Finnish summer classic - Kesäkeitto

Finnish summer classic, Kesäkeitto, is creamy soup made of summer veggies.  For me, this soup encapsulates all wonderful flavours from new fresh vegetables and it is the taste of summer.

The way I make my Kesäkeitto is bit laborious since the ingredients are not cooked all at the same time. I want to respect these great vegetables and give them a result they deserve. All veggies are perfectly cooked by parboiling, to ensure optimal taste experience. Even this requires more work than traditional way, this definitely is wort the effort. This is how you should make the Kesäkeitto!

Kesäkeitto
For 4 person
1/2 cauliflower
4 carrots with tops
8 radish
12 small new potatoes
1000 ml pea pods
4 summer onion
800 ml vegetable stock
200 ml cream
25 g butter
salt, allspice (or white pepper)

Cut the cauliflower into a size of a fingertips. Cut carrots, radishes and potatoes. Peel the most of the pea pods to a bowl, but leave the smallest unpeeled.
Cut the white part of the onions from the green tops and cut onions intoa a 4-6 wedges.

Bring the vegetable stock to a boil in a pot, add cauliflowers and carrots and cook them 4 minutes. After 1 minute, add onions. Using a skimmer, lift all vegetables to ice water for a while, then let them dry on a kitchen towl (or paper towl).
Add peas to boiling vegetable stock and cook 1 minute and radishes 30 seconds. Cool similar way than the above mentioned veggies.

Cook the potatoes in a stock until tender, add cream, butter and all parboiled veggies. Bring to a boil, to re-heat the veggies and when boiling, remove pot from the stove.
Season with salt and allspice.

Snail porridge

The savoury porridges have been so trendy already for a short while, and I found myself thinking of those when I planned the menu for our dinner party on Friday. First I planned to prepare mushroom porridge, but then suddenly Heston Blumenthal, my idol, came to my mind. The legendary Fat Duck’s snail porridge, was under discussion a lot when it was invented, I wanted to try that.

I found few almost similar but still different recipes when I was looking Heston Blumenthal Snail porridge recipe. I have heard that the book recipe is THE one, but because I couldn’t get that into my hands, I had to use one from internet. Or, I thought I do that. At the end, I combined some recipes and added my touch to the dish. I replaced the oats in the porridge with pearl barley and I was very happy about the result. At one day I’m going to try the porridge with oats as well, but I think my version was very nice. This dish was the 3rd course on my 5-course dinner, and the dish size was excellent.

Snail porridge
For 4 person
4-6 cooked snails per person
10 g Parma ham
1 small fennel bulb
400 ml chicken stock
40 g pearl barley
70g snail butter (see recipe below)
Salt and pepper
1 tsp sherry vinegar
3 tsp walnut oil

Finely shred the ham. Slice the fennel as thinly as possible and set aside. Heat the stock in a pan over a high heat and, once simmering, add the barley. Stir until all the liquid has been absorbed. Remove from the heat and beat in the snail butter. You may find you have to return the pan to the heat, in which case be careful: if it gets too hot, the butter will split, causing the porridge to become grainy. Season generously. Spoon the porridge on to the plates and top with ham. Toss the fennel with the vinegar and walnut oil, season, place on porridge, top with snails and serve.

Snail butter 
12 g whole garlic cloves, peeled
20 g button mushrooms
20 g shallots
100 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
12 g Dijon mustard
10 g ground almonds
2,5 g salt
50 g flat-leaf parsley, chopped
20 g Parma ham

Blanch and refresh the garlic in boiling water three to four times (this might seem excessive, but the garlic will be bitter and aggressive otherwise). Finely chop the mushrooms; peel and finely chop the shallots. Heat 25 g butter in a frying pan and sweat the mushrooms and shallots for five to 10 minutes, until softened. Tip into a food processor, along with the remaining ingredients, then purée until smooth. This will take a few minutes because you'll have to stop the machine intermittently, to scrape the sides. Once puréed, rub the mix through a fine-mesh sieve on to a sheet of cling film and roll into a cylinder. Store in the fridge (it also stores well in the freezer). Then simply cut off segments of butter as and when required.

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For the wine, I thought of the region for a good pairing: Burgundy first! You can’t go wrong with a Chardonnay for buttery escargots. My favourite is Laroche Petit Chablis 2015.

http://www.alko.fi/tuotteet/007496/ 

My challenge was carrots, yes you read right, carrots. But they do not exists in the dish?? No, they don't, but they were my 2nd dish in a menu, and I wanted to serve same wine with them too. I chose Chardonnay form California because I needed more toasty to the flavour. The wine was Jekel Gravelstone Chardonnay 2014. It was nice, but nothing special. 

