Glazed Turnips for One

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I feel a bit like the turnips pictured above, sticky and slighly singed. It's about eleven hundred degrees out there. And a bit more in here. Last night I tried to make ice cream and it wouldn't freeze. Someone tell me about the housing situation on the North Pole, please?


If it weren't so infernally hot, I'd tell you about these glazed turnips, or turnip to be precise as I was feeding only myself on Saturday. But what can you do? Have some shots from Kauppatori (Salutorget) instead.




One end of the market is a tourist trap full of horrible T-shirts and reindeer hats (which reminds me to cook Rudolf soon, I think we have some in the freezer), and there's a food court where fried vendace (yum) battles paella (um), but the part closest to Esplanadi is a genuinely fabulous market with wonderful if fairly pricey produce.






None of this has anything to do with glazed turnips, except that I actually bought them there. Also chanterelles, but more on those later.





Glazed Turnips

1 medium turnip, peeled and julienned
1 tsp butter
pinch each of salt and pepper
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp chopped parsley

Melt the butter in a pan and add the turnip and just a splosh (like a tablespoon, tops) of water. Stir fry for just a minute or so until the turnip softens a bit. Add the sugar and a bit each of salt and pepper and stir until the sugar melts and goes all sticky. Mix in the chopped parsley before serving.

This boatful of potatoes (at least I'm assuming it started out full of potatoes, but I'm not a very early riser) didn't have anything to do with turnips either:

Recipe after the jump!

Potato Salad with Peas

...and the previously touted tartar sauce. After a fairly cool and rainy July (I swear I wasn't complaining about it! At least, if I was, I wasn't serious.) August has delivered some seriously sweaty days lately. Cue a diet of sandwiches, ice cream and, you guessed it, cold salads.

At this point, new potatoes have been around for almost two months. I'm not really a new potato person (when my mother gets back to a computer after the weekend, she's going to disown me) but I think they work very well here, and not just because the cooking time is short. Along with some parboiled mangetouts/snowpeas, about half a cup of chopped pickled cucumber, and the rest of the tartar sauce, this turned into a super-fast supper. Almost superb, even.



Potato Salad with Peas
serves 3

1 pickled cucumber, chopped
150 g snowpeas
12 baby new potatoes
100-150 ml tartar sauce

Boil potatoes in salted water until almost tender. Drain and let cool. Boil the snowpeas until almost tender, drain and run under a cold tap (or put in an ice bath) to stop the cooking process.

Once the potatoes have cooled, halve or quarter them and toss with the chopped cucumber, snowpeas and tartar sauce.

Recipe after the jump!

Radish & Mint Sandwiches

Oh man. Remember when I used to post about every other day? I haven't been out of town or anything. I haven't even stopped cooking, although you may want to brace yourself for a slew of posts on the joys of fabulous sandwiches - for example, I've had the world's best BLTs twice this week, but more on that later - once I get around to it. The pictures just keep piling up on the hard drive, and doing something about them seems disproportionally momentous (it was probably the five thousand cat photos from my vacation that did me in) and so nothing really gets done.

Except, as I said, sandwiches. I'll have something on egg sandwiches and BLTs and some other things later (see, I'm writing that here in the vain hope that something will happen) but for now let's talk about the ones I actually took, edited and uploaded pictures of, namely these radish and mint ones. The original recipe was for tea sandwiches which is all very good if you want something dainty and thin and deceptively light-looking, and it's not that I didn't, but accomplishing thin-enough slices of bread just felt beyond me, and besides I happen to like this dark, partly whole-grain, pre-sliced bread, both for its taste and because it looks pretty next to the vibrantly colored radishes.



You know what would be the greatest thing since sliced bread, though? Thinly sliced bread. Again, if you live somewhere with easy access to said commodity, please don't tell me about it unless said place is Helsinki, Finland. Sometimes people talking about their groceries makes me want to cry. If you happened to have a recipe for a basic sandwich loaf (preferably not-completely-white) that is easily sliceable and doesn't crumble, that is a different story altogether. I have great faith in my kitchen cooling down to temperatures at which I could justify turning on the oven again. Maybe in November.

Anyway. Radishes. Mint. Bit of mayo mixed with lemon peel (and juice) and salt and pepper. Sliced bread. Enjoy.

Recipe after the jump!

Cauliflower & Spring Onion Dal

I eat a lot of lentils, usually in vaguely Indian stews, and so far these have been sadly underrepresented on this blog. This was pretty much what I lived on during my vacation, at least on the chillier days, but I actually went almost three weeks without taking a single food picture, so what you see is a reconstruction. (And wow, gas stoves are SO MUCH QUICKER than my regular electric one.)

I don't have a particular source for this recipe, but I think it's safe to say that everything I know about Indian cooking I learned from food blogs.

