City Bikes are similar to Minneapolis’ Nice Ride bikes. With a membership card the size of any credit card, one can approach a bike station, hold the card up to the built-in reader, and in seconds receive a bike assignment. Like a Nice Ride, City Bikes are three-speeds with front luggage space, heavy fenders, bells, and easily adjustable seats. Different were the wheels (tiny in front!), the coaster brakes on the City Bike, subscription lengths, and time limits. The three-day pass is the shortest term available for purchase (165 SEK) and breaks down to about $8 a day—much cheaper than any other form of bike rental in Stockholm, if a little more expensive than Nice Ride. And, in Stockholm it is possible to have a City Bike for three hours at a time without penalty, compared to the 30-minute limit on a Nice Ride. Later in the day, on Djurgården, we saw many people lounging around in the grass with a pile of black and white City Bikes around them. With the fear of Nice Ride trip fees deeply ingrained in our brains, most of our own rides were kept short, though. Arriving on Götgatan Saturday morning, we were happy to find several bike stations nearby, ride in a roomy bike lane, and learn that the main shopping area is conveniently restricted to pedestrians and cyclists only.

Also convenient is that every City Bike has space for a bag, as I was in scando-design heaven in Ordning & Reda, DesignTorget, and 10 Swedish Designers. Tip: DesignTorget opens first and is a convenient place to stop in shop while waiting for O&R and Tiogruppen to open. Tom and I each found a few souvenirs: small matching notebooks from Ordning & Reda that would become our journals for the trip (Tom’s lined, mine not), postcards and an oil-cloth bag for me from 10 Swedish Designers, and a mushroom knife and other treasures from DesignTorget. I’m sorry to say we were a little too excited about bikes (!!) and shopping (!) to take many pictures in the morning. With plans for a longer ride and more sights to see, we decided to drop our bags back at the Clarion and head out once more for lunch at Blå Porten on Djurgården.

After dropping our bikes at Djurgården’s only City Bikes station, we set out to find Blå Porten and locate the Vasa Museum, where we’d be getting our Viking on later that afternoon. While the restaurant isn’t far from where we left our bikes behind, we made some mistaken assumptions about its location and took a rather circuitous route there. We walked just long enough for me to become really hungry and slightly desperate before spotting Blå Porten’s unmistakeable blue doorway.

Tom had lamb burger meatballs with potatoes and a yellow bean salad and I had boiled salmon with potato salad, carrots and a generous dollop of dill mayonnaise (these are items 1 and 2 on the menu above). I really liked my salmon, but Tom found himself wishing he’d ordered the chanterelle soup. Full of potatoes for what would be the first of many times, we sat on the patio washing it all down with a couple of beers and a lemon strawberry tart while writing postcards and making first entries in our journals:

So far, Sweden, Stockholm at least, really is everything I’d hoped for. The shops are amazing, the weather is fine, and the people are very nice…. It feels good to sit in the sun with a little wind, eat, and rest our feet. I am so thankful for City Bikes. We’re able to get around with ease while seeing the city and enjoying the air. I’m glad to be here at the end of August. The weather is ideal…. I look forward to more exploring in Stockholm and to what is yet to come…. It’s fun to be in a place where it feels like I know both nothing about it and have a certain familiarity.

As we were finishing up, a French couple asked if we were Swedish; they needed to know how to say “France” in order to address their own postcards. We may not be Swedish, but we did have a Swedish dictionary iPhone app and Tom was happy to assist. They wrote Frankrike in big letters on each card. We had the advantage of writing “USA” on all of our postcards instead of the longer, and seemingly less-often used, Förenta staterna.

We said goodbye to our franska vänner and walked to the Vasa Museum. It is nothing short of impressive—I found it hard to take a picture that did justice to the ship’s size. The museum itself has something like six levels from which to observe the ship and does an excellent job of fleshing out the historical context in which it was built as well as documenting the process of salvaging the ship.

There is a scale model on display that shows how the Vasa would have been painted on its maiden (and only) voyage and many full-sized decorative pieces recreated to match the original paint. The ring shown here is the only piece of gold found on the Vasa. It was displayed on a big velvet pillow in a vitrine with other recovered treasures. I wish I had more pictures of the artifacts on exhibit—there were cooking pots and other vessels, mittens and boots, and a game of backgammon. It is, however, very dark in there! The whole museum is cold and dark to help preserve this incredible hulk.