Roasted Vegetable Soup

When I was a kid, my first choice for the supper wasn't vegetable soup. I didn't hate it, but it really wasn't my favourite either. From very early ages, my mouth has required strong flavours and different textures. Which is everything else than vegetable soup can offer, -or at least I thought so. All I knew was lukewarm soup looked someone has eaten it already once...

Then something happened when I started to lose weight. I wanted to find dishes which were low calorie, preferable high protein, but definitely delicious. Have to honest, it was pretty easy :D With these specifications, I found pumpkin soup seasoned with Moroccan style. It was so good that I gave another change to the veggie soup. Using that recipe as a base I started to create different variations, and this one below, is the last one. It really doesn't have much common with the original version, but I think this is even better. Maybe the only thing common is vegetable stock.

For the texture I usually add e.g. roasted chickpeas, crispy bacon, roasted onion or whatever comes to my mind. This time the fridge was quite empty, so I didn't add anything, except cottage cheese for protein.

Roasted veggie soup
For 4 persons
500 g butternut squash
1 (large) onion
400 g carrot
200 g parsnip
1-2 potato
2 garlic clove
1 tbsp ras el hanout
2 tsp cumin
1 small dried chili (or to taste)
salt & black pepper
1½-2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 l hot vegetable stock

Heat oven to 225 °C. Peel all veggies. Cut onion into 8 wedges. Cut butternut squash, carrots, parsnip and potato into 2 cm chunks. Tip all the vegetables and the garlic into a roasting tin. Sprinkle over the ras el hanout, cumin, chili, salt and pepper. Drizzle over the oil and give everything a good stir. Roast for 40-45 min, turning the vegetables over halfway, until they’re tender and caramelized nicely.

Transfer the roasted veggies to a large saucepan, pour over the hot stock and simmer for 10 min. Purée the soup until smooth. Add vegetable stock if the soup is too thick.

Serve with a dollop of yogurt or cottage cheese, a scattering of coriander. If you like the soup to be more spicy, add some chili oil on top of the soup as well.

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With this soup, my preference is beer. Since the soup has sweetness and quite strong flavours in it, Stallhagen Delikat would be very nice choice.

Stallhagen Delikat 

Chanterelle "Carbonara" - autumn flavors from the forest

There is one thing I particularly love in Finnish forests, and that's the wild mushrooms. You can't find as good them from anywhere else in the world. They are simply the best, and the variety is more than great. Only thing that keeps me not collecting them all, is the fact, that I don't recognize all species. And there are poisonous mushrooms as well in our forests. I have sometimes tried to find english names for our mushrooms, but the result has been bit poor, so I call them all mushrooms or wild mushrooms. Sorry about that!

This dish can be eaten as a main course or as a starter, -your choise. But the risk is that you eat too much of this as a starter, and there is no room left in your belly for the main. Either way, hope you enjoy!!

Fresh Pasta
for 2 persons
325 ml all-purpose flour or preferably Tipo ‘00’ flour
2 eggs
1tsp salt
Cold water if needed

Place the flour on a board or in a bowl. Make a well in the centre, add salt and crack the eggs into it. Beat the eggs with a fork until smooth. Mix the eggs with the flour, incorporating a little at a time, until everything is combined. Add water if needed. Knead the dough until silky and firm.
Wrap the dough into the plastic wrap and let it rest in a fridge, at least half an hour.
Create/roll any shape of a pasta, this time I rolled pappardelle. Boil in a salted water until al dente, approx. 1,5-2 minutes.

More detailed instructions you can find e.g. The Science of the Best Fresh Pasta

Chanterelle "Carbonara"
For 2 person
2 handfull of fresh chanterelle (or any other wild mushrooms)
1 tbsp butter
0,5 garlic clove finely chopped
1 shallot chopped
2 eggs
100 g pecorino cheese
Black pepper and salt to taste

Chop the mushrooms if you wish. Grate half of the pecorino. Melt the butter in medium heat and cook mushroom, onions and garlic. Mix eggs and grated pecorino in another bowl. Season. When pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the pan with mushroom mix. Pour the egg-cheese mixture to the pan, stir, but do not cook. If you heat the mix too much, eggs turn to a scambled.
Place the dish to a plate and slice the rest of the pecorino on top of it.