Cauliflower & Spring Onion Dal
serves 1 greedy person as is, probably two with rice

¼ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp ground coriander
½ dried red chile
2 pods cardamom
3 whole cloves
about ½ cup moong dal (split, skinned mung beans)
about a cup of cauliflower florets
one fairly mature spring onion, chopped
oil for frying
about a cup of water
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp dried coconut, toasted
1 tbsp ghee
1 tsp black mustard seeds
salt & pepper to taste

Rinse the dal well. Heat the oil in a medium-sized pan until sizzling, add the first five ingredients and stir for about 30 seconds. Add cauliflower and the white bits of the onion and fry until the cauliflower is nicely browned. Stir in the dal and add some water, reduce the heat to a minimum and cover. Let simmer until the dal is very soft and starting to go mushy. Stir in the green bits of the spring onion, cover again and take off the heat.

In a small frying pan, heat the ghee and add the mustard seeds. Let sizzle until the mustard seeds start to pop, pour over the dal and stir to mix.

Note: if you're serving this with rice, it's probably a good idea to make it a bit less dry. So increase the water a bit!

Recipe after the jump!

Summer Soup

kesäkeitto / snålsoppa

It's been a while since I featured a really really Finnish dish on this blog, bilberry pies aside. This is a somewhat controversial one, I think mostly because either the thought of vegetables in boiled milk puts you off, or it doesn't. (Insta-poll of six Finns in their mid-twenties to early forties says four in favor and two vehemently against.) It also has a slightly sweet taste to it, not just because of the milk but also because you're using the newest of the new season's vegetables, which of course are naturally sweet.


The recipe comes from Farmors Café, a restaurant in the Finnish archipelago close to where our summer island is. I've never actually had summer soup there, but it's worth a visit for the cakes alone. :P

Summer Soup
serves four

1½ l (6 cups) season's new vegetables, cut into chunks (carrot, spring onion, leek, caulflower, parsnip, sugarsnap & radish)
½ l ( 2 cups) small new potatoes, cut into chunks
1 l (4 cups) vegetable broth

2 tbsp flour
200 ml (7 fl oz)milk
200 ml (7 fl oz) "cooking" cream (about 5-15% fat)
100 ml (3&frac; fl oz) cream cheese

salt, pepper & sugar to taste

parsley & a few thinly sliced radishes to serve

Simmer the vegetables (save for the green parts of the spring onion) in vegetable broth until about half-done, then add the onion greens. In a separate pan, heat the milk and cream until almost boiling, then whisk in the flour. Pour into the soup pan (through a sieve if it's lumpy in spite of the whisking), add the cream cheese and continue cooking until the vegetables are done - you want them to be fairly soft but by no means mushy or anything. Season with salt, pepper and (optionally) a pinch of sugar. Serve with parsley and sliced radish sprinkled on top.

Recipe after the jump!

Sommar & kål-och-lökröra (Summer and Cabbage-Onion Stew)

Scroll past the foreign blather to get to the recipe in English.

Efter några månaders mer eller mindre gediget matbloggande är det riktigt skönt att glömma allt som har med intressant matlagning att göra och bara röra ihop diverse ingredienser utan att bry sig om hur det ser ut. Mina barndomsminnen från sommarholmen utgår mer på väderlek etc (regn, regn, vind som blåser rakt igenom den skrangliga stugan, mygg, ågan om blåbären skall mogna i tid för en paj innan semestern tar slut, den årliga återläsningen av kåseriböcker äldre än jag själv, bromsar, sol och heta släta klippor, doften på Niveas solkräm - den som inte är vattentät doftar fortfarande helt rätt) än mat. Likaså bra, kanske, för nu när jag tänker efter handlar det mest om vattenkakao och sikanauta burkkött (med ris och burkmajs blir det rådigågga) - det känns som ett mirakel att vi överlevde, faktiskt. Eller åtminstone att mitt matinresse blev som det blev.



När man har en hel stuga och ett helt (litet, gasdrivet) kylskåp för sig själv så kan man faktiskt laga kakao helt med mjölk om man vill. Och burkköttet ersätts med fördel med diverse linser. När man har en hel stuga och en hel (minimal, stökig) köksvrå för sig själv har man inte heller nån mamma där att laga mat, så man får själv försöka lista ut gasugnens förvecklingar. Det är mindre roligt än mjölkkakao.


Gasspis skall vara det bästa i mattillredningsväg, heter det. Nåt motsvarande lär ingen påstå om gasugnar, som väl mest är bra för att sticka huvet i om man vill sätta slut på sin miserabla tillvaro efter ett (ojämnt!) vidbränt frukostbröd för många.


