cooking – Page 10 – luxlifefinn

Perfect roast potatoes

Preparing potatoes this way was very unfamiliar way to me when I moved to UK. On the Finnish dining table they are mostly consumed as either plain boiled, or as creamed garlic potato bake (another one of my favourites). First, I didn’t even care about them cooked this way. Then, I started trying to make my own, and realised how difficult it actually is to get them perfect: crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Even with my recipe below, they didn’t always turn out that well. To perfect my roast potatoes has really taken effort through trial and error, but finally it has paid off.

A big tip that helped me, was that when using duck / goose fat, you need to mix it with vegetable / olive oil. Otherwise your potatoes won’t get so crispy. The other key things are that once you’ve boiled your potatoes, cool them completely. I tend to boil my potatoes first thing in the morning, and then they’ll have plenty of time to cool before the other stage. Also, you need to turn them every 20 minutes or so, it’s the hot fat that crisps them up. Also, you need to heat the fat in the oven before adding the potatoes.

large potatoes
garlic cloves, bashed
rosemary sprigs
olive oil
duck or goose fat
salt

1. Peel the potatoes, and cut into halves or quarters, depending on size. Wash the pieces under running water for 5 minutes, to wash off the starch.

2. Place the potatoes in a pan together with the garlic and rosemary. Cover with water, bring to boil and cook until very soft (covered with a lid).

3. Drain the cooked potatoes, and let cool.

4. Heat oven to 180°C / 350°F.

5. Put about 5mm layer of oil and dollops of the duck or goose fat at the bottom of a roasting tray. Heat the oil / fat in the oven for 15 minutes.

6. Add the potatoes to the hot oil, and cook them for at least 1 hour and 20 minutes. Turn the potatoes every 20 minutes.

7. Drain cooked potatoes on kitchen tissue, and sprinkle with salt.

Yorkshire pudding

To me, the Yorkshire puddings are a delight of British cuisine. A roast dinner isn’t complete without one or two. Funnily, there was a debate at my husband’s office, where all participants were British, whether Yorkshire puddings should or should not be part of a Christmas meal. From an outsider’s view, Christmas meal, too, is a roast dinner, and it’s therefore crucial that it’s included.

2 large eggs
equal quantity of milk to eggs
pinch of salt
equal quantity of plain flour to eggs
vegetable oil / lard

1. Whisk the eggs, milk and salt together, and let stand for 10 minutes.

2. Add the flour, and let rest for at least 30 minutes.

3. Heat oven to 210°C / 410°F. Place the oil or lard in tins and heat in the oven for 5 minutes.

4. Give the batter another good whisk, adding 1 tbsp of cold water. Fill 1/3 tins, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Chicken fajitas

I may be known for my fine dining hobby, but sometimes you just want that honest food that may be messy to eat. For my fajitas, I tend to make make everything apart from the tortillas from scratch. This Mexican food is enjoyed across the world, and making everything by yourself allows you to adjust the spicing to your liking. The tortillas are usually eaten with a selection of fried meat, fried peppers and onions, tomato salsa, guacamole, creme fraiché and cheese. I tend to leave the cheese out, and just to make things easier, fry the meat together with the pepper and onion. In my blog I have individual posts for my guacamole and salsa, so I won’t write them again on here, but I’ll include links for them. This is great comfort food for those cosy evenings in.