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I have a great wine tip for this dish as well; Masciarelli Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. The wine upgrades the mushrooms in to a next level goes well with pasta because of its soft flavors and gentle tannins.

Even though I said this wine is great with mushroom pasta, but it is perfect with the Cep risotto... Try it!

Korean stir fry glass noodles, Japchae, 잡채

When I visited first time in Korea, I ate noodles which were different, but amazingly delicious. Some time later I found out that the dish I loved so much is made of sweet potato starch noodles, and it is called Japchae, 잡채, Korean stir fry glass noodles. This dish can be eaten as a main course, side dish or appetizer, I usually prepare this as a side dish, or banchan as they say in Korea.

Japchae can be done either vegetarian version or with meat, usually beef. The noodles itself are called Dang-myeon. They have a unique and pleasant texture, and don't feel heavy like flour-based pastas.

Japchae 
For 4 person
150 g glass noodles (dang-myeon)
½ onion  
1 carrot (medium size)
50 g shiitake mushrooms
50 g spinach
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt, black pepper to taste 
Seasoning
4 tbsp soy sause
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp garlic (minced)
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp sesame seeds

Make the seasoning by mixing all ingredients together.
Peel the carrot and onion and julienne them. Slice the mushrooms. 
Boil nice amount of water and add noodles, cook 6 minutes. Rinse glass noodles twice in cold water. Drain all the water out using a strainer.
Coat a frying pan with 1vegetable oil. Sauté carrot and onion 2-3 minutes, add mushrooms and continue cooking until they are tender. Add spinach.
Add noodles and pour the seasoning sauce into the glass noodles and mix well.
Sauté the glass noodles mixture on medium heat until all the noodles are warm.
Sprinkle sesame seeds as a garnish. Enjoy!

Divine veggie burger

What can I say about these burgers... except they are divine... Well they are vegetarian, but I bet that carnivores would love them too. These are the best vege-burgers that I have ever made, and probably they are the the best vege-burgers I have eaten. Usually the patties in vegetarian burgers are awful mush made of grated over-cooked vegetables without any flavor. These are not anything like that.

I personally like the roasted flavor of beets, perky lime juice and sweetness from the sweet potatoes, all mixed together. Parsley gives some earthiness to this burger, and that is the reason I really really love these. Instead of bun, you can serve these even using salad leaves, and they are still fabulous.

Veggie Burger
For 4 person
4 good quality burger bun per person
4 Beetroot-quinoa patties
Avokado sauce
Sweet potato fries
Parsley

Make patties, sauce and fries using the recipes below.
Grill nice color to bun and make sure they are warm.
Fill all ingredients and enjoy!

Beetroot-quinoa patties 
4 medium size beets, peeled and cut in half
2 tbsp canola oil
100 ml quinoa
1 onion
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 egg
2 tsp Sonnentor BBQ spice mix
1 red chili, finely chopped
salt & black pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 200 °C.
Peel beets and onion. Chop the onions finely. Cut beets in half and place them into a pan. Drizzle 1 tbsp oil over the beets and mix until oil covers all beets. Bake until soft (approx. 1 hour). Let them cool.
Cook the quinoa as instructed in box. Let it cool.
Heat the 1 tbsp oil over the medium heat. Add onions and cook until tender and fragrant. It is totally ok to caramelize them a bit.
Mix beets, quinoa, onion, garlic and all spices together and mix. Add egg and mix well. Shape to patties. Cook them over a medium heat until they are crisp on outside, flip and repeat. Be careful when flipping the patties, since they break very easily!

Avocado sauce 
1 ripe avocado
1 lime juice
salt
Mix lime juice and peeled avocado together, e.g. using hand mixer. Season with salt.

Sweet potato fries 
1 sweet potato
1 tsp corn starch (e.g. Maizena)
1 tbsp canola oil salt to taste

Preheat oven to 225°C and warm your baking tray in an oven.
Peel the sweet potato and cut it medium thickness. Not hugely thick cut and not shoestring. Cut all your fries into the same size so that they all cook at the same rate.
Soak fries in cold water for around an hour – a half a day for maximum crispiness! Dry them.
Dump sweet potatoes into the bag with the cornstarch. Then give sweet potatoes you drop in the cornstarch a good shake. Twist the top of the bag so it forms a balloon with some air inside and shake the fries around until they’re lightly coated with the cornstarch.
Put coated fries on a non-stick cookie sheet. Drizzle oil over the fries. Using your hands, make sure the fries are well coated.
Put the fries into oven and cook for 15 minutes. Check the fries after 15 minutes, flip them over and bake them another 10-15 minutes. The timing really depends on the size of your fry, the heat of your oven and how well your pan conducts heat. Season with salt.