Här följer ett recept som faktiskt inte är vackert, eller ens särskilt somrigt, men som passar bra att värma stugan med en kulen dag (alternativt då man försöker få slut på en nästan tom gasbytta så man kan byta in en ny och baka bröd utan att vara rädd för att ugnen skall slockna mitt i). Går bra med lite ris och en bit överblivet grillkött, en skiva stekt halloumi, eller helt som så. Som plus är ingredienslistan möjligtvis den kortaste jag nånsin skrivit, och både lökar och kål håller länge.



In English: I had a wonderful vacation; gas stoves are lovely; gas ovens are mostly good for suicide; the shot below is as close as I got to taking a food picture. (What do you mean, it was a lot wordier in Swedish?)



Lök-och-kålröra

två små lökar
ett halvt (pytte)litet kålhuvud
1-2 msk smör + 1 tsk olja
(&frac2; tsk kumminfrön)
salt & peppar

Skiva löken fint. Strimla kålen. Värm smör och olja i en kastrull med tätt lock. Häll i löken och stek under omrörning tills den börjar få lite färg. Tillsätt kålstrimlorna och lite salt (+ ev. kummin), vrid ner värmen så lågt det går, sätt på locket och låt sjuda i en halvtimme eller så (rör om alltid nu och då!), tills det hela är en sötaktigt brunaktig röra. Smaka av med peppar & mera salt. Mums.

Cabbage & Onion Stew

two small onions
half a head of cauliflower
1-2 tbsp of butter + 1 tsp vegetable oil
(½ tsp whole cumin seeds)
salt & pepper

Slice the onion and cabbage finely. Heat the oil and butter in a pan with a tight-fitting lid. Pour in the onion and cook, stirring, until it starts to get a bit of color. Add the cannage and a bit of salt (+ cumin, if using), lower the heat to as low as you can, cover and let simmer for about half an hour. Stir every now and then! You'll wind up with a brown, sweetish mush that looks terrible. Season with salt and pepper and eat it.

Recipe after the jump!

Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing

Do you remember the first time you had peanut butter? Peanut butter wasn't much of a thing in Finland when I was growing up (understatement), so I do. I was a slow convert to the peanut butter straight up, not mixed with anything school (and I still don't get the PBJ sandwich, but then I don't want jelly anywhere near my sandwiches anyway), but used in spicy sauces (and peanut butter cookies, but that's a bit different) it has a more instant appeal, adding this smooth and creamy depth to, er, whatever you're mixing it with.

A noodle salad with carrots, bell pepper and scallions, in this case. The sauce is really the star of this thing, fabulously spicy and satisfying, so obviously you could, and should, play around with the amount and type of vegetables. (I did make it again later on with chicken, and that was lovely too, and for a more nutritionally balanced vegetarian option, mung sprouts would be lovely.) I chose to mix in just half of the dressing before serving, so everyone could add more to their plates according to taste.

Noodle Salad with Spicy Peanut Dressing
adapted from Bon Appétit, Oct 2004, serves 3

75 ml (1/3 cup) peanut butter
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 fresh red chili pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1½ tbsp ginger, minced
about 50 ml vegetable (or chicken) stock, or enough to make the above a fairly runny sauce

150 g rice noodles
3 medium carrots, julienned
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 bunch scallions, julienned

(I find julienning things therapeutic. If you don't, this dish is going to be a lot less fun to prepare.)

Combine the ingredients for the sauce in a food processor and blend until smooth. (I find that you need to chop the chili really finely for this to work at all, but your mileage may vary.)

Bring a pot of water to the boil and throw in the carrots and bell pepper. Add the rice noodles, take off the heat and let stand for however long it says on the package. (3 minutes in this case, which was just perfect for the veggies.) Drain and run under cold water, then drain well again. Mix in the scallions and enough sauce to make it nice and slick. Serve as is or cold, with more sauce on the side.

Recipe after the jump!

Beet, Blue Cheese & Walnut Salad

Season's first beets are here! I find beets somewhat challenging to prepare, since roasting (and maybe grilling) is the only way to do it right, and it does take an age. (Actually it's not so much the time as the fact that you never know how long it'll take.) Once you're done, you sort of want there to be more to it than a bunch of, well, edible root veg.

Not to knock the old beets-with-butter side dish, which is after all a classic for a reason (it's not just the butter, either), but this time I wanted to go for another classic combo: beets, walnuts and blue cheese. The last time I went for this pairing, it was in somewhat unorthodox empanadas, but that's just too fussy for a weeknight in summer, so I turned to the trusty Epicurious for some salad hints. The dressing is, erm, less-than-beautiful (this is what comes of reading a recipe, thinking "yeah, I'll remember what to do" and then... not remembering what to do), but very tasty!

