I discovered chokladbollar, or Swedish chocolate balls, during my blissful trip to Stockholm last month.

The city is peppered with cosy coffee shops that sell coffee, yes, but also pretty little sandwiches, and the kind of wholesome home-style sweets that go so well with a steaming cup of something.

And though each place had a selection all its own, I soon identified a few classics you could count on finding pretty much everywhere: kardemummabullar, the Swedish cardamom rolls (also available in a cinnamon version, and sometimes chocolate or blueberry!), and chokladbollar, ping-pong-sized chocolate balls coated in grated coconut.

What makes chokladbollar especially seductive, beyond the simple presence of, you know, chocolate and coconut, is that they’re made with ground oats. This gives them a lightly nubby texture, and infinitely pleasing nutiness.

It was love at first bite in a herregud* kind of way. I ate my fill while in Stockholm, and couldn’t get them out of my head once home in Paris. I researched the recipes available out there, created a comparison spreadsheet (yes, I am that kind of person), and found that most of them called for impressive amounts of sugar and butter.

And so, I set out to create a version of my own using coconut oil more moderately instead (nothing against butter, you can use that instead if not vegan), and just the right dose of sugar to round out the other flavors.

Hey, want to see a video?

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This is one of those recipes I’m super excited to have added to my repertoire: it’s very (very) easy, it can be whipped up from 100% pantry ingredients, and once it’s on the table it tastes and feels like a much more sophisticated dish, the kind that makes you sigh with pride and content and say, “We eat pretty well around here, don’t we?”

It started out as the 20-minute fish curry in Meera Sodha’s excellent book, Made in India, Cooked in Britain, which I own in its British edition and have used multiple times with great success. Her original recipe is for an Indian-style curry without the coconut milk, but after several iterations in my kitchen it has taken on Southeast Asian flavors (lemongrass, basil or cilantro, lime juice) that make it a little bit Thai as well.

An amazingly easy fish curry

I apologize to purists of either cuisine in advance, but the result is a fine curry, richly favorful and clean-tasting, that does really well on its own or served over rice. My current preference goes to this sticky rice, which I throw into the rice cooker Maxence talked me into buying despite my reluctance (rice cooks just fine in a regular pan on the stove! we don’t need a specialized appliance!), and I now love and cherish (perfect rice! every time! no need to watch or time or anything!).

Since settling on this wonderful fish curry formula, I now make sure I keep on hand a can of coconut milk, a jar of whole peeled tomatoes, and fish fillets in the freezer at all times (the spices, onions, and fresh ginger I always have around), and I throw the curry together almost on a weekly basis. Although I’ve only made it for our family meals so far, it is without a doubt a company-worthy dish, one you could even pull off for a weeknight dinner party, possibly followed by this vanilla-roasted pineapple.

Join the conversation!

What’s the most recent addition to your roster of easy, weeknight-friendly recipes? We all need more of those so please share!

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This easy recipe for doenjang glazed eggplant is a wonderful first foray into Korean cooking.

For years now I’ve been contemplating Korean cuisine with equal parts excitement and trepidation. I’ve been going out to Korean restaurants, noting how vibrant the flavors and how nuanced the preparations, but I haven’t done very much at home.

Regular batches of homemade kimchi, yes, and kimchi fried rice, but that’s about it — until I received a review copy of Judy Joo’s Korean Food Made Simple.

Judy Joo is a Korean-American chef with a few restaurants and television shows to her name, and this is her first book, in which she shares 100+ recipes for Korean classics, plus a few East-meets-West creations.

It is the most un-intimidating book of Korean cooking I’ve seen in a while. The section on Korean staples alone is worth memorizing, and the recipes all feel very approachable. I look forward to tackling the noodles with black bean sauce (jjajangmyun), the roasted pork belly lettuce wraps (bossam), and the caramel doenjang ice cream, to name just a few.

But as a lover of all things eggplant, the first recipe I did try was for doenjang glazed aubergines, a Korean take on the Japanese classic nasu dengaku.

Instead of using miso paste, this recipe calls for the Korean equivalent, doenjang, a fermented soybean paste that is dark brown, richly flavored, and coarser than your average miso. (You should be able to find it at your local Asian market, and you can substitute red miso if that’s easier to find.)

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It all started with this photo on Gena’s Instagram feed. Gena is the author of the excellent blog The Full Helping, and she has long extolled the virtues of the vegetable nori roll as a quickly and easily assembled snack: her site offers almost a dozen examples, including this latest version.

The process is not unlike that which leads to maki, but here you forgo the seasoned rice altogether — this saves time and effort, and also means you don’t have to plan ahead — in favor of fresh vegetables, lots of them.

I was so inspired by that latest shot that I went out and got some cucumbers and sprouts the very next day to make my own, and I have been weaving variations on that theme about twice a week since then — that’s how enthused I am.

Although Gena likes to apply a thick layer of some sort of spread — think hummus or cashew cheese — directly on the nori sheet, I start with the sliced cucumbers as I prefer my nori to stay as crisp as possible* — the drier, the crisper — and find it most pleasing to bite into the crunchy layer of cucumbers first.

My Take on Nori Roll

Having played around with various ingredients, I have now determined the foundation I like to build on (cucumber, avocado, sprouts, sesame), and will add whatever little things I have on hand — leftover chicken or fish, tofu, spread or dressing, crudités, greens, and herbs. I have a great fondness for the mango and jicama version I make as an affectionate nod to the maki served at Bob’s Kitchen.

These make for a lovely item to add to the mix when we’re composing a lunch or dinner from sundry elements (see “leftovers night” in my Menu Planning Tips & Tricks). You could offer them as finger food as well, cut into maki-style slices, and I’ve been known to fix myself a nori roll as a refreshing afternoon treat, too.

* For optimal texture, I like to eat the roll the moment it is made, but of course it’s fine to let it sit while you make the others, or if you’re packing them for lunch at the office or a picnic.

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