Shakshuka - Eggs in fiery veggie stew

Sometimes vegetarian food is more than welcome, and yesterday was one of those days. My husband isn't a fan of vege food, except when it is seasoned very well. And this dish is! So comforting and full of strong middle eastern flavours. I really love this dish. And if you try it, you'll love it too.

This dish has many different names; Shakshuka, Chakchouka, Shakshouka, etc. But what ever the name is, it's always great dish.

Shakshuka

For 6 persons

1 aubergine

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

2 large onions

4 cloves of garlic

4 small potatoes

2 red chilies finely chopped

4 tomatoes

3 tbsp canola oil

2 tsp paprika

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp ras el hanout

70 g tomato puree (1 can)

250 g chickpeas (cooked)

100 ml chopped parsley

100 ml chopped cilantro

400 ml water

salt, black pepper to taste

Pre-heat oven to 150°C

Dice aubergine, peppers and potatoes. Peel the onions and cut roughly. Peel the garlic cloves. Cut the tomatoes into wedges.

Heat the oil in a pot over a medium heat, add aubergine, peppers, onions and potatoes. Add paprika, cumin and ras el hanout as well. Cook approx. 5 minutes.

Add tomato puree, tomatoes and garlic cloves, continue cooking few minutes.

Add chickpeas, water and season with salt and black pepper.

Place the pot into an oven and cook 2-2,5 hours.

Transfer wanted amount (for 2 persons: 1/3) of the sauce into a smaller frying pan.

Make small indentations (1 egg per person) in the sauce, and gently crack an egg into each one. Cover the pan, and cook until the eggs are as runny, or firm, as you like them (I cook mine for 10 minutes, covered, which makes a runny egg).

Garnish with chopped parsley and cilantro, and serve right away. 

Idea for this recipe is originally from Tero Lilja, Restaurant Lämpö

Roasted beetroot and carrot soup with sour cream

There was large bag beets in our fridge, and I wanted to use them someway. My original thought was to make Borscht soup, but because I didn't have cabbage, I couldn't do that. So after few moments of thinking, roasted beetroot soup came to my mind.

I made it using not only beets but carrots and onion as well. And this time I decided to puree the soup, but it is as good, if you don't want to do that. Your choice! But one thing you can't miss, is the sour cream, without that, the soup doesn't work. At least no so well...

Beetroot soup
For 4 persons 
3 large beets, peeled and diced into large pieces
2 carrots
1 tbsp canola oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tbsp canola oil
1,5 l vegetable broth
1 branch rosemary
2 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream and rosemary for garnish


Preheat oven to 190 °C. Peel beets and carrots and dice them. Then place them in a large roasting pan. Drizzle with oil and a good sprinkle of salt and pepper. Toss to distribute the oil well. Roast veggies, turning once or twice during roasting, for 60 minutes (or until tender). When the roasted veggies are cool enough to handle, chop them as finely as possible or grate them.
Put the remaining oil in a skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the diced onion and cook until soft (about 3 minutes). Turn down heat to medium-low and continue cooking the onions until golden and very tender (10 to 15 minutes).
Add the chopped garlic clove, beets and carrots, along with the stem of the rosemary and broth to cover. Turn the heat back up to medium-high and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the soup is ready, approximately 30 minutes. Remove the Rosemary branch. Puree the soup if you wish.
Add the red wine vinegar and season with salt and pepper.
Serve with a dollop of sour cream and garnish with rosemary.

Independence day dinner

6th of December is independece day of Finland. This day I prepare always something very finnish, either traditional way or with modern twist. This year I made Karelian stew (Karjalanpaisti), which is one of the most known finnish dishes. There are some variation e.g. with meat in it, but anyone can do it as they like. My version has pork and beef, carrot, onion, beer and a bit of water. For seasoning I use only bay leaves, allspice and salt. Most of the people doesn't use beer, but I love the flavor it gives to the stew.

Karelian stew (Karjalanpaisti)
For 4-6 persons
450 g pork stew meat (e.g. neck or shoulder)
450 g beef stew meat
2-3 onions
2-3 carrots
1 tbsp butter
10 whole grains of allspice
1-2 bay leaves
330 ml lager beer
water if needed
salt to taste

Peel the onions and carrots. Chop them roughly. Cut the meat into cubes (3x3 cm). Heat the skillet with butter. Temperature is right when butter mutes, when it doesn't sizzle anymore. Brown all meat and put the intoa cooking pot and add the coarsely chopped onions and carrots. Pour ber into a pot, season with bay leaves, salt and allspice. Add enough water to almost cover the meat.
Cook with a cover at 100-125 °C, for 3-4 hours. 
Serve with mashed or cooked potatoes.