Beet, Blue Cheese & Walnut Salad
adapted from The Figs Table by Todd English and Sally Sampson

5 medium-sized beets, with stems trimmed to an inch or so of the root, scrubbed clean
1 tbsp or so of olive oil
a handful of walnuts
a few tbsp fresh chopped herbs; I used mint and basil
salt & pepper to taste
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

½ tbsp olive oil
¼ cup chopped walnuts
½ small red onion, thinly sliced
80 g (about 3 oz) blue cheese (I used Roquefort)
a few tbsp light cream

Rub the beets with a bit of olive oil, wrap tightly in tin foil and roast at 200°C (400°F) for about 40-50 minutes, until tender. Let cool for a while, then rub the skin off and cut into strips/slices/whatever. Mix in walnuts and herbs and season with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. (If your salad isn't all wilted and sad, toss some in, too - the original used arugula.)

Sautée the chopped walnuts in the olive oil and set aside. Whizz together cheese and cream in a food processor until smooth, add the cooled walnuts and the onion and run the blender for a while longer. Add more cream if it's too solid and more cheese if it's runny. Serve with the beets.

Recipe after the jump!

Pressed Bread with Roasted Vegetables

You may have noticed the recent slew of recipes lifted from the Finnish food mag Ruoka & viini (food & wine) here. This would be because the most recent issue was pretty much filled cover-to-cover with stuff I not only want but NEED to make. (Although strictly speaking, I'm not going to follow all to the letter - where's the fun in buying vanilla ice cream and mixing in lime and chilies when you can make your own?)

Anyway, I made this filled, pressed bread for our impromptu picnic last week - the recipe called it a pan bagnat, but as I understand it that's a nicoise sandwich, while this involved mostly roasted vegetables. Whatever the name, it's chock-full of Mediterranean goodness (literally, in my case, since we don't exactly have baby zucchini here yet - and if we did, they'd be hothouse-grown and decidedly non-eco friendly) and a very nice picnic or lunch item for a hot day. I pressed it pretty heavily, as you can see, with a whole stack of plates overnight, which was... perhaps just a bit overzealous? The bottom of the bread was a bit soggier than the top, so maybe I should have turned it over at some point. But those a really minor quibbles, and the basic concept is definitely one I'll use again. Maybe with some goat cheese thrown in.

Possibly even with home-baked bread. Right now it's even cool enough to bake (I know you just live for these weather reports, y'know).

Pressed Bread with Roasted Vegetables
adapted* from Glorian ruoka & viini 4/07, serves 6-8

1 boule-shaped bread

2 small bell peppers
2 small zucchini
1 medium aubergine
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
½-1 tsp freshly ground pepper
3 tbsp chopped sun-dried tomatoes
100 ml (scant ½ cup) kalamata olives, deseeded and sliced

2 tsp red wine vinegar
100 ml chopped fresh herbs (I used basil and lemon-thyme)
½-1 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

Slice the zucchini and aubergine fairly thinly (you can do the salt-sweating thing for the aubergines or not - I usually do if I have the time, because that was the way I first liked aubergine). If you have a gas stove, roast the peppers over the flame. I don't, and I didn't feel like firing up the grill, so I halved them and threw them in the oven with the rest (of course, you could grill all the vegetables if you wanted, I bet that'd be fabulous).

Toss the vegetables with 2 tbsp of olive oil and roast - in a single layer, I had to do it in two batches - at 225°C (440°F) until slightly browned, turning once during roasting.

Slice the peppers and season the vegetables with salt and pepper.

Halve the bread length-wise and carve out most of the innards from both halves, leaving about a cm at the edges. Mix together the ingredients for the dressing and spread evenly over the cut-sides of the bread.

Layer vegetables, olives and sun-dried tomatoes evenly on each carved-out bread half, then carefully place the top half, er, on top of the bottom. Um, so you have a bread shaped bread again, yes? Wrap tightly in clingfilm, then weigh down with a few plates or something and place in the fridge overnight.

*they used one zucchini, and had capers where I had sun-dried tomatoes, and the total of 2 tsp pepper specified was just a bit too much.

Recipe after the jump!

Simple Tomato Salad

So last Sunday was a bit of a letdown all around - the internet went boom, and getting up we realized we'd be spending a goodish part of the day at the vet, fixing the girlcat's infected foot. Luckily the lunch we had planned benefited from waiting a bit, and so we threw together a potato salad and this fresh tomato concoction before leaving. (The foot is fine now. The cat it's attached to hates me for the antibiotics though.)

The original recipe called for cilantro, which I'm not too fond of in its raw state, so I substituted parsley. Yes, traditional, curly parsley. It has a bad rep, and I just don't understand why. Is it the mouth-feel? You just need to chop it more finely than your average herb! Is it that it's just not as hip as its flatter cousin? I would be happy to use flat-leaf parsley in a load of things, but sadly the flat parsley you get in the shops here is disgustingly overgrown and coarse. Which makes me wonder how hard it is to grow? I have yet to kill my chili plants and I made a piece of ginger root shoot up an enormously tall, er, stalk, so clearly I now have the magic touch and could grow anything.*


Anyway, this salad is fast and easy and the season of non-disgusting tomatoes is just around the corner, so I think this'll be one of our summer go-tos in the future. Yum!

