Fridge Chocolate Balls

I have, over the years, become increasingly suspicious about having plastic tools in the kitchen. Plastic is relatively soft does not age well, it seems to crumble after a few years, and it makes me worry about getting those crumbles into my food. I have gotten rid of most of it by now. I am, though, rather fond of plastic bags, which are disposable. As long as plastic is properly recycled (which we do) and not put in garbage dumps or ending up as huge plastic islands in the sea, I am fine with it.

Lately, I have replaced my Melitta filter holders, which were plastic and had to be replaced every so often because they started to change colour and crack. On Ebay, one can still get the oldfashioned filter holders in china ware and aluminium. I got one of each at real bargain prices, the china one doesn´t even look used at all. Very happy with that. I hear that aluminium is supposed to not be good for cooking in, but I use it for my cold brew coffee (haven´t tired of that, love it in combination with milk - makes a very potent café au lait).

When I´m feeling the urge for something sweet and chocolaty, I often make these candy balls that used to be called negerboll when I was a child. I am pretty sure the name had nothing to do with African-Americans at all, but was probably a loanword meaning "black ball". However, in the 80´s, as we became more culturally oriented towards the Americans rather than other Europeans, the word became increasingly offensive. Now, it´s impossible and in my cooking book from 1994 it goes by the name Chocolate Balls. I have seen similar recipes in England called Fridge Balls, which is rather apt, I think. Whatever, it is a great recipe.

Take 100 grams of butter, room temperature soft, mix with 150 ml sugar, then add 1½ teaspoon vanilla sugar, 3 tablespoons cocoa, and 500 ml rolled oats. Splash some water, coffee or liqueur (I favour arak, but citrus is also good) to make it stick together enough so that you can make balls of it. Personally, I make half a batch as I can´t leave a single one for the next day, and I just fridge them for a bit as they are. You can also roll them in pearl sugar, shredded coconut or stick a toothpick in them and dip them in melted chocolate, which makes them prettier if you plan on offering them to guests. I pretty much keep them all to myself, haha!

Rice Punch

This last summer, we went to a Korean restaurant and I tried rice punch, which is a soft drink. It sounded really weird, so I had to try it. It tasted weird too, not in a bad way, though, but I don´t think I´ll go looking for more. There were actual rice grains in it.

Raclette & Pickled Onion

The Swiss raclette hearth.

The other week we tried a gift my Swiss sister and her husband brought us for Christmas. We had tried the Swiss dish raclette, which is melted cheese served with boiled potatoes, pickled onions and cucumbers (not for me, though, who is a bit sensitive to some of the stuff they put in pickled jars), when we came to stay with them last year. It´s one of those dishes where you cook part of your own meal at the table, like fondue. We always enjoy fondue, it is a bit like gathering around the fire, feels very primeval and communal. Their raclette hearth is an electrical one that also has a hot stone on which one can fry strips of meat. What they gave us was a simpler version where the heatsource is tealights.

We were taught to pour the cheese on top of the potatoes.

Adding a slice of  smoked loin of pork worked really well.

It worked really well, I must say. Important, though, to use three candles per raclette pan, otherwise it will not get hot enough to melt the cheese. Just as tasty as the first time we had it. Lucky for us, raclette cheese is available in some stores. And now that we wet our apetites on it, I have tried pickling onions myself for the first time.

It´s not too hard, really. Blanch about 1 kilo of small onions and peel them. Then put them in salted water (1 liter water and 100 ml salt) over night, and boil them for a few minutes until soft. (I managed to over-blanch them - they are so small! so I just rinsed the salt off, I think they are quite soft enough.) Then you make a solution by boiling 300 ml sugar, 200 ml vinegar essence, 300 ml water, spiced with 1 teaspoon white peppercorns, 3 pieces of dried ginger, and 5 pieces of mace. Put the onions in a jar and pour the hot solution over it. It´s ready to eat after three weeks and lasts for a year. We haven´t tried ours yet, but it looks nice.

Peeling the onions.

Salting the onions.

Done! Made half the recipe and didn´t fill the jar - we´ll finish this in no time!