Beef Lindström (Lindströminpihvit)

I have already earlier expressed my feeling towards beetroots, -how much I love them. Fortunately, early this week my husband asked from me, could we have beetroot patties on Friday. Well, I didn't have to think twice. First of all I'm always ready for beets and secondly, there is nothing I wouldn't do for my hubby.

When beets are mixed with minced meat, we call it Lindströminpihvit. Originally this dish is from Sweden, but it is popular here in Finland as well. The dish in swedish it is Biff à la Lindström, in english it is Beef Lindström, but for us it is Lindströminpihvi. As promised to my husband on Monday, I made them yesterday with braised onions. And all that coldness and wind outside was out of mind when I had my first mouthful. This truly is real comfort food!

Lindströminpihvit
For 3-4 persons
400 g minced meat (pork and beef)
200 g beets grated
2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp capers
1 large onion finely chopped
salt & nlack pepper

Preheat oven to 200 C.
Heat pan over a medium heat, and add grated beets, vinegar, salt and sugar. Cook 5 minutes or until beets are slightly softened. Set aside. Do same for the onions.
Mix all ingredients together and season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Make 6-8 patties and bake them in an oven 20-25 minutes.

Braised onion
2 onions
1 tbsp canola oil
1-2 tsp dark syrup
50 ml water

Peel and slice the onions. Heat canola oil in skillet over a medium heat. Add onions and cook few minutes until bit softened. Add syrup and water. Cook 10 minutes over a low to medium heat. Onions can caramelized some amount. But be careful not to bur them.

Veggie Curry inspired by Jamie Oliver

We have decided to have at least one vegetarian day per week. For this week, saturday was already 4th veggie day for me. I dreamed all week about this saturday night dinner. For some reason, I started to hunger Indian food. I'm not good at all with ethnic cuisines, except maybe Korean, but it doesn't matter. I managed to find good recipe from Jamie Oliver, and created my own version of it.

I used sweet potato, cauliflower and chickpeas for this dish and it was very good. I'm happy that the portion was so big, that we can eat this also today.

Sweet potato and cauliflower curry
For 6 persons
1 heaped teaspoon crushed almonds
1 large sweet potato cut into chunks
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cauliflower
1 onion peeled and finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic-crushed
One 3cm piece of fresh ginger- grated or finely chopped
½ bunch fresh coriander including stalks
½-1 fresh chilli
1 handful of curry leaves (or a tsp curry powder if not available)
100 g curry paste (bought or make your own)
250 g chickpeas cooked
1 lemon
4 tablespoons low fat natural yogurt (optional)

Toast almonds in a dry frying pan over a low-medium heat until golden, then set aside.
Scrub sweet potatoes and cut into 1 cm chunks. To make the cauliflower, chop the leaves off and cut the stalk into small pieces. Cut florets into even pieces.
Add olive oil to a large saucepan over a medium heat and then add the sweet potato. Fry for 5 minutes or until golden. Add curry leaves or powder to pan and stir for one minute, then add all the chopped vegetables (except cauliflower stalks), curry paste and the chopped coriander stalks. Fry for another 10 minutes or until onions are softened.
Add chickpeas and 600ml of boiling water and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until thickened (about 30 minutes). Add cauliflower stalks to the curry mix.

To serve curry: add lemon juice to curry, sprinkle with almonds and chopped coriander leaves and serve with yogurt over the rice.

This recipe is adapted from Save with Jamie and can be found at www.jamieoliver.com. "Jamie Oliver’s Veggie Korma with Mock Cauliflower Pilau"

Baltic herrings with leak and mushrooms

Baltic herring is scandinavian fish. Usually eaten pickled, at least in my family and friend families. There are few other typical ways to make these wonderful fishes. One is oven baked, mainly with cream or tomato sause, and the other is pan fried. Third is warmed smoked, which is awesome dish, especially with finnish rye bread.

Today I made oven baked baltic herrings a bit different way. No cream, no tomato but much gentle flavor from leak and mushrooms.