*never mind that the chili isn't actually blooming or anything. It's not dead! It's making loads of pretty leaves!

Simple Tomato Salad
adapted from Glorian ruoka & viini 4/2007, serves 2-4

500 g (1 lb) ripe plum tomatoes
1 mild red chili
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch scallions
100 ml (scant ½ cup) chopped fresh parsley (or cilantro)

dressing:
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

De-seed and chop the tomatoes and chili. Mince the garlic and slice the scallions finely. Mix together the ingredients for the dressing and combine with the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Sprinkle in the chopped herb of your choice and let stand in the fridge for a few hours before eating.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Couscous Salad

The problem with only just getting around to typing up dishes you prepared, ate, and forgot about more than a week ago is, well, the "forgot about" part says it all really. I have the picture I took, and I have the recipe that I know I didn't follow (because no way do I put 300 ml of oil in anything, except maybe a pan for deep-frying), and a vague memory of what I did do, and an equally vague memory of the result being quite tasty.

This is why my internet should never ever break. That, and the bit where I rely on reittiopas to tell me how to get from point A to point B on time and without getting lost.

So. This may have been good? Maybe. The only reason I remember it at all is that I grilled the vegetables myself and didn't set anything on fire. I think the dressing was the best part. In general, the trick with couscous (in the absence of a couscoussiere) is either a) butter, lots of, or b) a nice lemony dressing. Which leads me to posit that if you combined the two... well, maybe next time.

Grilled Couscous Salad
adapted from Glorian ruoka & viini 4/2007, serves 4

2 small zucchini
1 medium aubergine
1 medium bell pepper
olive oil

200 ml couscous
300 ml water
1 tbsp concentrated vegetable stock (or however much you need to get 300 ml fairly strong stock)
1 tbsp butter
250 ml chopped fresh herbs (I used basil, mint and oregano)

juice from one lemon
75 ml olive oil
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Bring the water and vegetable stock to a boil. Add the couscous and let stand over a low heat for a few minutes. Take off the stove and stir in the butter, then cover and let stand while you grill the vegetables.

Chop the vegetables - my chunks were pretty big, but obviously do as you like - and toss them in a bit of oil. Grill over medium-high heat until lightly charred.

Mince the garlic and combine with the rest of the ingredients for the dressing.

Toss together vegetables, chopped herbs, dressing and couscous. Serve.

Recipe after the jump!

Sounding Radish Slivers

xiang luo bu si

I seem to have gone on a bit of an unplanned hiatus here lately - although it was partly unwilling, too, as our internet kind of blew up on Sunday. Or rather, fizzled and died, and, wow, is there a word for being woefully incompetent without internet access? Measurement conversions, word translations, recipes... it's all here. (And then we went and got a new DSL modem and I got lazy.)


I had a bit of a debate with myself about posting this recipe. It's very (VERY) good, but when eating it we were struck by how well some salmon would go with it. It would probably be, hrrm, less than authentic (the recipe comes from Fuchsia Dunlop's book on Hunan cooking, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook), but then I'm already substituting daikon with black radish, so it's probably well ruined anyway.

It takes some slicing and dicing (I used the slicer on my KitchenAid and then cut the slices into strips), but otherwise it's just a breeze, especially as I seem to have finally mastered the art of seasoning the wok so stuff doesn't stick to it.


Sounding Radish Slivers
from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop

500 g (1 lb) daikon radish (black radish was fine, although probably different)
1 tsp salt
1 red chili
1 bunch scallions, green parts
1 tsp soy sauce
1 ½ tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp potato flour mixed with 2 tbsp cold water
1 tsp sesame oil
3 tbsp groundnut oil for cooking

Slice the radish finely, then cut the slices into slivers. Toss with the salt and set aside for 15 minutes. Slice the chili and scallions.

Drain the radish slices and squeeze dry. Heat the wok until smoking, then pour in the groundnut oil and the chili. Let sizzle for a "a few seconds" (whatever), then add the radish slivers and soy sauce and stir fry for a few minutes. Add the spring onions and vinegar and stir to combine, then add the potato flour goo and stir until it thickens. Take off the heat and stir in the sesame oil.

Recipe after the jump!

Pasta Salad with Zucchini, Red Onion & Sun-Dried Tomato

[Because I'm nothing if not bad with timing, we had this salad last week. After the first heat wave. Before the current heat wave. (Which, luckily, isn't as bad as the first one, if only because it's not as oppressive.) I wrote this after I'd made it and then had internet troubles and forgot to come back and actually post it when they were resolved.]

