Where did the summer go?

My last post was about spring and now it's the end of August already, with some clear signs of the inevitable autumn. So where have I been all summer? Mostly working, and with the HOT HOT summer here in Helsinki I have been mostly eating salads and sandwiches, not really very interesting to blog about.

We did manage to have a week off, spending it in England, eating for the best part of the time. It was partly inspirational, partly nostalgic, mostly unhealthy, but definately cheaper than in Finland! What follows in this post is a photographic diary of what we ate... well, not nearly ALL that we sampled, but consider it as The Best Of.


Highlight of our culinary adventures was our lunch at Arbutus in Soho, London, where we had four courses with wine and also got the cookbook. Everything was delicious or at least interesting, and service was truly attentive and friendly. Up there in our top 5 dining experiences, for sure.

Arbutus from the outside

My starter of Squid and mackerel burger with razor clam. Went down beautifully with a caraf of Chablis!

Andy's starter of Braised pig's head with potato puree and ravioli of caramelised onions. He enjoyed it! Our waiter suggested a full bodied red from Douro, the port wine region in Portugal, which was full of fruit and tasty indeed.

Andy's main was offalish too; Pied et paquets - Lambs' tripe parcels and trotters, served by three waiters, it was quite spectacular and interesting.

My main course of Line caught Plaice, wild mushrooms and Swiss chard. Full of flavour!

On the left Livarot, on the right Sainte-Maure, with a glass of 1991 vintage Port and a sweet red from Barbera, Italy

Have to have chocolate! This was a Cold chocolate fondant, chocolate wafer and salted caramel ice cream... Heavenly!

Suberb smoothies from Joe & The Juice near Oxford Circus. Just what you need on a break from some serious shopping!

Lunch at a Thai restaurant in Beverley. This is squid in a garlicy sauce, which was nice but not perfect... Squid is tricky!

Just had to add this picture of a comedy carrot from my friend's garden! The rabbit got to eat it though, not me.

Bramble picking. YUM!

Steak and Ale Pie at Green Dragon pub in Beverley. So very British.

Prawn cocktail - a classic! At Green Dragon, Beverley

Ahh-sparagus!

Springy foods part two:

Asparagus, New potatoes, Zucchini, Poached egg and Home-made Mayo

First, the asparagus needs to be prepared. We cooked this already about a month ago so the asparagus wasn't as good as it is now in the shops. Hence they were a bit woody and needed trimming quite a lot. First I snapped the ends off and then peeled the skins of the asparagus.
Green asparagus doesn't need to be cooked too long, or it looses it's freshness. 3 minutes or so, depending on size.

New potatoes were boiled, and zucchini was lightly pan fried. Eggs were poached in hot water with vinegar for about three minutes to keep them runny in the middle.

This was my first time making mayonnaise from scratch and it turned out beautiful. I used about three egg yolks, started whisking them and then slowly added rapeseed oil to the eggs. Once the mix started to turn white from yellow I added some mustard (dijon is best but I used Finnish Turun sinappi ), white wine vinegar and seasoning.

Then all this was piled on the plate and I can tell you it was divine! We sipped some Anna de Codorniu cava that matched the flavours quite nicely I think.

We have some more asparagus in the fridge so maybe there will be an another asparagus posting coming up soon... Any good recipe ideas?

Sunny spring, sunny food

So the long winter is finally over here in Helsinki, only some small piles of snow are left and today I saw my first flowers of the spring. Nothing beats the feeling of knowing that summer is just behind the corner, with t-shirts, freckles, long long light nights, flip flops, festivals and of course the food. Fresh peas on the pod from the market, ice cream cones (too many of them in my case...), strawberries that taste like strawberries, barbeques, and anything fresh and light. Maybe a glass of something cold every now and then on the terrace. Bring it on already!

After a German lesson and swimming today I felt like having a treat of something fresh but filling. So, I whizzed up these wraps with garlic cream cheese, pan fried zucchini and pepper (with shallot, garlic and chili), avocado, lettuce and surimi (fake crab). And it was like spring on a plate!

Fish, my favourite dish - should I eat or should I not?

While I have been well aware about overfishing and problems related, I was still shocked when I watched The End of The Line - Imagine a World Without Fish documentary on tv tonight. In a nutshell, if we keep fishing and consuming fish in the present way, the seas will run out of wild fish by 2050. Now, that's soon to me.

As a foodie, fish has been my favourite food for the past five years. I love seafood of all kinds, tuna, salmon, swordfish, fish and chips, mussels and prawns. I choose not to eat meat because I don't approve of the mass producing industry. How have I been able to close my eyes from the fishing industry? It was a selfish deed to start eating fish again - it is healthy for me.