Oven baked Baltic herrings
For 4-6 persons
750 g baltic herrings
1 bundle of dill chopped
200 g leak
250 mushrooms
1 tbsp canola oil
1 lemon juice
Salt & black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200 C. 
Chop leak  and cut mushrooms in half or into quarters. Heat the oil in a skillet over a medium heat. Add leaks and mushrooms and cook until softened.  Season with salt and black pepper. Move leaks and mushrooms from skillet to ovenproof dish.
Put baltic herrings, skin side down on the cutting board. Sprinkle fillets salt and black pepper. Sprinkle the fillets with dill. Wrap the fillets into rolls and place them in an ovenproof dish on top of the leaks and mushrooms. 
Sprinkle lemon juice over the fillet rolls. Bake in the oven 30 minutes.

With this beer is the only choice for drink, if you want anything with alcohol. Non-alcoholic, and my preference, is cold Finnish mineral water.

Squid Ink Tortellini

I have eaten squid ink risotto few times in my life and I like the taste a lot. But I have never tried squid ink pasta before. And since the dinner included beluga lentils in main dish, which look bit like rice, I chose pasta with the squid ink. For the filling I wanted autumn season ingredients, and what could be better than beetroots. My this years autumn favourite vegetable.

For the sauce I made brown butter. Simple, elegant flavor and yet robust. The tortellini should be the start of the dish, and that's why the is no complex sauce to this.

Squid Ink pasta
Pasta dough
325 ml all-purpose flour or preferably Tipo ‘00’ flour
2 eggs
1 tbsp squid ink
1tsp salt
Cold water if needed
Filling
1 large beetroot
1 tbsp feta or ricotta cheese
salt & black pepper to taste

Start with the filling. Roast the beetroot in an oven 200 C 1 hour or until tender. Let it cool.
Grate finely and add cheese into the beets. Season. Set aside.

Place the flour on a board or in a bowl. Make a well in the centre, add salt and crack the eggs and squid ink into it. Beat the eggs and ink with a fork until smooth. Mix the eggs with the flour, incorporating a little at a time, until everything is combined. Add water if needed. Knead the dough until silky and firm.
Wrap the dough into the plastic wrap and let it rest in a fridge, at least half an hour.
Roll, using pasta maker, for thin sheets and cut circles using a large cookie cutter. Scoop filling onto the center of the pasta and pinch the edges to seal. Pinch finally the corners together.
Boil in a salted water until al dente, approx. 1,5-2 minutes.

Serve with brown butter and deep-fried beets

For the wine our friends bring Pfaff Pinot Blanc 2013, and that went nicely with the dish.

Beef cheeks and beluga lentils

I have always wanted to cook the beef cheeks, and now I managed to put this desire in action. Because the theme was black food, I decided to serve cheeks with Beluga lentils, which I braised in red wine.

On top of the dish I fried black mushrooms (mustatorvisieni) and I have to say, that this gives comfort to your taste buds and relaxation for your mind. So good and perfect for autumn time. But I could easily eat this in winter time as well.

Beef cheeks
For 8 persons
1,5 kg of beef cheek
100 ml flour
3 tbsp canola oil
2 large carrots, roughly diced
2 large onions, roughly diced
1,5 l red wine
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bouquet garni
Salt & black pepper

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Season cheeks with salt and pepper. Roll the pieces in the flour. Heat the canola oil in a casserole dish until very hot and brown the meat quickly and evenly. Set aside. Add the diced carrots and onions, cook until golden brown. Add the meats back to the pot, pour the red wine and bring to boil. Add the garlic and bouquet garni and season.
Place the lid and cook in the oven for about 2 1⁄2 hours, until the meat is very tender. Add a little water if there is too much evaporation.

Beluga lentils 
For 8 persons
1 carrot
2 cloves garlic
2 onions
170 g (1 package) bacon
2 tablespoons olive oil
500 g beluga lentils
2 bay leaves
300 ml red wine 
750 ml water
Salt & black pepper to taste

Peel the carrot and garlic cloves and chop finely with the onion and bacon.
Heat the oil in a large pan, and add the chopped vegetables and bacon. Cook them over a gentle heat until soft, which will take up to about 10 minutes. Tip the lentils into the pan and stir them around to get slicked with the oil, and then add the bay leaves. Pour in the red wine and the water, or enough water so that the lentils are just covered in liquid. Bring to the boil and cover and simmer for about 30 minutes or until just tender. Season.

