As a dancer I have from an early age been encouraged to eat foods that will support and nurture my body and I have previously written about a dancer’s diet. In the last few months I’ve rediscovered my passion for cooking, baking and not least finding healthy recipes for food I love. I hope some of these may be of interest to you because as well as being healthy and tasty, many are great dancing fuel too.
Being Danish I thought I’d share one of my absolute Summer stables: Buttermilk Soup, ideally served with crunchy cardamon biscuits [called kammerjunkere] and fresh strawberries. This is a somewhat cultural institution in my native Denmark and often served as a dessert or even as a meal in its own right on hot summer days where you just want something light.
My husband thinks it’s odd but buttermilk is a staple in many cuisines from European to Indian. If you think it sounds familiar then someone actually made it on the BBC programme Masterchef – but the panel didn’t like it. Well it’s not Gourmet cuisine as such. On the contrary – it’s extremely easy to make, it’s fresh and slightly sweat and designed to keep you cool on a hot day. It’s Danish name ‘koldskaal’ literally translates as ‘cold bowl’.
Give it a try served with fresh strawberries and if you like it then try making the biscuits too. I am still trying to find a sugar free version of these but not yet fully satisfied so am including a traditional receipt instead.
Many Danes will claim that this soup needs raw eggs to be a ‘proper buttermilk soup’, but I prefer mine without for ease as well as to keep it safe for everyone to eat.
Buttermilk Soup ingredients:
250 millilitre natural yoghurt
250 milliliter buttermilk
Half a vanilla pod [or a bit less if you prefer a lighter taste]
1-2 table spoons of sugar [can be left out if your strawberries are sweet enough]
Zest from half a lemon
Making you Buttermilk Soup:
Mix it all together in a big bowl – that’s it!
I normally use a hand mixer to get a really light and fluffy consistency, but sometimes I simply stir it all together by hand – especially if I’m not adding any sugar. Serve cold and straight from the fridge. Leftovers can easily be kept in the fridge until the following day.
Biscuits ‘Kammerjunker’ ingredients:
150 g of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
50 g granulated sugar
50 g of cold butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of ground cardamom [optional]
Zest of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons of single cream
Making you Kammerjunker:
Mix flour and baking powder and then add in the butter so you have a grainy mixture. I like to partly melt mine which makes it easer, but make sure the butter doesn’t get too hot. Add all the other ingredients and mix until the dough is nice and even. Roll it into a long sausage shape approximately 2-3 cm in diameter. Wrap it in tinfoil and chill in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes, or even until the next day.
Pre heat the oven to 200C and cut the dough out into small pieces that can easily be rolled into little balls. The mixture above should make 40-50 pieces. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake in the middle of the oven for 8-10 minutes. Then take them out and let them cool for a few minutes before slicing them all in half so you end up with two flat biscuits. Turn the oven down to 170C and return the biscuits to the oven for another 10-12 minutes [until golden]. Let them cool on a wire rack before adding them to a biscuit tin or straight into your Buttermilk Soup.
Dorte
Did you miss my last post? Read it here: Introduction to fusion dance
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