As part of my anniversary bonanza (I kinda hate that word but nothing else seems to say “it’s party time and there’s free 80s cocktails for everyone” quite like bonanza) I’ll be splurting out a whopping three posts in one day so get seated, there’s more to come. Such as the bread companion above: Crispy-Chicken-Skin-Butter (yup – that’s what I choose to call this treat. Get used to it!).

This is a thing I first tasted at the gourmet restaurant in Dragsholm Slot (slot=castle) and when I had chicken recently, I finally remembered to save the skin for this butter. Even though there are no exact measures, you really can’t miss with this recipe. Just use the ol’ tastebuds.

Crispy Chicken Skin Butter

• Cooked chicken skin (from yesterday’s roast or similar)
• Rapeseed oil
• Butter
• Chicken stock (make the most of the chicken bones: boil up your own stock)
• Sea salt

You don’t have to take the best, most crispy, golden skin bits from your chicken. Just use the boringly grey and flabby stuff that tends to end up on the side of the plate “for later”. Heat some rapeseed oil in a pan, add a bit of sea salt and fry the skin until it’s crispy and golden. Now this is a dangerously addictive snack in itself, but seeing as it shrivels into nothing on the pan, the butter is a much better way of stretching the flavour. Let the crispy chicken skin drip off on a paper towel and chop it into little bits. In a separate bowl, take the wanted amount of butter and churn it until soft (or leave it out until it reaches room temp), add a tablespoon or two of cold stock along with the crispy skin and mix it well. Season with more salt and stock if needed. Finally, move the butter into a small and shallow cup or bowl and scrape the surface flat with a metal spatula. Refrigerate until dinner’s ready and you serve it along with freshly baked bread as nibbles.

Hello honeyz! It’s Sunday night at the lazy mansion and I want to tell you about last week’s treat for the knitting club (yes, I am 80 years old and need to start wearing a diaper). I had two friends over for a knitting session and made some toffee from a Swedish recipe book called “Julgodis” (~Christmas candy, a book by Johanna Westman about whom I know absolutely nothing, but seeing as you have a computer too you can do me the honour of googling her yourself, lazykins). It contains a lot of very accessible recipes for hard caramel, soft toffee and all sorts of chocolates. Very tempting stuff. Here’s a combination of two recipes of hers, or rather one roughly translated lemon toffee recipe with a bit of ginger. It’s dead easy. Hell, I think you can have it done by the time a new X-Factor contestant is voted off the island. And then you get to sit there and gloat while enjoying the lemony-gingery butterness of the softest toffee you’ve ever had.

Swedish Ginger & Lemon Toffee (25-30 toffee bits)

• 50 grams butter
• 1 decilitre cream
• 1,5 decilitre sugar
• 1/2 decilitre light syrup (as opposed to dark)
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
• Grated zest of 1 organic lemon
• 1 tbsp grated ginger

Melt the butter in a large saucepan with a thick bottom, mix in the cream, sugar, syrup and vanilla sugar. Boil the mixture without a lid until it has reached 122-125 degrees Celcius or time it for 15-20 mins and you should be alright.  To make sure that the mixture is done, drop a teaspoon of it in a glass of cold water and if you can shape it firmly between your fingers, it’s ready. If not, boil it for another 5 mins. Now add the lemon zest and the ginger, stir it well and pour it into a greased and lined tray or square cake mould. Then leave it in the fridge until it has set (took mine about 15 mins). Remove from the tray and cut  the toffee sheet into individual bits (I recommend using a pair of scissors) and wrap them in baking paper. They can keep in an airtight container in the fridge for 5-7 days.

Hello everybody, this is Silas Bo talking. I’ve been invited to do a post on whatever came to mind as long as it was food-related. Well, first thing that came a-knocking was soup. Since poor Heidi has been under the mutilating care of a dentist everything is now liquified in one way or another. And where should one go from there but into the wonderful world of soups? (mind your footwear, mmmkay?). One favourite is the French Vichyssoise, which is fancy talk for leak and potato soup. But be aware of the recipe you have to stick pretty darn close to the numbers or you won’t get that almost cheese-like flavour that comes from the leaks and the rather large amount of butter. We tried this soup in the delightful surroundings of Krapperup Slot in the southern part of Sweden and need we say that it has been on the repertoire ever since. The recipe is from the bottomless archives of BBC-food. Get it right here.

Happy Birthday Rolls. No, we’re not celebrating the birthday of the roll, but with the roll. Big difference – I’m not crazy you know. Talking to my oven fresh cuties here is not my thang, even though they do have a lot of personality if I may say so. But if I were to talk to them, I’m sure they would say something in the line of “Thanks a lot b****! How would you like it if you had to spend 12 freaking minutes in a scorching hell hole?” Well, maybe that’s why I don’t talk to them. Anyway, this kind of roll is what most children have on their birthdays in Denmark, topped with melting butter and coupled with hot chocolate and whipped cream. And that’s just the starter. The main course is a great sponge cake with icing and more whipped cream. If the parents are really naughty (or have a death wish) they OD the children with candy after that and whooptedo: 20 hyperactive kids with tummy aches.

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it’s lukewarm (30-35 degrees Celcius). Then crumble the yeast into it and stir until it has dissolved completely. Add the butter and stir until it has melted. Add salt, sugar and cardamom, stir for a while and then add the flour bit by bit. Knead the dough until it has a soft, even and stretchy texture. Leave it in a bowl covered with a tea towel for 30 mins or until it has risen to twice its size. Remember to leave it somewhere with room temperature.
2. Take the dough from the bowl and knead the air our of it. If you’re kind of nazi about having evenly sized rolls as I am, you can weigh the dough and divide the grams by the amount of rolls you wish to end up with. Then pull out lumps of dough and check that each of them has the chosen weight.
3. When you’re through with dividing and weighing it’s time to shape the rolls. I like to start kneading each lump and then, to create the nice even round shape, I take the dough and pull at the outer sides and shove them towards the bottom and into the center of the roll. I hope that makes sense to you, because I can’t seem to find a better way of explaining it. If you do it right, you should be stretching the outer sides smooth and tucking in the “ends” into the bottom centre.
4. Put each roll on a lined baking tray and leave them to raise for another 15 mins. under a tea towel. Turn the oven to 220 degrees Celcius while you are waiting.
5. Brush the surface of the risen rolls with a lightly beaten egg and put them in the middle of the oven for about 12 mins. Make sure they don’t turn too dark so look at them every now and then. Leave them to cool for 5-10 mins. and serve while they’re still a bit warm so the butter will melt softly into the bread. Yummmm!