 

This dish goes nicely with the red wine, and today's choise was Ogier Côtes du Rhône La Promesse Rouge 2013

Finnish style cabbage casserole

White cabbage casserole is one of the Finnish traditional comfort food and home cooking dishes. Usually the rice and egg-milk-mixture is used for this dish, but actually I prefer barley and beef stock. This way the cabbage tastes more and the texture is more moist. People eat this with mashed lingonberries which are seasoned with sugar. But, again, I prefer without sugar. I like the acidiness of the berries with a bit sweet casserole. It is nice contrast.

So here is my version of the Finnish style cabbage casserole, here you go!

Cabbage casserole
4-6 persons
750 g white cabbage
400 g minced meat (mixed pork and beef)
1 dl pearl barley
1 onion
2-3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp dried marjoram
Salt & allspice
approx. 500 ml beef stock
2 tbsp (dark) syrap

Peel the onion and chop it, shred the cabbage. Set aside. Boil 400 ml water, add barley and bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes, until fully cooked.
Heat the skillet and cook the minced meat until nicely brown. Remove the meat from the skillet, add onion and cabbage to pan and cook until some browned. Season with soy sauce, marjoram.
In a large bowl, mix together cabbage, onion, minced meat and barley. Place the mixture in the casserole dish, pour the beef stock in. Drain the syrap on top of the mixture.
Bake, in lower part of the oven, 175-200 C an hour or so. If the surface gets too dark, cover with tin foil. 
Serve with mashed lingonberries.

Mashed lingonberries
200 ml lingonberries
2 tbsp sugar

Mash the berries and add sugar.

Seljanka - Russian style soup

Fall is the  perfect time for warm soups. It is not so cold yet, that you start dreaming about the robust stews, but enough, to long something warm and comforting. For me Russian flavours represent that feeling, -also in a winter. And few of my wintertime favourites are Russian cuisines. But now my taste buds wanted soup and fish.

So I decided to make some Seljanka. Seljanka is Russian soup made of fish, meat, mushrooms (e.g. ceps) or sausages. The soup is flavoured with tomato and something that adds sourness. The most popular sources for sourness are pickeled gherkin, capers, lemon, olives and sauerkraut. I chose fish, capers and gherkin for my soup.
 

Fish Seljanka
For 4 persons
400 g potatoes
1 large carrot
1 onion
1 small clove garlic
1/4 fennel
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp tomato puree
400 g salmon
800-1000 ml fish stock
1 tbsp capers
1/2 small pickled gherkin
Salt & black pepper

 Cut peeled potatoes and carrots to nice size cubes or to other shape. Peel and chop the onion and garlic. Cut the fennel thin slices. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Cook onion and fennel few minutes, add garlic and cook a minute or so. Add potatoes, carrots and tomato puree and cook some more. Add fish stock, bring to boil and simmer until potatoes are cooked.
Add salmon, capers and chopped pickeled gherkin. Season with salt and black pepper.
Let soup rest few minutes, until salmon is nice and tender, but not overcooked.
Sprinkle dill over the soup and serve with sour cream.

Quinoa Stuffed Peppers

When I was a kid, I didn't like stuffed peppers. Actually, I didn't like much cooked peppers at all. At some point during my adult years I started to eat these more often, and today, I even like them. But more or less only when stuffing is vegetarian and without grated cheese on top of pepper.

I prefer yellow peppers when cooking the them, because I think they are sweeter and have more flavor than red ones. Red peppers should be eaten raw. Well, my opinion only :D For the stuffing I used quinoa and ingredients what I found from our fridge. So if you don't have something, replace it with something else.

Sfuffed peppers
For 2 persons
2 (yellow) peppers
100 ml quinoa, uncooked
1 carrot
2 spring onion
1 garlic clove
1 leaf kale
100 g sweet corn
parsley
½ lemon juice
2 tsp Sonnentor Frankie's Barbecue Spice Mix  
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 200 C.
Cook quinoa in a pot until done. Set aside.
Shred carrot, chop spring onions, garlic and kale. Mix all together with quinoa. Add corns and season with chopped parsley, lemon juice and spice mix.
Cut peppers in half and fill peppers with the quinoa mixture. Place stuffed halves intoa a pan and bake at 200 C for 35 - 45 minutes. Until pepper has softened.
Serve with Yoghurt-garlic sauce and parsley

My style Kimchi Jjigae (Korean kimchi stew)

Me and my colleague found quite a while ago small, very authentic, restaurant near our hotel at Seoul. The place was little frowzy, but we decided to enter anyway. And I'm glad we did!