Of course, by the time I get around to cooking sweltering heat-appropriate dishes, the weather's gone back to +17°. (Note: THIS IS NOT A COMPLAINT. I like seventeen-degree weather. It'll pretty much have to be minus seventeen* for me to start bitching about the cold.) I just wish I'd had this salad ready earlier this week when the thought of keeping the stove on long enough to cook pasta was enough to make me want to burst out crying. (I believe we've established that I'm a wuss when it comes to heat, yes?)

This is perhaps not the fastest hearty salad you'll ever make - unless you take to a mandolin or similar, the chopping will take a while, and it is really so much better when you really get the zucchini into fine slices, at least to my mind - but when you have it, should you follow the amounts given below, you'll have a huge salad, enough to feed six people at least, and it will stay fine in the fridge for several days. I've usually left the pine nuts to be sprinkled on each serving, so I'm not sure if they'll go soggy in the fridge, and sometimes I've perked it up with more fresh basil and some arugula, or even cherry tomatoes.


I wish I could give credit to someone for the recipe (the balsamic white vinegar is a stroke of genius, for one thing), but it's a copy-pasted document on my computer from a time way before knowing the source of something because I'd be presenting it to the public became an issue.

*all degrees in Celsius. Obviously.

Pasta Salad with Zucchini, Red Onion & Sun-Dried Tomato

½ l (2 cups) fairly sturdy pasta
3 baby zucchini, about 200g each
3 medium red onions
100 g (or so, translates to roughly half a cup chopped) sun-dried tomatoes in oil
200 ml cream (I used light cooking cream)
2-3 tbsp balsamic white vinegar
salt & pepper
a lot of fresh basil
toasted pine nuts

Cook the pasta in plenty of salted water. When it's al dente, drain and run under cold tap water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

Chop the sun-dried tomatoes finely. Reserve some of the oil.

Slice the zucchini and onion finely; cut the zucchini rounds into strips.

In a very large saucepan, heat about a tablespoon of the oil from the tomatoes and soften the onions in it. Add the zucchini and stir to blend, then add the cream and let come to the boil (if you prefer your zucchini pieces a bit thicker than mine, wait a bit before adding the cream to cook them properly) and take off the heat. Stir in the tomatoes and pasta, season with salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar.

Let cool to room temperature, then stir in a big bunch of chopped basil. Let stand in the fridge for a few hours and check to see if it needs more seasoning before serving. Sprinkle on the toasted pine nuts.

Recipe after the jump!

Asparagus with Browned Butter and Scallions

I've actually made this dish twice this month without managing to get a decent picture - and it's a beautiful one on the plate! The recipe comes from Tina Nordström, a popular Swedish TV chef, or rather from the homepage of the channel that airs her show here. (Swedish speakers ahoy, you can find lots of interesting stuff on FST's Mat & Fritid pages.)

Stir-frying until just al dente is my new favorite method of preparing asparagus. Not to blow my own horn overmuch, but they always wind up beautifully crunchy. And the browned butter, spiced with soy sauce, herbs and onions, is a stroke of genius and would probably go well with chicken or white fish fillets as well.


Asparagus with Browned Butter and Scallions
adapted from Tinas mat, serves 3-4

500 g asparagus
100 ml grated parmesan (the first time around I made parmesan shavings as per the original instructions, but that was a pain, although very pretty)
small bunch of tarragon, finely chopped
3 scallions, finely chopped (the recipe called for shallots, and indeed that was good, too)
2 tsp soy sauce
3 tbsp butter
salt & pepper

Trim the ends of the asparagus spears by snapping them off.

Cook the butter in a small pan until just slightly browned. Mix with soy sauce, onions and herbs; set aside.

Fry the asparagus in a bit of oil (really, half a teaspoon was plenty in a non-stick pan) until just al dente - mine took about 2-3 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then the sauce, and finally the grated/shaved parmesan.

Recipe after the jump!

Black Radish Omelet

When I'm eating alone and don't happen to have any leftovers to finish (admittedly, this happens rarely) I usually go for an omelet. It's fast, easy, you can vary the ingredients indefinitely, and it tastes great plonked on whatever bread you have around. This time, I used sourdough rye crispbread with nettles - bought, not made, although I may have to copy this some day.

The recipe comes from Fuchsia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, which I got just this week - this was the first thing I tried, but certainly not the last! (Note to self: find fermented black beans somewhere.) Of course, the book called for daikon radish, which I didn't have, so instead I went for black radish which tastes very similar to me. (At least my dictionary tells me it's black radish, however there's not actually anything black about the ones you get here - I was going to say Finnish but, um, these were from Italy - and the small thin ones are fairly mild.)