Back in the sun again after leaving the Vasa, we wandered in to the Nordic Museum‘s shop just before closing time to refuel on postcards and frimärken. We returned to the central city via Djugårdsfärjan and finding no available bikes at the Slussen station we decided to walk to Mariatorget for a drink and a snack at the Hotel Rival’s café. Despite the busy time of day, the Mariatorget bike station welcomed us with several bikes for hire, and we made our way back to south Södermalm for an unremarkable vegetarian dinner (should have had meat and potatoes, I suppose!).

As I was wracking my brain trying to come up with a Saint Patrick’s day post for this blog that wasn’t corned beef and cabbage — because I had to post something, right? — I kept coming back to bangers and mash. I’ve never been to the Emerald Isle, and while like many Americans I boast of substantial Irish heritage — real or imagined — unfortunately the recipes of the homeland did not make their way down the generations to me — I guess there are only so many ways to prepare blighted potato. Bereft of any reference from travel or tradition, I turned to the Internet.

It’s pretty easy to find recipes for bangers and mash with a search; after all, it’s just sausages with mashed potatoes and maybe some onion gravy. But my searches also revealed a disturbing truth: while there were cursory references to “Irish” bangers and mash, the dish was mostly called “British pub grub”. The British?! No! How could we celebrate Saint Patrick’s day eating the food of the hated oppressors, the colonizers? The blood of my ancestors boiled at these revelations as my blogger gut sank knowing I didn’t have a post for Saint Patrick’s day.

But further research and reflection calmed the rage and doubt. After all, many recipes did refer to the dish as a British and Irish favourite. Many authors seemed to suggest that the dish emerged some time around World War I — 1919 to be precise, which is when the first reference to sausage as bangers is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary. This also happens to be the year the Irish Republic declared its independence from those hated British, the year in which the Irish war for independence began. Could those recently invented bangers have been the thing that emboldened the Irish patriots to cast off the yoke of servitude?

Like most food origin stories, the 1919 creation of bangers and mash shouldn’t be taken too seriously. It’s useful from a linguistic perspective, representing the beginning of the use of the word bangers, heretofore a word for dynamite, to refer to sausages, but thinking culinarily, do you really think it took humans until the 20th century to realize that sausages and mashed potatoes are a delicious combination? More likely, this dish has been enjoyed anywhere people share a love for sausage and potatoes, and on that score Ireland certainly qualifies. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Bangers

There’s no canonical sausage for this dish; the spirit of it is to use whatever sausage is available locally that you like. In my research, Cumberland sausage often came up as popular in the British version of the dish. I found a recipe on the highly trustworthy sausagemaking.org from none other than forum user “sausagemaker” himself, who claimed to be Cumbrian. I was just excited to find a British sausage recipe with no sage in it.

Sausage:

• 60% pork shoulder (346 g)
• 15% pork belly (232 g)
• 7.5% breadcrumbs (58 g)
• 15% water (116 g)
• 2.5% spice mixture (19 g)

Spice Mixture

• 72% salt (13.9 g)
• 13.5% black pepper (2.6 g)
• 4.5% nutmeg (.9 g)
• 4.5% mace (.9 g)
• 4.5% coriander (.9 g)

Follow standard sausage-making procedure: dice the meats and freeze them for 30 minutes, then grind them once through the coarse plate. Mix in the spices and grind again. Mix in the rest of the sausage ingredients.

Cumberland sausage is unique in that it is not twisted into links, but rather is sold by the inch from a large coil. This makes for some fun times in the frying pan, let me tell you.

To cook the stuffed sausage, I first poached it for twenty minutes in 150ºF water (following this ridiculous recipe) before browning it in a skillet.

Mash

Boil a few russet potatoes in their skins. Pass through a ricer and fold in warm milk and butter until just smooth.

Onion Gravy

• One large onion, sliced thin
• 3 T butter
• 3 T flour
• 1.5 cups beef stock
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Melt the butter in a skillet and add the onion. Caramelize over medium-low heat. Stir in the flour. Gradually stir in the beef stock and bring to a simmer. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve the whole dish, nestle pieces of cooked sausage in a mound of mashed potatoes and spoon on a healthy portion of gravy.