All menus were on Korean, and at that time we didn't have that much experince of Korean food, and reading the korean hangul was not that smooth yet. Well, we asked from the waiter what we should take, and he recommended the Kimchi jjigae (김치찌개). We got big steaming and bubbling stew to our table over the flame. It was so hot but we couldn't keep our chopstick and spoons off it. I loved it immediately, and so would you. If you like spicy food...

Kimchi stew is warm, hearty, spicy, savory, delicious dish and one of the most-loved of all the stews in Korean cuisine, and it is one of my favourites as well. The dish is served with bowl of rice, like almost all korean dishes.

Kimchi Jjigae
For 2 persons
125 g pork belly
1 onion
1 garlic
1 tsp gochujang
2 tsp sesame oil
400 ml aged kimchi ( the older the better)
400 ml chicken stock
spring onion
200 g tofu

Peel and chop the onion and garlic, cut the pork belly for bites that is easy to eat. Heat the oil in a pot over medium heat. Cook pork belly until it is nice color and even a bit crispy. Add the onion and garlic. Cook few minutes. Add gochujang and kimchi, cook approx. 10 minutes.
Pour the chicken stock in, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer about 30-45 minutes. 
Chop spring onion, dice 2/3 of the tofu and add then to a stew 5 minutes before serving. Slice the rest of the tofu. 
Place the stew into a bowls, place the sliced tofu on top of it and garnish with spring onion.

 For the drink, there is nothing better than Korean beer, or other lager. And of course you need to have some Soju...

Lamb kebab

We got nice amount of different cuts of the lamb on Sunday and one package was ground lamb. First thing that came to my husbands mind was kebab, not the doner one, which is most popular kebab in Finland, but the skewer. Well, actions followed the words. Today we had great kebab-dinner.

I have noticed that kebab has many versions and many names; kebab, kabob, kefta, kofta... Anyhow, it is delicious everytime, -I think. Is it? What is your favourite style?

Kebab
For 2-3 person
350 g ground lamb
1 egg
1 onion finely chopped
1 garlic clove grated
100 ml fresh parsley chopped
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp paprika
1 tsp ground coriander
Black pepper and salt to taste

In a bowl, combine the ground lamb with the egg, onion, garlic, parsley and spices.  Gently knead the meat to blend. Using lightly moistened hands, form the meat into 6 skewers. 
Grill the skewers, turning occasionally, until browned and cooked through, about 6 minutes. Or bake them in the oven 200 C, 20 minutes.

Tomato sauce
1 can (400 g) Mutti tomato polpa
1 red onion
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp tomato puree
1-2 tsp chili flakes
0,5 tbsp smoked paprika
0,5 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp oli
2 tsp sugar
200 ml water
Black pepper and salt to taste

Peel and chop the onion and garlics. Heat the oil in a pot over a medium heat. Add onions, garlics and some salt, and cook until onion is soft, few minutes. Add chili, paprikas and tomato puree, continue cooking few minutes. Add tomato polpa and water. Reduce heat and simmer about 20-30 minutes. Season.

Yoghurt-garlic sauce
250 ml thick natural yoghurt
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp olive oil
salt to taste

Mix all ingredients together and let it rest at least 2 hours to over night.

Serve the kebab:
Warm the bread (pita, naan, flatbread, wheat tortilla...). Top with fresh salad, 2 kebab skewers and both sauces. Enjoy!!

For the drink I would go easily with beer, like stout or porter. But for this, red wine is always right choice, and even better if it is jammy and lush.

Old-Fashioned Finnish dried pea soup

This soup is very traditional Finnish soup made of split peas. Except, finnish split peas are not split, only dried. Most of the lunch restaurant serve this soup on Thursdays, and this is considered army food as well. The only correct dessert for this soup is Finnish pancake with strawberry jam and whipped cream. This time I didn't prepare dessert at all, but that is what I would have made.

Very traditional way is to make this using left-overs and bone from Christmas ham. Unfortunately I didn't have the possibility use those, or meaty ham bone, but smoked ham works alsmost as good as those.

Split pea soup
For 4-6 person
500 g dried peas
3 l water
1-2 onion
1 (large) carrot
400 g smoked ham
1-2 tsp marjoram
allspice and salt to taste

Rinse peas with cold water. Put the peas into a pot or ducth oven, and pour the water. Let peas soak in a water 10-12 hours.
Use the soak water when cooking the soup. Bring to boil, and reduce heat very low.
Peel and chop onion and carrot, dice the ham. Add them into soup, as well as spices. Stir the soup well. Let simmer for 4-6 hours.
Serve with mustard and/or finely chopped raw onion.