Thursday 31 March 2022

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Easy Danish Pasta with Meat Sauce (Pasta med kødsauce)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1. 500g minced beef
2. 1 can of pasta sauce
3. 2 cloves garlic minced
4. 2 large onions diced
5. 2 TBS olive oil 
6. 2 TBS canola cooking oil or butter
7. 2 TBS olive oil 
8. 2 TBS dried oregano (optional)
9. 2 tsp paprika (optional)
10. 1/2 lemon juiced
11. 100ml red wine or water
12. A handful of basil leaves
13. A few stalks of thyme (optional)
14. Sea salt & pepper to taste
15. 1 TBS ketchup (optional)
16. 4 Servings of spaghetti

Directions:

1. Marinade the minced beef with salt and pepper (optional step), mix well and keep in the fridge until ready to cook.

2. Bring to boil a pot of water and cook spaghetti according to package instructions.

3. Heat pan with 2 TBS Canola cooking oil or butter, fry garlic until golden.

4. Add a handful of thyme and basil leaves and fry until fragrant.

5. Add onion and fry until golden.

6. Add the meat and mix well, then lower heat to medium to simmer and cook the beef, as you don't want to over-cook the beef.

7. Add chopped tomatoes and/or pasta sauce and mix well.

8. Add lemon juice and mix well.

9. Add salt, pepper, paprika, dried oregano or more thyme/basil leaves as desired.

10. Add 2 TBS olive oil, stir and mix well.

11. Cover and let it simmer under low fire for 1-2 hours to give a more intense taste. If it dries up, add water as desired.

12. Remove the used thyme from the sauce.

13. Dish up on spaghetti and serve with meat sauce and grated cheese.

Additional Information:

Spaghetti with meat sauce is a staple dish in Denmark, especially popular with Danish kids during play date if the kid is staying for dinner. This is a very basic easy recipe. We like to add fresh tomato into the meat sauce, apart from using a jar of pasta sauce from the supermarket. Our family also likes to add in minced carrots to the meat sauce after it is cooked and the fire is turned off to give it an additional crunch. We like to serve it with grated mozzarella cheese, and grated parmesan cheese, but this is optional.

References:

You can buy the European herbs from Netto supermarket. Above are thyme (timian) and rosemary (rosmarin)

This is the Danish basil (Basilikum)

Here you have the organic parsley (persille), dill (dild) and basil leaves (basilikum)

Here are the non-organic parsley (persille), dill (dild) and chives (purløg)

Marinade the minced beef with salt and pepper.

Add a tablespoon of soy sauce to the marinade (optional). Refrigerate until you are ready to cook it.

Heat pan and add 2 tablespoons of cooking oil or butter.

Add garlic and fry until fragrant.

Add basil leaves and fry until fragrant.

Add thyme and fry until fragrant.

Add onion and fry until golden and fragrant.

Turn up heat to high, add beef and quickly fry until brown but not fully cooked. 

Turn heat down to low, add lemon juice.

Add salt and pepper, dried oregano or more thyme as desired.

Add a jar of pasta sauce and mix well. We like to use the organic version.

Sometimes I added a tablespoon of ketchup into the meat sauce (optional). Stir well.

Add two tablespoon of olive oil into the meat sauce and stir well. It adds flavor and give it a nice texture :-) Let the sauce simmer for 1-2 hours to get a more intense taste. If it dries up, add some water as desired.

 Remove the used thyme from the sauce and discard.

Now it's done :-)

We like to switch off the fire and add raw grated carrots into the meat sauce and stir. It adds an extra crunch that my family likes and the increase the vitamin contents naturally as well :-)

You can garnish with chopped parsley and serve it with spaghetti :-)

To cook pasta:

Bring to boil a large pot of water, add a bit of olive oil.

Add salt.

Add pasta.

Cook pasta according to instructions in the package, normally about 8-9 minutes.


Saturday 26 March 2022

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JOE & THE JUICE Copycat Sandwich - Tunacado

 

The secret to making a close copy of JOE & THE JUICE sandwich lies in the homemade pesto (see recipe below), grilling the bread into an ultra thin "flat bread" BEFORE putting the sandwich together - trust me, you will need a panini maker; and slicing the avocado real thin as if you are spreading "butter" on the bread.

Ingredients:

1. 4 slices of avocado 

2. 6 slices of tomatoes

3. 2 heap TBS of tuna salad

4. a handful of rucola leaves (optional)

5. 2 slices of whole-wheat bread (Javisst fuldkornsklemmer)

6. 1 TBS of homemade basil pesto

7. 1 slice of Serrano ham, salmon or chicken as desired

Ingredients for vegan pesto:

1. A handful of fresh parsley (I use the whole plant shown in the picture below)

2. A handful of fresh basil leaves

3. 1 dried date pitted

4. 30g nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, almonds and/or sunflower seeds)

5. 1/2 lemon juice

6. 1 clove garlic

7. 100ml extra virgin olive oil

8. Dash of salt and ground black pepper

Ingredients for tuna salad:

1. 1 can of tuna in oil

2. 1 onion chopped

3. 1 stalk spring onion chopped

4. 1 tsp capers chopped

5. 1/2 lemon juice

6. 4 TBS creme fraiche 18% fat

7. Salt & pepper to taste

Directions for pesto:

1. Blend all the ingredients until smooth in a food processor or blender. Adjust with more or less olive oil as desired.

Directions for tuna salad:

1. In a bowl, add all the ingredients and mix well.

Directions for sandwich:

1. Press and toast 2 slices of bread using a panini machine into flat bread.

2. Spread pesto on each side of each slice of bread.

3. Add 4 thin slices of avocado on one side of the bread.

4. On the other side of the bread, add tomatoes, tuna salad and rucola leaves.

5. Put the sandwich together and it's all done :-)

Additional Information:

The Danes have a winning way of making healthy - wholewheat, no butter, delicious and nutritious sandwiches - way ahead of the rest of the world based on my bias opinion (we live in Denmark). It's popular all around the world, and boy are they expensive in Singapore!!! 