One of the greatest pleasures the table offers is a leisurely couple of hours spent snacking over wine: embracing the Spanish concept picar — just a nibble here and there. For something so delicious and satisfying, a dinner of tapas is also easy to prepare: we already had a chorizo in the fridge from Olympic Provisions in Portland, OR and a quick trip to Surdyk’s yielded a wedge of Chabrin cheese (French, true, but near the border), some Basque-style olives and a bottle of fruity and spicy Spanish wine (2007 Peñascal Tempranillo-Shiraz).

I happened to have a loaf of bread baking in the oven, but it would have been just as well to buy bread. Cured meat, cheese, olives, bread and wine; something about these foods seems very elemental to civilization. It would have been enough to stop at the essentials, but since it was Saturday and Saturday compels me toward more ambitious cooking projects, I also made patatas bravas, my favorite Spanish bar food.

Two hours passed picando with one, two, three glasses of wine is a fine way to spend the evening.

Patatas Bravas

Take whatever quantity of potatoes suits you and cut them into irregular chunks. Peel the potatoes if desired. A recipe I read suggested starting them slow in oil and gradually increasing the heat until they are deeply golden. My own technique was to par-cook the potatoes in boiling water until a fork could just be inserted, then drain and dry them. I then fried them in 350°F oil until they were golden — unfortunately our stove’s rather pathetic BTU output meant this took too long and the potatoes got a bit tough. Probably the best technique is to follow french-fry procedure: blanch the potatoes in 325ºF oil until blond and then finish them at 375ºF. The goal is to have crispy potatoes with creamy interiors. Salt the potatoes after removing them from the oil.

Serve hot with salsa brava and alioli.

Salsa Brava

• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 T olive oil
• 1 ½ cups tomato puree, fresh or canned
• 1 t paprika (pimentón dulce)
• ½ t cayenne
• 1 t salt

Heat the garlic and olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat until the garlic turns golden. Add the tomatoes and fry until the color darkens slightly. Stir in the paprika, cayenne and salt and simmer a few more minutes. Taste for seasoning: the sauce should be slightly spicy and taste clearly of paprika.

Alioli

• 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed through a garlic press
• ¼ t ground mustard
• 1 t salt
• ¼ t black pepper
• 2 t lemon juice
• 1 egg yolk
• ½–¾ c olive oil

Whisk together garlic, mustard, salt, pepper, lemon juice and egg yolk. Slowly drizzle in olive oil, whisking constantly, until desired thickness is reached. Adjust seasoning.

It’s been a year since Martha and I traveled to Colombia and discovered the magic of Empanadas de Pipián. I’ve eaten plenty of empanadas in my life, many in restaurants in in Minnesota, but none like these. Empanadas de pipián have two distinguishing characteristics: first, the texture of their shell. Nobody would ever compare empanadas de pipián to Cornish (or Upper Peninsular) pasties; empanadas de pipián have a crisp, crunchy shell, reminiscent of a hard taco but slightly more yielding. The other unique characteristic of empanadas de pipián is their flavor: peanuts. While some empanadas may feature meat, or olives, or a medley of any number of ingredients, empanadas de pipián taste like peanuts. In a good way. A uniquely Colombian treat.

When a Colombian food jones strikes, the first reference I consult is the brown notebook I transcribed during afternoons and evenings spent in Martha’s Aunt Stella’s kitchen in Cali, Colombia as she prepared the family’s meal and put up with my persistent questions about her technique and ingredients. Stella is my sage for many Colombian foods.

As a resident of Cali, however, Aunt Stella has easy access to the nationally-renowned empanadas fried up at El Zaguán de San Antonio. Being able to drive 15 minutes to eat some of the best empanadas in town (in the whole world, in fact), she didn’t have much reason to make them at home while we were there. So the brown notebook had no recipe for me.

Where the brown notebook fails, the the two volume Nuevo Gran Libro de la Cocina Colombiana (originally published by Círculo de Lectores in 1983 and reissued by Intermedio in 2008) that I bought in Cali usually has some guidance. This cookbook covers a great variety of Colombian dishes, from soups to desserts, and does a good job of treating the regions of Colombia, even in its brief form. The photos are beautiful. But while it contains several recipes for empanadas, El Gran Libro was silent on the subject of those of pipián.