Black Radish Omelet
adapted from Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook, serves 2

about 150 g young black radish (one smallish radish)
½: tsp salt
3 sprigs spring onions
1 tbsp groundnut oil
3 eggs
salt & pepper
cilantro

Slice the radish thinly, then cut the slices into strips. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for half an hour. Whip the eggs lightly and season with salt and pepper. Slice the spring onions thinly and mix into the eggs.

Heat the oil in a medium-sized nonstick pan. Squeeze out as much liquid from the radishes as you can (I know I read somewhere about drying shredded potatoes in a ricer for hash, that'd probably go well here, too) and stir fry in the pan for a few minutes. Pour in the eggs and fry on medium-low for a few minutes. When the omelet's solidified and taken some color at the bottom, flip it over and fry on the other side for a minute or so. Sprinkle with more pepper and chopped cilantro.

Recipe after the jump!

Goat Cheese, Cherry Tomato & Herb Tarts

Operation Empty Freezer continues! These parmesan pastry crusts had lived there for so long I don't even remember anything about the recipe. Ooops. Since the goat cheese-disliking contingent of the household is away for the long weekend, I filled them with a mix of Dijon mustard, grated parmesan, soft goat cheese and fresh herbs (oregano and tarragon, and a few leaves of basil) and topped with cherry tomatoes brushed with a bit of olive oil.


Sprinkle with sea salt and bake at about 175°C/350°F for 20 minutes, until the tomatoes are soft and crinkly and the cheese gets a bit of color. And don't try to eat them while hot. No-one likes boiling cherry tomato explosions in their mouth. Ahem.

Recipe after the jump!

Beet, Goat Cheese & Nettle Tart

This was going to be a glowing explosion of colors, with yellow beets nestling with their pink-and-white striped siblings, and nettle-speckled goat cheese peeking out from underneath. Alas, the candy-striped beets turned out to be... not. I rather want my money back on those.

So instead this is just a sunny repeat of the last post, in pie form: leftover wilted nettles mixed with soft goat cheese under a layer or two of beets, sprinkled with the last of the mint dressing. All contained in a shell of store-bought pastry dough (low fat & partly whole grained - don't do it! or at least, if you have a good recipe for a dough of this kind, let me know!) and baked at 200°C for about half an hour.


Goat cheese works really well with beets, so with a decent crust, this would have been a keeper. If you try this at home, I'd also consider reserving some of the mint vinaigrette to sprinkle on after it comes out of the oven, mostly for aesthetic reasons.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Beet "Flowers" with Nettles and Mint Vinaigrette

Earlier this week I headed over to one of the larger grocery/deli places in town (Stockan Herkku, for those of you playing in Helsinki). With no planned meals in mind, I went a little overboard in the fresh produce aisle and came away with a motley assortment of interesting things: a nice-sized rosemary plant to plonk on the balcony once we're past the frost scares for good, blue kongo potatoes, cinnamon basil (proved to be Quite Nice on top of some salmon), and yellow and candy-striped beets. (What can I say? We all go a little crazy sometimes.)

In the checkout line, I noticed the customer before me buying some nettle bread. It was too late to go back for some without causing severe irritation in my fellow shoppers, but it did remind me that our stamp-sized garden, besides patches of wood anemones and a few straggling tulips, also has some nettles pushing up amidst all the moss. Now, the Swedish food blogs I follow have been fairly bursting with wild greens lately (for whatever reason, this doesn't seem to be a Thing for Finnish foodies), and while botany is not my thing, I do feel confident in my ability to not poison myself with nettles.


Then, of course, I was completely stumped as to what to do with all these vegetables, until an Internet Friend, who shall go nameless, told me: Wilted Nettle Salad With Roasted Beets And Mint Vinaigrette. You should all have Internet Friends as great as mine, yeah? That is just sheer genius, right there. Unfortunately, I totally wimped out with the nettles at the last minute and mixed them with some ricotta instead. (In retrospect, I think they were better this way.) The presentation is totally stolen from Alanna's beet carpaccio, which I must try out sometime.


Now if I could figure out what to do with the blue potatoes. I understand they taste like... potatoes, which is bound to be something of a let-down, so it has to be good. I haven't made the microwave potato chips yet...

Roasted Beet Flowers with Nettles and Mint Vinaigrette
serves 2

2 medium beets
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cups young nettle leaves
125 ml (or so) ricotta cheese
salt & pepper

vinaigrette:
1 bunch mint, finely chopped
2 tbsp cider vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp fennel, ground
salt & pepper

The method for roasting the beets apes that of Alanna: wash the beets thoroughly, pat dry, then rub skins with some olive oil. Wrap tightly in foil and roast at 190°C (375°F) for about an hour. Let cool a bit, then rub between your hands to remove the skin. (It's pretty silly to keep the oven turned on for an hour for two beets, so I did a whole bunch at once. Look for more beety things later on in the week, I guess.) Slice thinly.