Daddy FECS and Our Little FECS’ absolutely love JOE & THE JUICE sandwiches. So they have been requesting me to research the recipe (see links below), but alas, I didn't find any that come close to the taste after trying the recipes from the internet. Thus, I decided to experiment on my own. 

The secret to JOE & THE JUICE sandwich lies in the homemade pesto (it wouldn’t work with store-bought pesto), real thin avocado slices and the grilled flat bread. This is achieved by grilling the bread on the panini maker before putting the other ingredients into sandwich (I have observed how the guys at Joe & The Juice make the sandwiches :-). We bought our panini maker from Netto for 169 DKK. It is value-for-money and works very well. There is no need to buy those expensive models. There is even a cheaper one from Føtex costing only 129 DKK, but we have no experience with it though.

At our yearly spring picnic with friends, we found out from Daddy FECS' childhood friend who is a board member of the JOE & THE JUICE that the secret to the sandwiches is the freshly made pesto every morning and the special whole-wheat bread delivered by Kohberg. They don't use butter at all!!! And they only use their own bread which is exported to the JOE & THE JUICE outlets all over the world. No wonder their sandwiches in Singapore are so much more expensive - imported all the way from Denmark!!! And no, I didn't manage to get the recipe for the bread from our friend :-(

If you notice, JOE & THE JUICE's pesto tastes kinda sweet. Thus, I add a dried date into my pesto to achieve that sweetness. And JOE & THE JUICE uses vegan pesto - no parmesan cheese, but we like parmesan cheese, so we add it into our pesto, although you can leave it out of course.

We like to add slices of cucumber and rucola salad leaves into our sandwiches too, although JOE & THE JUICE does not do that. 

The only thing I could not replicate myself is their secret recipe for the bread :-(, but the store-bought wholewheat bread shown below comes close.

I use creme fraiche for the tuna instead of mayonnaise, as it is healthier. It actually tasted very good without the mayonnaise.

Storage:

You can store the homemade pesto in an air-tight jar and refrigerate it. it keeps for 5 days. You can also freeze them in portion using ice-cube tray and just thaw a portion, when you need it.

References:

https://thecopenhagentales.com/2015/08/12/copycat-joe-the-juice-tunacado-sandwich/

https://frederikkewaerens.dk/tunacado-ala-joe-the-juice/

https://letsblogsomeshit.dk/lav-dine-egne-joe-the-juice-sandwich-juice/

Videos I found from Youtube:





All the ingredients you need for the pesto and sandwich are here. Apology, I missed out 1/2 a lemon. If you are making tunacado, you don't need the cheese and ham shown in the picture above.



Use a panini maker. This is the one we bought from Netto for 169 DKK. It's a basic no frill model. There isn't an on/off switch, but it is doing a good job of grilling the sandwich :-)


For the bread, I use wholewheat Javisst Fuldkornsklemmer, which you can also get from Netto or Føtex. It comes close to JOE & THE JUICE's :-)

To make a batch of pesto, add all the ingredients (Basically a handful of basil, a handful of pine nuts or desired nuts - here I use what I have at home, which are almonds, walnuts and sunflower seeds; 100ml of olive oil, a dried date pitted, parmesan cheese 30-40g, half lemon squeezed, salt and pepper to taste) into a food processor or blender. here I am using the KitchenAid mini food processor. By the way, I think JOE & THE JUICE uses pine nuts. Full recipe here: 

Blend until smooth in a food processor or blender.

Pesto done :-) 

To store, transfer into air-tight jar and refrigerate. Can keep for 5 days.

Here are the ingredients for the tuna salad: salt, pepper, tuna in oil, creme fraiche, capers, spring onion, lemon and onion.

In a bowl, add tuna, spring onions, onion and capers.

Add salt and pepper

Add 1/2 lemon juice

Add 4 tablespoons of creme fraiche

Mix well and it is done :-)

Start by grilling the sandwich bread. Place it diagonally on the panini maker

Press the bread completely down and lock it for a minute or two


Now the first pattern is done :-) 

Then turn the bread diagonally the other side to get the criss cross pattern

Press the bread completely down once again.

Now you get the criss cross pattern just like JOE & THE JUICE :-)


Look how lovely flat the bread has become, just like JOE & THE JUICE's :-)

Slice it into half with a knife horizontally as shown above while it is still warm, otherwise it will be impossible to slice it after it is cooled down (that's more or less how JOE & THE JUICE's staff do it as well)

Spread on homemade pesto...

...on both sides of the bread.

Using a butter knife, slice avocado into thin slices and spread them on one side of the bread.

On the other side of the bread, add slices of tomato.

Add 2 scoop of tuna salad and

Spread well. At this stage, the tunacado sandwich is completed :-)

But we like to add cucumber slices. JOE & THE JUICE does not add cucumber, but we like them in our sandwiches.

Add rucola salad leaves (optional), again JOE & THE JUICE does not add cucumber, but we like them in our sandwiches.


Put the sandwich together and it is done :-)



You can pair it with a homemade green smoothie :-)
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