The film really stopped me, and made me rethink what I buy. I've known to avoid cod, since it's nearly disappeared from the seas already. But I didn't know about bluefin tuna being overfished so badly. What is in those tins of tuna I buy? I avoid the cheapest stuff - they taste bad, and it's pretty obvious they can't be sustainable.

Also what is happening is that the big food producers are fishing in the seas of the developing countries - hence taking away the resources from the local fishermen and endagering their livelihood. Just so we westerners can get our food cheap as hell.

You'd think it's safe to eat farmed fish. Whaa whaa, incorrect! What do farmed fish eat? Wild fish, small white fish. A staggering amount of the caught wild fish is actually eaten by fish, not people. Problem is, we will fish away all the wild fish so it will be impossible to farm more fish. One solution given in the film was to eat small fish - anchovies, mackerel and herring. Lucky for us in Finland, herring comes in various forms, and Andy is definately doing his bit with the anchovies - he loves that stuff.

I am determined to change my ways and really pay attention to what I buy. I hope more people will do as well, since according to the program, there is still hope and we can affect the future of the seas. I am feeling quite emotional at the moment about this but I am happy that I have opened my eyes. How much attention do you pay to the fish that you buy?

Visit the website here , watch the movie. Think about it, and do what you can. Discussion please!

I spy with my little eye...

Thai Fishcakes

...some recipes with spices that just need blogging!

Have been occupied with studies, work, cold (weatherwise and healthwise) and just an all round lack of motivation. Tonight's meal will not be blogged, ever ; it was a very politically incorrect pizza made from a base of a Mexican tortilla. Have to say it was deliciously thin and crispy without a trace of sogginess, for once being able to not go overboard with the toppings, opting for a simple margherita. But I just could not face any Italian reading about a tortilla pizza. Although I do have an Italian friend who tells me it's ok to have french fries on pizza... Hmmm.

While eating the horrendously delicious cheesy pizza I enjoyed watching Julie and Julia, which all the other food bloggers have all most likely gone to see in the cinema ages ago. I loved the characters and the two stories intertwining, and really it was a nice movie to watch after a day of writing uni reports in a cold. A feel good movie. Also inspiring if you're writing a blog and have kind of forgotten to post anything for a while. Naturally I share many of the feelings of Julie about blogging but I have very different aspirations from those of hers regarding to blogging. The movie is based on a true story a few years back from now, and five years ago food blogging was still a new thing. Getting people to read your blog was probably a lot easier. I definately feel like a drop in the ocean and feel like no-one is reading this. Feel free to introduce yourself if you are!

To the recipes, then. I have a couple of dishes that Andy cooked a couple of weeks ago. It seems that recently I haven't really been cooking much, it has mostly been Andy. He cooks better, I write better, so I guess it kind of works. Although he cooks better than I write, I guess.
Both recipes have spices so if you have a cold like we do, these will open up your sinuses for sure.


Thai Fishcakes
Recipe from Olive magazine, February 2010. Original recipe used prawns but we had some bland frozen white fish lying around so used that. Swap for something else if you like!

Serves two

Ginger, 1 tsp, finely grated
Fresh Coriander, handfull, chopped
Shallot,1, finely sliced
Red chilli,1, seeded and diced
White fish, 400g
Lime, zested
Fish sauce, 1 tbsp
Oil

Put ginger, coriander, chilli and shallot in a food processor and blend until fine. Add rest of the ingredients and mix until chunky. Season with black pepper and form into six flat cakes. Place on baking paper, brush both sides with a little bit of vegetable oil. Grill in the oven at 200 degrees for 3 minutes on each side.

Serve with a salad, rice or noodles if you like. We also had a way too hot chilli sauce, won't be posting that!


Pineapple with Star Anise and Cinnamon Caramel a la Andy

Brown granulated sugar, 100 g
Pineapple, fresh or tinned, in slices, 200g
Star anise, 2
Ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp
Unsalted butter, 20 g
Dark rum, to taste... depends how much you like alcohol. We had 5 cl or so.

Vanilla ice cream to serve

Make the caramel by putting sugar in a frying pan on high heat. Don't stir. When it gets to a light caramel colour, add the spices and the pineapple. Once the caramel is darker and coats the pineapple, add the butter. Once butter is melted, add the rum and cook for a minute or so until the alcohol of the rum has evaporated. Serve with your favourite vanilla ice cream!

Finnish Food Icon : Laskiaispulla

Yesterday was Valentine's Day as everyone on this planet probably knows, but this year in Finland the winter festival of Laskiainen or Shrove Sunday fell on the same date. Both are celebrated, but I think Laskiainen is still more popular in Finland, and not least for the Finnish food icon I'm about to introduce. In a nutshell Laskiainen is an orthodox celebration before the lent season, and the idea is to eat lots of fat and sugar before the lent. In the UK it is known as the Pancake day, but the pancakes were far less visible in my opinion when I was living in the UK for three years. Laskiaispullat or Shrove buns are everywhere in Finland around this time of the year!