With first-hand experience coming up blank and my published reference of no help either, I had to turn to my absolute last resort when it comes to cooking: the Internet. That might sound odd coming from a food blogger, but my experience of Internet recipes largely mirrors that of grumbling old-media editors: there’s a lot of crap to sift through (all the recipes I post on marthaandtom.com are perfect, of course). There are a few websites whose recipes I will trust outright, but for the most part searching the web for recipes requires sifting through several versions on various websites and then applying a little common sense and experience to try to get something workable. A search turned up several recipes which I used as to develop a recipe for my empanadas (there was a spreadsheet involved, but I’ll spare you).

Empanadas de Pipián

You’ll need:

• 624 g (eh, call it a pound) potatoes, cut into a small dice

Note on potatoes: In Colombia, potatoes are a science unto themselves; there were more varieties of potatoes in the supermarket than I could even begin to wrap my head around. Small potatoes, large potatoes, red potatoes, blue potatoes, purple potatoes; there were even unwashed potatoes with the dirt still on (to be washed at home — some people like them that way). Taking a survey of the entire country would yield even more variety. And all of these potatoes have their specified uses; without a doubt there is some canonical potato for pipián. In the United States though, potatoes is more or less potatoes and we’ve got to take what we can get. I used white potatoes from the Midtown Farmers Market.

• 212 g (~3/4 c) hogao

Hogao is an ingredient in many, many Colombian dishes. In its simplest form — this is how Stella taught me to make it — it is a mixture of chopped onions and tomatoes, cooked to a puree-like consistency. More complicated versions exist; I personally couldn’t resist throwing in some garlic. I took 356 g roughly chopped tomatoes, mixed them with 156 g roughly chopped onion and 12 g (2 cloves) minced garlic and cooked it to the right consistency: maybe ten minutes over medium heat.

• 78 g peanut butter, melted

This probably leaves authenticity purists even more disturbed than the potatoes, but all the recipes call for roasted and ground peanuts (peanuts being the defining characteristic of Pipián); peanut butter saves several steps. I’m not talking about Jif here — our jar of Salt-Free Eastwind Peanut Butter’s ingredient list reads as follows: “Roasted Peanuts.” But Jif would probably be fine too.

• 1 T achiote

To make the Pipián, place the diced potatoes in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Add plenty of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are just tender; it won’t take long if you’ve diced them small enough. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them well, then mix with the other three ingredients until everything is evenly distributed.

With the filling under control, the next step is to make the wrapper. Empanadas de pipián feature a yellow-corn based masa, for which I used the bag of P.A.N. Harina de Maiz Amarilla Precocida that we brought with us from Colombia. At the time we thought it would be impossible to get in the States and that we’d be out of luck if we needed our empanada fix. Happily, I’ve noticed this product available in many Latin American markets and even Latin American sections of supermarkets, so there is no obstacle between you and perfectly crunchy empanadas.

I followed the instructions on the package, adding a bit of salt to a cup of water, then stirring in a cup of corn flour. It is important to let the dough rest 15-30 minutes to hydrate fully; the dough will be too wet when it’s first mixed; the water hasn’t been fully absorbed by the corn.

When the dough is sufficiently hydrated, it should be divided into balls. I pinched off a ball I thought looked to be the right size and measured it at 34 g; in retrospect these were probably a little too big. But the bigger you make them the fewer empanadas you’ll have to fold together, so it’s worth considering. Anyway, there’s no agreed upon size for empanadas de pipián; in Colombia we sampled some that were little more than folded over tortilla chips, and others that were much more substantial.

Once you’ve completed your ball size deliberations, you’re ready to form the empanadas. The easiest way to do this is with two sheets of plastic — a zipper-lock bag torn asunder, say. Place one ball between the sheets of plastic, flatten it slightly, then roll it out into an even circle using a rolling pin. Remove the top plastic sheet, place a tablespoon or so of filling in the middle of the dough circle, then fold the bottom plastic sheet over itself to close the empanada, pressing the edges to seal them. Carefully peel back the plastic and flip the empanada onto a cornmealed, floured, cornstarched, or otherwise nonstickified sheet. Continue until you run out of dough, filling, or patience.

Heat deep frying oil to 350ºF (you’ll have to use your own judgment on how much oil to use; in my pan 2 quarts made sense). Fry the empanadas in batches of 4 or 5. They are done when they start to develop dark brown spots, which should occur just as your oil recovers to 350ºF, ready for the next batch.

