Cooking with IKEA

Maybe the title should have been Cookyn with IKEA since this was held at Cookyn. This event was awhile back during the IKEA kitchen campaign. I was pretty involved with IKEA at that time but never had time to blog about this session. But if you have been following my facebook and twitter, I’m sure you’ve already know about it and seen some of the photos. Anyways, I had to wait till the campaign was over before I could share some of these awesome recipes with you!

Before we even started cooking we were treated to an array of appetizing finger food that were all made of IKEA foods! Amazing right! I didn’t pay much attention to the food section at IKEA until this little cooking session when I learnt what I was missing out! This post is going to be a long one because I’m going to share with you everything I learnt with complete recipes.

Even ingredients from the very yummy Elderberry Sangria cocktail were from IKEA. It’s really easy to make too! Here is the recipe.

Elderberry Sangria Serves 20 glasses

Ingredients:

1 Bottle Of Elderberry Syrup (from IKEA foods)

1 Bottle White Wine

1.5 Litres Sprite / 7 up

2 Lemons3 Oranges 2 Green Apples

20 Cinnamon Sticks 20 Straws

 

Directions for preparation:

1. Preparation of ingredients

–  Cut the lemons into small cubes
–  Cut the oranges into small cubes
–  Dice the apples into small cubes.
–  Mix all together.

 

2. Mixture
–  Add a spoonful of the fruits in each glass & about 2 tablespoons of elderberry syrup.
–  Add wine and sprite according to taste & top off with ice.
3. Presentation
– Serve with straws & a cinnamon sticks.
Now for the actual cooking! Instructions were very clear and surprisingly most of the dishes are really easy to do! And I’m going to share with you exactly what I learn so you can recreate these easy dishes in your own homes as well! By the way, most of the kitchen, all the pots and pans, plates and utensils are all from IKEA! The kitchen looks so sleek and functional I wish I had a kitchen like that too!
First dish is the Marinated herring, shaved cucumber, mandarin oranges with dill caviar cream. If you’ve been to Sweden, Finland or Holland, you’ll find that raw herring is one of the local delights and while I was squeamish about eating it when I first encountered in in Holland, I went ahead to try it and loved it. Locally you can’t get that sort of fresh raw herring but if you want to give it a go, the marinated herring that IKEA brings in is a good way to try. I find that can or bottled herring has too much vinegar and doesn’t taste as good as the fresh ones I’ve tried but this recipe blends in the right accompaniments so that it balances the taste. It’s also really easy to do with no cooking needed!

Marinated herring, shaved cucumber, mandarin oranges with dill caviar cream

Makes 10 portions

Ingredients:

– 400gm of marinated herring (from IKEA foods)

– 300gm of Japanese cucumber

-S alt and pepper to taste

– Extra virgin olive oil, to drizzle

-20 mandarin orange segments

-2 tablespoons of herring caviar (from IKEA foods)

-2 tablespoons of sour cream

-A few drops of olive oil

-20gm of thinly sliced red onions

-10gm of Dill

Directions for preparation
1. Preparation of caviar sauce
–  Take about half of the dill and chop up coarsely (leave half the nicest ones as garnish afterwards).
–  Mix the chopped dill with the caviar and sour cream with a crack of some salt and pepper.
2.Preparation of Japanese cucumber salad
– Shave the Japanese cucumber thinly with a vegetable peeler. Reserve in iced water.
3. Assembly
–  Spoon some of the caviar cream and top off with some shaved cucumber, marinated herring, red onion slices and orange segments.
–  Garnish with the dill and drizzle with the olive oil before serving.
If you are not the very adventurous sort and would like to keep to comfort food, then try the Baked salmon & potato gratin. It’s the sort of food I love to eat and makes my day feel better.

 

Baked salmon & potato gratin

(Makes 10 portions)

Ingredients:

– 800gm of potatoes (ready to eat ones are available at IKEA foods)

– 1 large brown onion, diced

– 600gm of salmon steaks (from IKEA foods)

10gm of Italian parsley, minced

– 100gm of freshly grated parmesan cheese

– 150gm of shredded mozzarella

– 1 cup of milk

2 tablespoons of flour

– 50gm of salted butter

– 1 tablespoon of garlic powder

– Olive oil to drizzle

– Salt and pepper

– Salad leaves for serving

-Wood chips, for light smoking

 

Directions for preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. Season the salmon with some salt, pepper, olive oil and some parsley.