Tomato salsa
Homemade guacamole
crème fraiche
~~~~~
500g chicken breasts
2 peppers
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 small green chilli
2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
splash of vegetable oil

1. Finely chop the chilli and garlic. Slice the peppers and onions, and set aside.

2. Cut the chicken breasts into strips. Fry in the oil, adding the cumin, salt and pepper. Once just about cooked through, add the other ingredients. Fry until onions are cooked.

Tomato salsa

This basic salsa can be eaten hot or cold, and is perfect as a dip with some tortilla chips or as one of the fillings for fajitas.

Tomato salsa
3-4 large tomatoes
2 onions
1 green pepper
1 small (hot) green chilli
3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp tomato purée
2 tbsp lemon juice (1 lemon)
2 tsp cumin powder
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp vegetable oil

1. Finely chop the garlic and chilli. I also use the seeds from the chilli. Chop the onion, pepper and tomatoes into small pieces.

2. Place all the chopped ingredients in a pan with the vegetable oil, and add all the spices / herbs. Fry for about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add the tomato paste and and the lemon juice, and mix in with the other ingredients.

The salsa is ready to be eaten immediately, or you can cool it to use it as a dip.

Mince beef and potato bake

This is simple home cooking. Easy and quick (in preparation), and will be enough to take as lunch to work too. Now, I spent a great while trying to think what to call this dish. I couldn’t really come to any good definitive conclusion of what would be best, most describing name. I’m happy for anyone to give me suggestions on this. My mum used to make this when I was a child. She would always make two version: one with blue cheese for adults, and one without for the children (I’m the second oldest of five). These days, I always make mine with the blue cheese, but this can easily be left out if you’re not a fan.

2 onions
500g mince beef
6 medium to large potatoes
50g blue cheese (I used Roquefort)
5 dl milk
3 eggs
salt and black pepper
ground allspice, white pepper, paprika (optional)

1. Finely chop the onions, and fry in vegetable oil in a pan until they start to get translucent. Add the beef and mix with the onions. add spices of your liking. I tend to always use salt, black pepper, white pepper, allspice and paprika on my basic mince beef for various different foods. Cook until the beef is ready, breaking it into small bits as it’s cooking.

2. Peel and slice the potatoes. Layer about a third of them at the bottom of an oven dish. Then put half of the mince beef as the next layer. If using blue cheese, add half of it on next. Then a layer of half of the remaining potatoes, remaining mince beef and remaining potatoes on top.

3. Mix the eggs and milk with a fork, then pour over the potatoes / mince beef. If using blue cheese, add the remaining half on top.

4. Cook in preheated oven 180°C / 355° F for about an hour, until the potatoes are soft.

Karelian pie (not really a pie)

This Finnish “pie” is one of those foods I’ve had to learn how to make myself because of living abroad, to ensure availability when I would like some. It’s right up there with one of my all time favourites, salmon soup. These days, only the pies from the actual Karelia area can officially be called as Karelian pies, but to me they are all called this. When Gordon Ramsay tasted it and thought it was awful, he must’ve hurt every Finnish person’s feelings. To be honest, I do have to wonder if his comment was for the sake of the cameras. Everyone must’ve been thinking what version of this food was he served, as I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like Karelian pies.

Even though the name says ‘pie’, it’s not really one. I was trying to think how to translate it (with the help from my British husband), but nothing seemed to fit. We went through pasty, pie, pastry etc and concluded that pie was still the best option.

Basically, this pie is something with very thin rye (and wheat) flour dough base, with cooked, savoury pudding rice in the centre. Very often, it’s enjoyed with butter that has hard boiled, crushed egg mixed in.

Filling
3 dl pudding rice
3 dl water
12 dl milk
2 tsp salt
Dough
4 1/2 dl rye flour
1 dl plain wheat flour
2 tsp salt
2 dl cold water

1. Put the rice, salt and water in a pan. Cook until the rice has absorbed all the water. Add the milk, and cook for half an hour. Once cooked, cool.

2. Whilst the rice is cooking, mix all the dough ingredients together. You don’t want it to be dry, but not sticky either.

3. Roll the dough into a tube, and cut in half. Repeat twice, then cut each piece in three equal sizes. After these steps, you should end up with 24 fairly equal size pieces.

4. Roll each piece into a ball. Cover the balls with cling film to stop them from drying. One by one, flatten each ball by hand, then using a rolling pin roll into very thin, oval shapes.

5. Put rice filling on the centre of the dough, from one end to another, leaving unfilled dough on the sides.

6. Turn the furthest end of the dough from you over the filling, then the sides. Pinch the dough between your fingers as you’re moving towards the closer end to you (picture is of a cooked pie, as I forgot to take a picture before putting them in the oven, but it should still give you an idea).

7. Cook in oven 250°C (fan) / 480°F for 15 minutes.

8. Put some milk and butter (25g-50g) into a pan, and warm until the butter has melted. After you take the pies out of the oven, bathe each pie in the milk-butter mix, turning it so that both sides are fully submerged during the process.

French onion soup (with meat)

I remember the packet French onion soup from my childhood, that was used to enhance other foods, but we never ate it on its own. So I was intrigued to try to make my own, to see if I could change my mental image of this famous soup. As this soup requires beef stock, and for this kind of food I don’t like to use ready made ones, I made my own stock, and then decided to add some of the leftover meat into this soup, which actually worked really well.