Let the empanadas cool a little (OR THEY WILL BURN YOUR MOUTH) but not too long — they are best fresh. Serve with ají de maní, preferably applied to each bite from a red squeeze bottle.

Ají de Maní

To be honest I wasn’t totally happy with the way this sauce came out; the addition of cilantro (an idea I got from that darn Internet) didn’t do much for the sauce. The basic idea here is a spicy sauce tasting of peanuts with a thin consistency.

• 96 g peanut butter
• 156 g hogao (should probably use much less, but I wanted to use up what I made for the pipián)
• 10 g (1 small) hot pepper
• 10 g (2 cloves) garlic
• 6 g (largish handful) cilantro
• 162 g water
• a pinch of freshly-ground cumin

Process all ingredients in a blender until smooth.

Perhaps you hadn’t noticed, but I haven’t been posting much lately. This is mostly for positive reasons: fun and interesting social engagements, steadily progressing training runs in anticipation of a marathon in October, excellent meals eaten outside the home, all working together to spare you of my culinary musings.

Related to the aforementioned activities or not, I’ve also been feeling a little blah about cooking lately. I’m still putting food on the table most nights, but it has mostly seemed pretty automatic — nothing quite interesting or delicious enough to share. I was uninspired.

Inspiration, happily and frustratingly, comes at unexpected times. So it was this afternoon, in a moment of distraction from the tasks at hand, I allowed my RSS reader to direct me over to the latest post on our friend Brett’s blog Trout Caviar: Grilling the Market. Whether it was the picture of a beautifully charred carrot or Brett’s call for simplicity in summer preparations, something about his post got my wheels spinning again.

My mind jumped immediately to dinner, where suddenly a pasta with some kind of onion, summer squash and cream sauce — most definitely blah food — started to take on a more interesting character. For one thing, pasta was out: no need for imported starch when a bowlful of market new potatoes sat underutilized on the counter.

The summer’s first squash could still be used, accompanied by some of its first carrots. Given our current urban living situation, grilling was not a possibility; luckily, roasting can also develop those deeply browned surfaces I was after. A quick dressing with olive oil, vinegar, market parsley and garlic, and plenty of salt and pepper was all that was needed to showcase the best of the season.

I read fifty to one hundred food-related blog posts in any given day; most of them are discarded with the spin of a scroll wheel. Sometimes though a post comes along like Brett’s that changes what I’m doing in the kitchen — and even my outlook on this blog. It’s enough to inspire someone to write a post.

Roasted Summer Vegetable Salad

• 1# golf-ball sized potatoes
• 5 or 6 small summer squash
• 10-12 small carrots
• 3 small onions, sliced
• 2 T butter
• 1/2# flavorful sausage, cooked and sliced
• 4 oz goat cheese

Dressing

• 1/3 c olive oil
• 2 T apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup parsley leaves, minced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 450ºF.

Cut the potatoes in half and place in large microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 8 minutes, until starting to become tender. Toss potatoes — careful, they’re hot! — in ample quantities of olive oil, salt and pepper. Don’t wash the bowl just yet. Arrange the potatoes on a sheet pan, cut-side down. Roast 20-30 minutes, until cut-sides are deep brown, just about to burn.

Meanwhile, cut the squash into 1″ chunks and place them in the bowl you tossed the potatoes in. If your carrots are pencil thin like mine were, you won’t need to peel or cut them; thicker carrots can be quartered. Toss carrots and squash in bowl, adding more olive oil, salt and pepper as necessary to make everything good and moist and seasoned. Turn the contents of the bowl out onto a sheet pan and roast in the oven 3o minutes, until the surfaces start to brown. It’s probably a good idea to flip these veggies around about halfway through the cooking so both sides get brown.

Heat the butter over medium-low heat in a small skillet and add the onions. Cook until greatly reduced and deep brown.

While the vegetables are roasting prepare the dressing by combining all the ingredients. Salt and pepper should be added to taste; given the quantity of vegetables, you may need more salt than expected. Add in the sausage (I used the beef, bleu cheese, and Surly Bender sausage from Clancey’s Meats & Fish).

As the vegetables are done roasting/caramelizing, add them to the bowl with the dressing. When all is ready, toss the vegetables well. Top with crumbled goat cheese and serve.