Laskiainen has been around since the 1800s, and was a joyful peasant holiday involving sledding down the snowy hills and making wishes for a good crops in the coming year. Sledding is still very much involved in the celebration of Laskiainen, after all it is only healthy to burn off those bun calories somehow. I have to confess I haven't yet been sledding this year, but I hope I'll get a chance to make it to the hills! The snow doesn't seem to be going nowhere so I'm really not worried.

Laskiaispulla is basically a sweet bun, cut in half and filled with either jam or almond paste, but always with whipped cream. A heavenly creation combining all things bad for you, but oh still so good. Best enjoyed with a class of cold milk or alternatively with hot chocolate to bring the sweetness of the treat to a whole new level. Another traditional Shrove delicacy is pea and ham soup but I am saving that for Shrove Tuesday.

I got the recipe from Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki newspaper) Food section, and it worked well for me. I just swapped the regular jam to a sugar free puree of strawberries and wild raspberries that I had available in my freezer. I know, it still doesn't make them one bit healthy but every little helps, right?

Laskiaispulla

Makes 16 buns
Dough:
2,5 dl Milk
25 g Fresh Yeast
100 g Butter
1 Egg
1 tsp Cardamom
1 dl sugar
7 dl All-purpose flour
Pinch of salt

To top:
1 egg
Flaked almond or sugar drops

Filling:
Jam (or berry puree!)
OR
Almond paste
AND
Whipped cream

Warm the milk to body temperature, combine with fresh yeast.
Add egg, sugar, cardamom and salt. Start adding flour with a whisk, and when the dough thickens, knead with hands. Add the butter, which should be softened to room temperature.
Knead the dough until it's even and springy and comes off the bowl easily.

Allow to rise in a warm place for around 40 mins. - I have learned from my mother to fill the kitchen sink with warm water and place the bowl with the dough in the sink to rise. Works!

Once risen, tip the dough onto a floured surface and knead the air off. Form a long "sausage" (lol) shapeand cut into 16 pieces. Make little buns and place on baking paper on an oven tray. Let rise for another 30 mins under a tea towel in a warm place.

Break the egg in a small bowl and brush over the buns. Top with flaked almond or sugar drops. Bake in 225 degrees for 10- 15 minutes. Once ready and cooled, cut in half and fill with jam/ almond paste and whipped cream and put the top back on. Then have a bun party and go sledding or skiing!

Soup and Bread

As any self respecting foodie would, we too do collect many cook books and food magazines to fill our bookselves. However, we have a bad habit of just looking through them and not actually using any of the recipes - this could be called food porn I guess...
But since one of the main resons we started this blog for was trying more new things, I have systematically started marking the recipes that I would like to give a go. We wouldn't really need any new magazines or cook books for a year, that's how little we've been using the ones that we already have!

We really enjoy the UK food mag Olive, which fortunately is also sold in many shops in Helsinki. It has beautiful and inspiring photography, a variety of recipes from really easy to professional and a great travel section, to mention a few good reasons to keep buying it. A foodie's must-read I think! Both of the recipes today are from Olive's February issue 2009.

Before

Celeriac and Pear Soup
A lesson learned with this recipe; always check how many it serves. This recipe is for 6, and as Andy does not much like to eat soup, I will most likely be slurping this for days unless I freeze some. Nevermind, it is delicious! I'd never used fruit in a soup and the pear and celeriac were a great combination. A little bit sweet, but the ginger balanced it nicely. A good winter day soup!

Olive oil, 1 tbsp
Shallots, 4, finely sliced
Garlic, 2 cloves, chopped
Ginger, to taste, finely chopped
Celeriac, 1, peeled and roughly chopped
Pears, 4, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
Veg stock, 1 litre
Parsley, chopped for garnish

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add shallots, garlic and ginger and cook over medium heat for about 5 min or until softened but not coloured.
Add cleriac, pears and stock, bring to boil and then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the celeriac has softened.
Whiz and blitz in your chosen method until smooth, sieve if you like it really smooooth. Season and serve with parsley and your homemade bread!

After

Quick Carrot and Walnut Bread
This was super easy as well as super tasty, reminding me of something I know as "tea bread" that all Finnish kids learn to make in domestic cooking classes at school.

Plain flour, 350 g
Wholemeal flour, 150 g
Salt, 1 tsp
Bicarbonate of soda, 2 tsp
Carrots, 150g, peeled and grated
Walnut pieces, a handful
Greek yoghurt, 300 ml
Milk, 125 ml

Heat oven to 230C/fan 210. Mix flours, salt and bicarb, stir in carrot, walnuts and yoghurt, then add enough milk to make a soft, sticky dough. Tip onto a floured surface and form a flat ball, but on a baking sheet, slash the top and bake for 30 mins until risen and cooked.