White Chocolate-Cocoa Nib Mendiants

Mendiants are little chocolate discs, topped with anything you like. They originate from France where mendiant means "beggar of alms". Traditionally they used to be topped with blanched almonds, raisins, hazelnut and dried figs in order to represent the white, grey, brown and purple robes worn by, respectively, Dominican, Franciscan, Carmelite and Augustinian friars. But nowadays, of course, anything goes.

I made mine with white chocolate and cocoa nibs. These work wonderfully together, the sweetness and softness of the white chocolate perfectly balances the bitterness and crunch of the nibs.

Other combos I'm curious about are white chocolate and matcha powder. Or white chocolate and bitter beer granules. Not that I've ever heard that anyone has invented those yet, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about them.

Coconut Water

Coconut Water is one beverage that I miss a lot from Thailand. It's the watery liquid found inside young coconuts. It's nothing like coconut milk, which is made by pressing the mature coconut "flesh", but light and delicate with a slight flowery taste. In Thailand, it's usually served with a straw right from the coconut. When the water is drunk you can spoon out the coconut gel - that is the stuff that, when the coconut ages, will transform into regular coconut flesh.

In Sweden there are several canned versions of coconut water. The ones I've tried before have all been really bad, either way to sweet or with a strange artificial note added to it. But at my latest Asian Supermarket haul I came across a good one:

The label says it does contain sugar, but I didn't find it any sweeter than the stuff coming right out of a coconut. Also, you can see the coconut gel floating around in the bottle.

Another thing I learnt in Thailand, if you drink coconut water while having your period the bleeding decreases. This is also true for having star fruit (carambole). I've no idea why but this is something that all Thai women seem to be aware of. Good to know when on a beach holiday :)

Ginger Tea

I've been on a cooking break for 2 weeks now. Started with the kids getting stomach flu. I didn't get "really" sick, but some kind of half way hybrid kind of sick, loosing appetite, big fatigue etc. I'm not going to be graphic on this but let me tell you, when taking care of stomach flu patients you don't really feel like making anything you'll ever might want to eat again. We're all well now but my cooking hasn't taken off since that. But I hope that will change within the next few days!

One last Korean thing that is a great pick-me-up when not feeling so good, especially around the stomach area. Ginger Tea. Just smash up a piece of ginger, the older and drier, the more flavour in the end. Boil it for 10 minutes. Add some honey and done.

Cooking on the edge - kimchi with shrimps

I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not but I just started another batch of kimchi, this time I added 50 grams of dried shrimps. Feels like a crazy thing to do, after all, the kimchi is supposed to last for a month or two, and sefood is not something you should keep around that long. But, the recipe called for salted shrimps, and I've read as well that people sometimes throw in raw oysters into their kimchi so I thought, what the hell, I'm giving it a try. Hopefully I'll be able to smell if things are starting to go seriously wrong (does that sound like some last famous words or what).