1 litre beef stock Beef broth (stock)
4 large onions
25g butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp caster sugar
3 tbsp cognac or brandy
150ml red wine
1 bay leaf
salt and black pepper to taste

1. Peel and cut the onions in half, then slice thinly. Put in a pan together with the butter and oil. I think quite a large, deep pan is good for this, due to the flaming at later stage. On a low temperature, fry the onions for 20 minutes, until soft, stirring from time to time.

2. Add the sugar, and fry, stirring occasionally, for another 20 minutes.

3. Add the cognac, and carefully set alight. I used long matches. At first, the flames will be quite big so stand back. They will however quickly reduce. The flambéing process reduces the alcoholic content in the food, whilst still keeping the flavours of the drink.

4. Once the flames go out, add the red wine, stock, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Bring to boil, and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.

5. Check the taste, and add salt and pepper if required.

6. As I made my stock particularly this soup in mind on the same day, I had all the meat left. Even though this soup is slightly sweet, I decided to add some of the meat into the soup. I just added the cooled, stripped meat pieces straight into the soup in the serving bowls.

Beef broth (stock)

The key to a good broth is slow cooking and bones (although you always also need some meat too). It can be very easy by throwing everything in together from the beginning and simmering for 2-3 hours, or with a little bit more effort you will end up with a wonderful, clearer stock.

1.1 kg beef short ribs (the more bones the better)
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp sea salt
1 medium to large onion
1 carrot
1 celery stick
2 bay leaves
2 thyme sprigs
1 rosemary sprig
4 garlic cloves
3 litres of cold water

1. Place the ribs in a large pan. The more bones you have the better it is. You could, for example, have one rib with meat on and rest of it bones. Cover with the water, and add salt. Slowly bring to simmer, but don’t boil. Muck will start surfacing. Skim this off. The process should take about 20-30 minutes.

ALTERNATIVELY, place all ingredients in the pan. Cover with the water, and bring to simmer. The muck will stay in the broth, making it cloudy.

2. Once no more muck is rising to the surface, add all the other ingredients. Cover with a lid and simmer for 2-3 hours.

3. When ready, strain through a sieve. I also use a piece of muslin to make the stock even clearer. Keep the meat aside, to be used in other foods.

4. Cool the stock, then chill in the fridge. This will make the excess fat harden on top. Remove the hardened fat and discard.

Thick vanilla custard

I was never that keen on custard in the past, when my experience was from pub desserts with this sauce. My husband was sometimes requesting this, so I finally decided to have a go. The first time I made it, I was amazed at how good it was! None of that tasteless from a packet stuff, but oh so wonderful, proper, creamy custard. This is still to date the best custard I’ve ever tasted, and I also use it for my trifle. I would strongly recommend this for anyone wanting a nice, thick custard. And it’s really easy to make too. Perfect accompaniment with your Christmas pudding, apple pie or rhubarb crumble, or whatever else is your favourite.

300ml double cream

3 egg yolks

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp potato or corn flour (any starchy flour for thickening)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat the cream in a pan until steaming, but not boiling. If you don’t stir it during this time, you will get a skin on top you will want to remove. I tend to stir the cream during heating.

2. While the cream is warming, mix all the other ingredients together in a bowl.

3. Pour the cream onto the eggs on a thin strip, stirring continuously as you pour. Then pour the whole mixture back into the pan.

4. Over medium heat, stir until the mixture thickens (5-10 minutes). I don’t usually get lumps, but if this happens, the custard can be passed through a sieve.

Then it’s time to enjoy the best vanilla custard to date!

Liver casserole

This dish is food that’s eaten in my native Finland any time of the year, and in my family also as part of the Christmas meal. I always thought this food to be something of an acquired taste, and every time I used to host a party I would tell the British guests that I will not be offended if they don’t like it and finish it. As it’s turned out, it has actually always been one of the dishes people love. It’s not the most beautiful food in terms of presentation (I admit it does look more like dog food), but sometimes the taste can speak for itself instead. This dish is normally served with lingonberries, or lingonberry jam. I would say the closest substitute to lingonberries would be cranberries, which are probably more widely available.

3 dl pudding rice
1 litre water
3 tsp salt
8 dl milk
2 eggs
2 onions
1tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp dried oregano
1tsp dried marjoram
3 tbsp dark syrup (I had to replace this with 2 tbsp treacle due to availability of the syrup I normally use, and it worked fine)
1 1/2 dl raisins
500g beef liver (Pork is fine too. Beef liver will give smoother flavour, pork stronger)

1. Boil the rice in the salted water for about half an hour. You may want to stir it from time to time so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom.

2. Peel and chop the onions, and place in a blender. Roughly chop the liver pieces, and check for any sinewy parts you may want to discard. Place in the blender together with the onions. Blend until the liver doesn’t have firm texture anymore. The onions can still be in small pieces.

3. Once the rice is cooked, add the cold milk, and all other ingredients. At this stage the mixture will be very liquid, but when it’s cooked it will become firm.

4. Pour the mixture in a buttered oven dish, and add some small pieces of butter on top. Cook for about on hour 180°C / 355°F.