Girls' night - Saltimbocca

Cooking runs in my blood. When my parents got divorced, we started a tradition with my mum & sister to have dinner every Monday. We are all grown-ups now, but this tradition has stayed the same for almost 10years now. This Monday, we made Saltimbocca, an Italian dish. However, we don't take it too seriously, so this was pretty much made with what we had at home.
Basic ingredients you need is either veal or pork, both will work great, fresh sage (don't subsitute for dried) and prosciutto, which is the Italian air dried ham. You can use serrano ham (Spanish)or similar products, whatever is available. Just don't tell an Italian that...

Slice the pork/veal in thick slices (or buy ready) and then batter them thin. With pork there can sometimes be a thick fat layer, you can cut that away.

The next step is to place the prosciutto on top of your meat, and on top of that a sage leaf. I used a regular toothpick to keep the whole thing together.

Next heat up a pan, add about 1tbs of olive oil, and quickly sear the meat on both sides.

Then put all the meat in a ceramic pan that can stand the heat of an oven. Put the pan in the oven for about 10min on 220C.

 

While the meat is in the oven, you can prepare the sauce. Use the same pan where you seared the meat, add 1dl of water, 1tbs of soy sauce, 1/2 cube (or 1tsp) of stock powder, 4tbs of sherry and 1tsp of honey. Taste and att soy for saltiness or honey for sweetness. Let the sauce simmer together, and finally add some sauce thickener to thicken it up.

 prepare a nice salad. This is a very simple one with arugula, lettuce, avocado slices, roasted pine nuts and crumbled goat cheese.

Really the only trick here is to use ripe avocado's and to cut them just before you serve. Squeeze some lemon over the avocado and it will keep them from turning  brown.

Take the meat out of the oven, pour the sauce over them and serve with the salad. My mother really felt like having some potato wedges with this, but it's striclty optional. If you have a salad with avocado and goat cheese you will feel perfectly full without the carbs in potatoes. Enjoy!

 

Bataatti keitto / Sweet potato soup

This sweet potato soup is the easiest and best soup you can make. Another good thing about it, is that it's easy to adjust depending on preference.

Recipe

2 sweet potatoes

2 regular potatoes (Rosamunda)

1 tbs of minced fresh ginger

2tsp chicken stock powder

6-8dl water

0,5 dl cream

olive oil

 Twisting it up

Chili (if you feel like it)

Truffel oil (if you feel like it)

Fried bacon (if you like it)

Peel the sweet potatoes and the regular potatoes, chop them in cubes. Start by pouring a little olive oil in a kettle, add the ginger and let it sear for about 5min. Add the cubes of sweet and regular potatoes, keep searing for about 4-5min.

Add the water and the chicken stock powder. My favorite stock is "Luomu kanaliemijauhe" by Reformi, because it's organic, it doesn't contain any wheat, and it's one of the few stocks that doesn't contain onions either (IBS friendly).

 

Let the soup simmer for about 15min, then check if the potatoes and sweet potatoes are soft. If they are, use a Bamix (sauvasekoitin) and purée the whole thing. If the soup feels to thick, too purée like, add more water. It's impossible to say on beforehand exaclty how much water is perfect. Potatoes and Sweet potatoes vary in size, and the amount of starch in them vary. Trust yourself with adding water and choosing a good texture. Add the cream for flavor, and the soup is ready to serve!

The ginger will give this soup a nice kick and flavor! This soup is great in it's simplicity. If however, you feel like twisting it up - here are some tips.

Twisting it up!

• For a little stronger kick, add 1/2 chili to the olive oil at the same time as you add the ginger
• To cut the texture, chop up some bacon in mini squares and fry it until crispy. Garnish the soup with the salty crispy bacon
• Garnish the soup on your plate with a sprinkle of white or black truffle oil. You can always garnish with olive oil, but that won't give the same taste

Spring dinner: Halloumi Salad with Strawberries, Seared Duck and Pannacotta

As I've mentioned some of us girls get together and host dinner parties taking turns. This was last spring, but it being a blizzard outside I'm already dreaming about summer and fresh food.

For started she made one of the best salads I know. It's incredible in its simplicity. A good reminder that flavors need not always be complicated to work.

For the salad base there's rucola, what else? Then you add fresh strawberries and grilled halloumi cheese (if you don't have a grill you can fry it in a pan.). Grilled cheese? Yes, don't expect all cheeses to grill without melting, Halloumi however is a special kind, and it can handle the heat!

The best dressing to go with is just some oil and balsamico mixed. Balsamico and Strawberries go beautifully together. What makes this salad so good? Well Rucola is strong in taste, Halloumi is salty and can handle that, it all balances out with the sweetness of the strawberries. So what is missing? Acidity, and that you get from the balsamico dressing. Voilà!

Main Course

For the main course we had duck. Duck is something I don't eat enough, I adore duck. The meat is so tender and full of flavor. You just have to dare to not over cook it, leave it at 55C. Another misstake easily made is removing the fat layer. Absolutetly don't do that when you cook. If you like a more lean version, just remove the layer of fat once the duck is cooked.

The duck breast was served with beans and bacon as a side dish (a great combo), and grilled potato wedges. Of course a red wine sauce as well.

Dessert

For dessert we had Pannacotta. This was a yoghurt based one, and I think it's a very fresh way to end a meal. I've never made pannacotta myself, but it's on my check list. I don't know if I'll ever be able to compete with this one though!

