.: evil jungle prince :.

I love this bread! My boss's wife, a Norwegian, bakes these every year and it's such a treat to receive them. But this year I found myself unwilling to wait a full year's cycle and made them myself.

Lusse Bread (Lusse Bröd, or Swedish Sweet Saffron & Almond Bread) is made by combining a mixture of flour, almond meal, and saffron infused milk. As you can imagine, this combination of flavors after being baked is nothing short of bread nirvana, both for the tongue and for the nose.

1. Begin by heating 1/2 cup milk (or soy milk, which is what I used) and a few strands of saffron. When the milk begins to boil, turn off heat and allow to infuse for 15 mins.

2. Meanwhile, combine 1/2 cup almond meal, 3 1/2 cups flour, 6 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt in a mixing bowl.

3. Mix 1/2 cup warm water and 25g fresh yeast until a froth forms. Add to flour mixture and mix. Finally, add 50g softened butter (about 1/3 stick butter) until dough is elastic. Set aside for 1 hour to rise.

4. Cut dough into 12 parts and roll with hands into long ropes. Form curly shape on either end and place on oiled baking pan. Allow to rise for 30 mins.

5. Combine egg white and 1 tsp water. Baste the bread pieces and sprinkle a little sugar on top.

5. Preheat oven to 400 and bake for 15 mins or until golden. Convection oven time will be about 10 mins.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)

Tonight in Jonny World we shift our focus away from the Asian region and face north towards Scandinavia -- the land of alcohol and gravlax!

A little known fact: I used to live in Denmark back in the early 1990s. I can't say Danish food is my favorite food in the entire world, but I did develop a taste for a number of Scandinavian foods. One them was smoerrebroed , or open faced sandwiches. Another is salmon cured with sea salt, pepper, sugar, brandy, and dill. For dinner I thought I'd try combing both of these personal favorites and create gravlax smoerrebroed .

Actually I found that making gravlax was quite easy. I cut a salmon steak in two and rubbed it with a combination of 1 tsp sea salt, 1 tsp caster sugar, 1 tsp crushed black peppercorns, 1 tsp brandy, and a liberal amount of fresh dill.

I then let the salmon cure for 12 hours, basted and flipped the salmon, and repeated this cycle every 12 hours until 48 hours were up. The salmon was then thinly sliced and placed on dark rugbroed.

Once the salmon was fully cured, I then prepared the dijon mustard sauce by combining 4 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 tsp mustard powder, 1 tsp sugar, and 2 tsp white wine vinegar. To this mixture was slowly added (while stirring) 6 tsp of vegetable oil and 3-4 tsp chopped, fresh dill. And in my mind, the sauce totally made the dish.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 07:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)