fridge with a weight on top, liquid will come out in the first day of curing. Turn the bag over every 12 hours, cure for 3 days.

5. To serve, remove dill sprigs and cut into half cm slices.

Salmon sweet corn soup

1. Sweat sliced red onion and red pepper until soft, add salmon filet, a big pinch of salt and white pepper. Flake salmon meat when cooked.

2. In a soup pot, make a roux with 2 table spoons of butter and equal quantity of flour, cook until slightly golden, dilute with 2 cups of water, season with a table spoon of miso, salt and pepper, add raw or precooked sweet corn, mix in salmon just before serving.

More home baked pizza

This time I used a dough mix of 450gm flour, 250gm water, 30gm olive oil, 1 sachet of dry yeast and 3 gm salt. I sprinkle semolina on the pizza 'peel' before assembling pizza on top, so that the pizza slides onto the oven floor easily.

Pizza with cheese

1. Roll out 180gm dough to 2mm thin, sprinkle grated Gruyere cheese on top, bake in bread oven until lightly golden and crispy. Taste like cheese Grissini.

Pizza bruschetta

1. Place tomato in boiling water for 1 minutes, peel skin off, drain juice, cut flesh into cubes, add a handful of roughly torn basil leaves, marinate with salt, pepper and olive oil for half an hour.

2. Roll out 180gm dough to 2mm thin, brush surface with olive oil, bake in bread oven until lightly golden.

3. Spoon tomato salsa on top and serve.

Pizza chorizo, goat cheese and pepper

1. Spread tomato sauce on roll out pizza dough, arrange thinly cut chorizo, goat cheese cubes and strips of green pepper on top.

2. Bake until cheese melted.

Pizza mackerel, cheese and tomato

1. Cut smoked mackerel into strips, marinate with lemon juice for half an hour.

2. Place mackerel on roll out pizza dough, sprinkle grated Gruyere cheese on top.

3. Bake until golden and crispy.

4. Spoon tomato salsa on top, the contrast in flavour and texture is wonderful.

Barbeque pork ribs

Marinate, for at least a day, a whole rack of pork ribs with fermented bean paste (or miso paste), soya sauce, brandy, brown sugar, a little balsamic vinegar, puree of garlic and ginger, white pepper, 5 spice powder and pimenton (Spanish paprika for colour). Barbeque or roast at medium heat until cooked and slightly charred at the edges.

Barbeque sweet corn

Some friends tasted in Indonesia grilled sweet corn seasoned with butter, garlic, chili, lemon juice, salt and honey and reported that it tasted delicious. I tried it at home, it is indeed tasty - actually a bit too powerful and lost the nice natural taste of sweet corn.

I prefer to have on the sweet corn simply butter and a light sprinkle of salt, or a bit more exotic, coconut oil with a light sprinkle of salt is great too. 

Goji berry flower

Goji berry (杞子) is now a popular health food in France, and actually all over the world. This spring, when visiting a garden centre, I was surprised to find young Goji berry plants for sale. I planted a dozen and now they are flowering and fruiting.

It will be my first time to taste fresh Goji berry. 

Home baked pizza

I use normal bread dough to make pizza, rolled to 2mm thin so that after cooking, the base is crispy. For this size stone oven (around 1m diameter), it takes around 1.5 hours to pre-heat using wood, to reach an inside temperature of 300˚C, ready for baking pizza. For thin pizza, it takes around 2-3 minutes to crisp up the base.

1. Tomato sauce, chorizo, mushroom, green pepper and Gruyere cheese. The mushroom is marinated in salt, pepper and olive oil an hour before to soften it before cooking. 

2. Tomato sauce, mushroom, blood sausage, goat cheese, red pepper. 

3. Tomato sauce, smoked mackerel, green pepper, Gruyere cheese. When baked, sprinkle a handful of roasted pine nut on top to add texture and flavor.

Growing vegetables at home

I planted one cherry tomato, one eggplant, 2 green bell peppers and a few lettuces in this wooden bucket.   

This is the first time I grow vegetables in container, instead of in the open field. I notice that because of being grown in a protected environment (from the wind, weed and wild animals), the plants are healthier and bigger than when grown in the field.  

Cherry tomatoes turning red

An eggplant started to grow, a white variety

Very cut green bell pepper

Lettuce to fill the remaining space in the bottom

Barbeque beef rib chop

It is indeed more rewarding to burn our own logs from the forest for the barbeque. By splitting the wood into quarters, they will be burnt to partly charcoal in an hour's time, ready for cooking. This time grilling a thick cut of beef rib chop and sweet corn with the fire on the back wall, cooking by radiation, not direct flame from below. 

Apricot soya black sesame muffin

I used the soya milk machine to make soya and roasted black sesame drink, which is delicious. I used the residue to make this muffin.

1. In a portion of cold soya black sesame residue, mix in 50 gm flour, 80gm brown sugar, 1 sachet (10gm) baking powder and 2 eggs.

2. Spoon into shallow tart dishes lined with baking paper, they will rise to double the original height.

3. Place slices of fresh apricot on top. Bake at 180˚C until bottom of muffin is dry, around 40 minutes. 

Canna propagation

There is a group of Canna (美人蕉) growing in the courtyard, with bright red delicate flowers. They do not require any care at all, even no need to water during summer. The only job is to remove dead leaves during winter and they will come back year after year. They propagate by bulb multiplication and so all the plants have the same leaves and flowers.  

I collected some seeds last year and 20 of them germinated in propagator during spring. I planted the seedlings around the house. These seeds are the result of fertilization by pollination, I suspect may carry gene mixtures different from their parents. I notice some seedlings have pure green leaves and some have a reddish tint, I wonder if their flowers will be different from their parents or not. 

Curry buns

These are my first attempt of baking small buns in the wood burning bread oven.

1. Make a curry with thick rich coconut sauce, fridge until the content is solid enough to handle.

2. Using a standard bread dough recipe, let the dough rise once, then knock back and make small buns with a big spoonful of curry as filling.

3. Let the buns rise a second time, around 30 minutes. Bake at 220˚C until the top is brown, around 15 minutes.