Wilt the nettles in a bit of simmering water, drain. Chop them finely and season with salt and pepper, then mix with the ricotta. (I should have squeezed the nettles to dry them out a bit more.)

Whisk together the ingredients for the vinaigrette. Arrange the beet slices prettily on plates, sprinkle with dressing (you'll probably have some over), and spoon the nettle mixture in the middle.

Recipe after the jump!

White Bean & Pecan Salad

I usually see beans as belonging in stews and soups, mostly because I can't for the life of me cook them to perfection. Beans turn mushy, this is a fact of life, and mushiness in salads is generally frowned upon. Imagine my joy when I noticed, in a recent issue of Ruoka & viini, a recipe for a bean salad where you overcooked the beans on purpose. (This was part of a Georgian - the country, not the state - menu with several other dishes I've been meaning to try out - there's a cheese pie that sounds divine.)

Then, of course, I forgot about it for over a month until one day while grocery shopping I thought I remembered the details well enough to wing it. I didn't, as it happened, and wound up having to improvise a bit. It's not a very pretty dish - the pecans are ground together with spices and herbs, the browned onions are kind of the same color as the mushy beans - but there's a nice piquant edge to the thing, where the sharpness of the vinegar is cut by earthy, cinnamon-dominated spiciness.

White Bean & Pecan Salad
serves 4 as a light lunch/starter; adapted from Glorian ruoka & viini 2/2007

150 g dry white beans (cannellini or navy)
2 large onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
150 ml pecans, lightly toasted
a bunch of fresh basil
a bunch of fresh parsley
½ tsp each ground coriander and cinnamon
¼ tsp each ground cloves and nutmeg
1 tsp Maldon salt
(fresh greens)

(the original used walnuts instead of pecans and dill and cilantro instead of parsley, among other things)

Soak the beans in plenty of water overnight. Drain and cover with fresh water in a largeish pan. Cook for about an hour, until just slightly overcooked. Drain and set aside.

Fry the onions in the oil until nicely browned. Reduce the heat, add the minced garlic and stir until the garlic's cooked through. Add the beans and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a blender, grind the pecans, basil, parsley and spices. Mix with the vinegar, add salt and blend with the beans. Let stand at room temperature for about half an hour.

Toss with a few handfuls of greens just before serving.

Recipe after the jump!

Goat Cheese, Asparagus & Mushroom Tart

On Why Easter Is Evil: I have eaten my weight in chocolate, and eggs, and chocolate eggs. In fact, I'm fairly sure I have chocolate trickling out of my ears, which is why I can't think of a thing to say about this pie. Tart. Whatever.

The recipe comes from Epicurious, I only decreased the cream a bit and added some asparagus. And used my own crust recipe. It was very pretty straight out of the oven, which I took as a sign that I could wait with the pictures until just before brunch. This was a mistake, as it turned a bit... wrinkly in the meantime. (I was really just holding out hope-against-all-hope that the gale-like winds would ease up so I could go outside and take pictures without my fingers freezing off. In vain, as it turned out, but luckily some superglue rendered me ten-fingered anew.)

Goat Cheese, Asparagus & Mushroom Tart
adapted from Bon Appétit Nov/97



100 g (3½ oz) of cold, lightly salted butter, cut into small cubes and then chilled
250 ml (generous 1 cup) all-purpose flour
3 tbsp ice-cold water

200 ml (6¾ fl oz) whipping cream
4 cloves garlic
½ tbsp dijon mustard
1 egg
200 g (7 oz) fresh asparagus
400 g (14 oz) shiitake mushrooms
salt & pepper
100 g (3½ oz) soft goat cheese

Put the flour in a bowl and top with the butter. With the tips of your fingers, work the butter into the flour until it's almost cohesive. Add the water and stir gently with a fork until the dough starts coming together (adding more water if needed). Dump the dough on a piece of clingfilm and bring it together with your hands to form a ball, then press down to a disc. Cover with the clingfilm and refrigerate overnight.

On a piece of lightly floured parchment paper, roll out the dough. Transfer to a 27-cm (10-inch) pie pan and chill while your oven heats to 175°C/350°F, then cover with tin foil and weigh down with beans. Bake for about 30 minutes, remove the tin foil and bake until the shell is pale golden.

Meanwhile, boil the cream and garlic until reduced to about ¾s; put through a blender to puree. Fry the shiitake in a dry pan until soft and the asparagus in some butter until al dente. Once the garlicky cream has cooled a bit, mix in the egg and dijon.

Once the shell is cooked and has cooled a bit, spread the goat cheese on the bottom. Sprinkle the shiitake on top of the cheese and arrange the asparagus on top of the shrooms. Spoon over the cream and bake until set, about 25 minutes.

Recipe after the jump!