I remember this dinner well, not just because of the great food, but because we sat well in to 3am talking, gossiping, not realizing time was flying by. That's an interesting thing about Helsinki in the summer/spring. The sun is up shining in the sky at 2am, so it's not surprising time can fly by without anyone noticing.

Seared Tuna with Grilled Sweet Potato

As a main course for our girls dinner, I decided to make Seared Tuna. Tuna is a difficult fish to make because if you cook it too long it tastes like card board. Whatever and wherever you read how long to cook it, it's too long or short, because every grill & stove is different, and Tuna is a very delicate fish. My solution to the problem is to "raw cook" the meat in a marinade first, and quickly sear it. If tuna is cooked correctly, it's divine. So what does raw cooking mean? It means you let the fish cook by using some kind of acid, for exaple lemon juice or lime.

Marinade

1 lemon (juice)

3tbs sesame oil

1tbs minced fresh ginger

1 large garlic clove (chopped or pressed)

1dl olive oil (Extra virgin)

1tbs soy sauce

1 mild red chili

Remove the seeds from the chili and chop it. In any given Chili it's the seeds that give a burning heat and the shell that gives taste. If you want more heat, never add seeds, change the type of chili you use to a hotter kind. Chop garlic, fresh ginger and mix all together in a bowl. Add juice from one lemon, sesame oil, soy sauce and olive oil. Mix everything. I use a see through plastic bag to put the tuna in and pour the marinade over. The once you get from the grocery store (when you buy veggies or fruit) are perfect. Seal the bag and let the tuna marinade for about 1h. The juice of the lemon will start to cook the meat and you can see a slight change of color after 1h.

Meanwhile prepare the rest of the dish. I serve the tuna with sliced and grilled sweet potato. For four people 1 large sweet potato will do, or 2 smaller. Peel the sweet potato (bataatti) and cut it in half along the long side. After this cut slices in the shape of half moons. Put some baking paper on a tin and place the sweet potatos there. Drizzle oil and salt over them. The sweet potatoes will need to cook for about 10-15min, so put them in the oven (220C) just before it's time to serve.

Salsa

1 Red pepper (punainen paprika)

1/2 Mango

1/2 Red Onion

I serve some mango red pepper salsa with my Tuna. Dice all ingredients and mix them. It's the easiest salsa in the world! Make sure the Mango is ripe though. If you don't like onion, it's fine to leave them out. I do that these days, or use scallions instead.

Finishing touches

1) Put the sweet potatoes in the oven

2) Put a nice salad mix on the plate

3) Searering the tuna: I heat up a pan with just a little oil ( Tuna is a fat fish). Make sure the pan is hot!! I have a gas stove, which makes it easier. Seare the tuna on one side for 30sek, and then turn it over and sear for another 30sek. This is enough. A golden rule is 33-33-33: When you cut the tuna steak it should be 1/3 cooked, 1/3 raw in the middle and 1/3 cooked on the other side.

4) Take out the sweet potatoes and falvor them with a little cayenne.

5) Make a smaller batch of marinade and serve it as a side

This dish is best enjoyed with a good white wine (riesling or gewurstraminer) /or light red (pinot noir), in great company and with some juicy gossip!

Shrimp Ceviche

We have a great tradition with some of my girl friends. We take turns in organizing a three course dinner for eachother, inspired by food we love to cook. It doesn't have to be expensive, just taste good. Each pay for the food when it's your own turn to cook, and the others bring wine/drinks. We try to cook food the others don't know how to make, so when my turn came I decided to make Shrimp Ceviche for starter, and Seared Tuna for main.

Shrimp Ceviche

400grams Tiger Prawns/Shrimp (jättikatkarapu)

1 Avocado

1/4 Cucumber (peeled)

1/2 red chili (mild)

Chopped cilantro (korianteri)

1/2 lime and lime zest

 salt to taste

I start by buying good quality prawns, and here in Helsinki fresh can rarely be found. Make sure you don't buy regular shrimp, instead jättikatkarapu. Frozen are ok, just make sure they're pre-cooked (red/pink in color). If they aren't (gray in color) you have to cook them until they turn pink and let them cool down. If you use preserved (liemessä) make sure you rinse them! Otherwise they will taste salty and sour :/

I remove any shell left, and cut the prawns in half. Next I peel the cucumber, this might seem dumb but it makes an incredible difference. If you don't peel the cucumbers, they will have a much more bitter and overpowering taste. Once the cucumbers are peeled i dice them into small squares. Next I dice the avocado in about same size dices.

I usually use a mild chili, as much as I love heat, the point of a Ceviche is not to be spicy. I want it to have a kick, and a taste of chili, but that's it. Here Pirkka has mild red chilis that are quite good. Remove all the seeds, and chop about 1/3 - 1/2 of the chili depending on taste.

Mix avocado, cucumber, shrimp/prawns, juice from 1/2 lime, a little salt and lime zest. You can easily let this sit in the fridge while you wait for your guests. Don't mix in the chili until about 10min before serving. The chili will react with the lime juice and easily become too spicy and overpowering.

About 10min before serving, add the chili and the chopped cilantro. Taste! Add acidity if needed or salt to taste. Voilà, a perfect fresh starter, easy to prepare before guests arrive.