3. Place the woodchips in a roasting tray and carefully lay the salmon on a rack (ensure the roasting tray can be covered with aluminium foil unhindered).

4. Cover the tray with aluminium foil and heat over a gas stove for about half a minute (until smoke starts to appear from the sides).

5. Bake in the oven for about 6 minutes (depending on the thickness of the fillets). Allow to cool.

6. To make the cheese sauce, fry the onions in the butter until fragrant for about 2 minutes before adding the flour and frying for a further 2 minutes until lightly brown.

7. Add the garlic powder and milk (you should add enough milk for it to be light a thickened sauce). Whisk to prevent any lumps from forming. Season with some salt and pepper.

8. Remove from the heat add half the cheeses in. Keep warm.

9. Slice the cooked potatoes and break the salmon to large chunks.

10. Place 1 layer of sliced potato and some salmon and season with some salt and pepper before spooning some of the cheese mixture (Repeat until all the potatoes and salmon are done).

11. Sprinkle with the mozzarella and parmiggiano before returning to bake for a further 15 minutes until the top is lightly browned.

12. Serve immediately with the salad leaves.

 

For entertaining at home parties, you can try making the  Cold shrimp with mayo in vol-au-vent shells which looks awesome and absolutely delicious.

Cold shrimp with mayo in vol-au-vent shells

Serves 10

Ingredients:

– 500gm of coldwater shrimp (cooked and peeled ones are readily available at IKEA foods)

– 1 avocado, skinned and seed removed, diced to small pieces

– 2 tablespoons of chopped chives

– 1 cup of Japanese mayo

– 1 teaspoon of paprika powder

– Juice of 1 lemon

– 1 garlic clove, minced

– 2 anchovy fillets, minced

– 2 puff pastry blocks, ready rolled out to 0.3mm thick

– 1 egg, beaten

 

Directions for preparation:

 

1. Preparation of ingredients

– With cookie cutters, cut 20 pieces of pastry from the rolled puff pastry sheet. Cut 10smaller holes within the big circles with smaller cookie cutters to form rings on 10 of them.

– Brush eggwash on the large rounds before placing the ring pastries on top and brushingwith more eggwash.

– Bake in a 180 degrees preheated oven for about 18-20 mins until puffed and golden.

 

2. Making the shrimp mayo

– Mix the lemon juice, paprika, chives, mayo, minced anchovy, garlic and season with some salt and pepper.

– Add the shrimp, avocado and mix well.

 

3. Assembling

– Stuff some of the shrimp mixture into the vol-au-vent shells and serve immediately.

 

 

Finally my favourite portion of any meal, the dessert!!! The Dark chocolate kladdkaka with raspberries was soooooooo awesomely good! If you have a weakness for chocolate, this is the recipe to keep!

Dark chocolate kladdkaka with raspberries

Makes 10 small portions

Ingredients:

– 2 medium sized eggs

– 290gm sugar

– 100gm butter

– 9gm water

– 35gm unsweetened cocoa powder

– 150gm flour

– Pinch of salt

– 1 teaspoon of vanilla paste

– Vanilla cream sauce, to serve (pre-packed from IKEA foods)

– Fresh raspberries, to serve

 

Directions for preparation:


1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees celsius and lightly grease a 9 inch tart dish. (pan used in photo is from IKEA)

2. Whip eggs and sugar until combined and smooth, then add the flour, salt, vanilla and water to combine. Set mixture aside.

3. Melt the butter and gradually whisk in the cocoa, then add the cocoa butter to the egg batter and whisk until glossy.

4. Pour the batter into the greased pie tin and bake in the oven at 150 degrees Celsius for 35 min.

5. Set it aside to cool slightly.

6. Serve with some vanilla sauce and raspberries.

 

An evening with my favourite furniture store, lovely online and offline friends, awesome food and learning a few easy skills. I definitely enjoyed myself. In fact, shortly after this cooking class, I headed straight to IKEA to stock up on some of the ingredients so I could recreate and modify some dishes for my family!

An ending snapshot of me with Irene (aka Moonberry).

 

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Outfit of the day

 

I wore my outfit to work before heading to the IKEA event. I’m blessed to be working at a place that allows me a wide berth when it comes to creative freedom and this translate to my outfits as well.

Dress: Korean

Belt: Korean

Earrings : It’s so old I can’t remember where I got it from!

Watch: Rolex

Shoes: Gianmarco Lorenzi

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