Saturday Market Brunch

Woke up to bright frosty (-15c) sunrise and took the bus to Hakaniemi for some food shopping. Asian food shop for bok choy (still not available at supermarkets in Finland!), sushi rice, japanese mayo, wasabi and seaweed - tomorrow is sushi Sunday!

Then to Hakaniemi food hall for some Moriz bread from Tuffe's bakery, herb marinated olives, avocado, cherry tomatoes on the vine and zucchini and some salmon for tomorrow's sushi from Töölön kala. Also treated myself to some tulips from the florist. The sunlight is starting to win and the idea of spring starts to feel like a possibility. I love mornings like this!

Simple and tasty!

With the good ingredients, only little cooking is needed and so when I came back I had a tasty lunch of tortilla Espanola from before, Moriz bread, avocado, tomatoes (best I've had for a while!) with a little finger salt & white wine vinegar and olives. YUM-MY! Happy Saturday to everybody!

My Version of the Tortilla Espanola

Muy delicioso!

 Another new thing I tried in the year 2011! Go me! Andy has made tortilla espanola many many times, and his version is super tasty but it's a very easy dish so it was about time I made it myself.  I used a whole bag of potatoes so it made a rather large batch, hopefully it will taste good after freezing. (Need to work on my portions!!) The traditional version is just potatoes, onions and eggs but I added harissa paste, red pepper and fresh spinach for some flavour.

Good on it's own, makes a meal when served with a salad, or can be served as a side dish.

Tortilla Espanola a la Sari

Bag of potatoes, sliced thinly, season with salt
2 Onions
Red pepper
Spinach, handful
Harissa paste
6 eggs (free range)
Salt & pepper

Cook the potatoes on a pan with olive oil until they're cooked.  (Confession... I could have cooked mine for just a bit longer... al dente potatoes are not so nice!) 
Add the onion and pepper once potatoes are ready. Add the spinach at the end, cook further for a minute until it's just wilted.
Crack the eggs in a separate jug, add seasoning and the harissa paste.
Use an oven proof pan or tray, and mix the potatoes with the eggs. Cook in 200 C until the egg is set and the top is a nice golden colour.

Silvoplee - possibly the best vegetarian restaurant in Helsinki

I have heard about this restaurant many many times, but somehow I just hadn't visited even though I've been living in Helsinki for two years now! This week I've already been there twice and I can feel that I'm going to be a regular.

So what is this place I'm talking about? It's a vegetarian place called Silvoplee, located in Hakaniemi on Toinen linja 3, just opposite the food market. They're open for lunches and they serve a buffet with an overwhelming choice of hot foods, soup and salads. The food is priced at just under 20 e per kilo so it's not super cheap but the ingredients are good quality and the variety is excellent. They also offer some delicious looking desserts, freshly made juices and the house tea was tasty.

Menu of the week

Some of the foods (not the best picture)

Buffet 19,58/kg, Soup 13,89/kg

There is a nice, warm atmosphere

The front door. Check the website for more info!

It's not always easy or cheap to buy a lot of different kinds of fresh vegetables. So when you don't feel like chopping and cooking for yourself, this is the perfect place for lunch! I recommend this place also for the meat lovers, who are a bit suspicious about vegetarian food, as the dishes are tasty and do really fill you up! I'm not trying to convert anyone to become vegetarian, but there are so many good reasons to reduce eating meat.

At the moment I'm in the process of reading the book Eating animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, and it's eye opening even for me, and I have been thinking about these issues for a while, been a vegetarian since 1998. I will probably do a book review once I'm finished with it but I can already recommend it to all.

Happy Tasty New Year 2011!

I'm back again! New year, new inspiration, new attempt at posting. I believe that most New Year's resolutions are made to be broken, forgotten or eventually ignored. Yet, I'm willing to risk it. Here's my 10 food related resolutions:

1. In the year 2011, I will cook more often. (Not only frozen chips, pizzas or boring salads)
2. In the year 2011, I will post on my blog what I have cooked. Not only take lots of pictures of food that I will never use.
3. In the year 2011, I will comment more on other food blogs that I follow.
   
4. In the year 2011, I will use recipes from the various cookbooks and food magazines (and food blogs that I follow) that fill our house. (They are more than food porn.)
5. In the year 2011, I will cook more tasty vegetarian foods and use my imagination, making things from scratch.
   
6. In the year 2011, I will eat less and drink more tea. No explanation needed here. :)
   
7. In the year 2011, I will explore the French cuisine. In April, I get to visit Nice through my studies and the trip involves food and wine and all related. Can't wait!!
   
8. In the year 2011, I will go to more small, independent restaurants, that I have never been to.
9. In the year 2011, I will shop at the food markets and ethnic shops more often.
10. In the year 2011, I will try more new things.
11. In the year 2011, I will waste less food and recycle more.
12. In the year 2011, I will either wash up more often or finally buy a dishwasher.
    

EDIT; I kept coming up with more resolutions. Hence numbers 11 and 12. :)


That's a lot of resolutions for someone who didn't make any... Well, at least I should be able to keep one or more of them, even by accident.
Here's the first recipe of the year.

Soy, carrot, red pepper and bean sprout stir fry

Soy strips, cooked in veg stock and marinated with sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce and sesame seeds
Sesame oil
Garlic
Red chili
Ginger
Onion
Carrots, thinly chopped like noodles
Red pepper, thinly chopped
Bean sprouts
Coriander

I recommend investing in sesame oil for stir fries and salad dressings as the nutty flavour it gives is sensational! First heat the wok pan and the add the oil. Once oil is hot add the red chill and ginger and stir for 30 seconds, then add the onion. Add garlic after a minute (this prevents the garlic from burning), then the soy, carrot and pepper. Stir fry for a couple of minutes, add bean sprouts and coriander and stir for a minute.

I don't know if recipes are really needed for stir fries as you can really just throw in whatever you happen to have. The key is to use chilli, garlic and ginger and it will always taste good! I season mine with soy sauce in the end.

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!