dinner – Page 3 – luxlifefinn

BBQ beef ribs

My recipe is for oven baked ribs, however if you want to grill yours on a barbeque you can still follow the marinating and BBQ sauce steps. This recipe will give you tasty, as well as nicely tender meat, which comes off the bone easily.

serves 2

Marinade
2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, squeezed
2 tbsp dark muscovado sugar
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp paprika powder
1/2 tbsp black pepper
1/2 tbsp oregano
2 tsp mustard powder
1 tbsp onion powder
~~~~~
~600g beef ribs
BBQ sauce (click here for homemade BBQ sauce recipe)

1. Mix all the marinade ingredients together. Pour the mixture over the ribs, and rub onto the meat, so that all of the ribs are coated. Let marinate in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

2. Heat oven to 120°C / 250°F. Place the ribs in an ovenproof dish, and cover tightly with foil. Bake for 3.5 hours.

3. Check the meat, and if it’s tender, switch the oven to a grill setting, medium to high temperature. Pour away the liquid (mixture of fat and cooking juices). Completely remove the foil that was covering the meat, and brush the ribs with the barbeque sauce. Place under the grill for 5 minutes, until the sauce gets sticky.

Chicken stir-fry

When you’re on holiday, eating out every day, you start feeling like you’re ready for that home cooked food again. And you know that coming back after being away for a couple of weeks, work will be pretty busy. This stir-fry dish is great, because I always make a really big portion that will last you for several day, whether you want to take it as lunch to work, or have it waiting at home for dinner after getting home late. This is one of my husband’s all time favourite foods that I cook, so it’s a winner all around. Packed with vegetables and other healthy ingredients, it’s also great at boosting your immune system.

2 large chicken breasts

1 carrot

1 green pepper

5 medium chestnut mushrooms

1 brown onion

1 courgette / zucchini

300g bean sprouts

100g green beans

150g mangetout peas

100g baby corn

3 small green chillies

a thumb size piece of ginger

100g cashew nuts

4-5 garlic cloves

150g dry noodles (I use vermicelli)

50ml groundnut oil

50ml toasted sesame seed oil

50ml dark soy sauce

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce

1 tbsp rice vinegar

1 tbsp lemon juice

I tend to chop all ingredients beforehand, because the actual cooking phase will be quite quick, and you won’t have time to chop the next ingredients. I usually have two containers; on box number 1 I put all the ingredients that require slightly longer cooking time, and box 2 the ingredients that will be added a little bit later.

1. On box no1, peel and slice the carrot in match-like sticks. Chop the green beans in about inch size pieces. Rinse and drain well the mangetout, and add to the box. Finely chop the chillies, and peel and finely chop ginger, and also add the cashew nuts to the box no1.

2. For the box no2, deseed and slice the pepper. Slice your onion and mushrooms, and cut the courgette into strips like the carrots. Cut the baby corn into pieces, and finely chop the garlic.

3. Cut the chicken breasts into thin strips. Heat the groundnut oil in a large wok, and add the chicken. Stir around for about 30 seconds – 1 minute, then add the ingredients from the box no1. Fry, stirring, for about 5 minutes.

4. Add the ingredients from the box no2 and stir. You’ll want to fry everything for about 5 minutes again. While doing this, boil some water, and pour over the noodles. You only want to soak the noodles (if using vermicelli) for 3 minutes. Do check the packaging for how long you need to soak the type of noodles you’re using. Drain the noodles well.

5. Add the bean sprouts to the wok, stir in for couple of minutes, then add the noodles. Add all the remaining liquid ingredients over the noodles, this will help you separate and stir the noodles into the rest of the dish more easily.

Restaurant review: Aquavit, NYC

How this restaurant has managed to get two Michelin stars is beyond me. Now, before anyone says that perhaps I just don’t get Scandinavian food, A) I am Scandinavian and B) I’ve had Scandinavian food that has been very good in other restaurants, so that’s not it. Also, I’ve been to around 40 Michelin star restaurants, so I do have plenty to use as comparison. The step from one to two stars is big, and a two-star-restaurant really should excel in many aspects. Unfortunately, Aquavit disappointed in all aspects, and I don’t think it’s worthy of any stars. Perhaps the inspectors were on too much (free) champagne when inspecting Aquavit?

From staff to the food, everything just seemed a bit ‘off’. Now, there we couple of members of staff who were friendly and good, but the rest just gave a bad vibe, like they didn’t want to be there, as well as giving a scruffy impression. The sommeliers knew their stuff about what they were talking about, however the actual wine pairing to our Seasonal Tasting Menu didn’t impress either. Overall impression was that service was sloppy. I had wine poured to a wrong glass (old, used one instead of the new, clean one), and the cutlery was always placed in completely wrong angles etc. It’s these kind of little things that should not be happening in a place of this calibre.

My prediction is that Aquavit will be losing it’s stars, they most certainly are not worthy of them. For me, they are amongst one of the three worst Michelin star restaurants I’ve been to, my husband thought the are in fact the worst.

For the first Amuse Bouche we were served a Swedish pancake and smoked salmon. It was ok enough in flavour, however not amazing, and was a little bit difficult to eat by hand, as it was quite a floppy pancake. We thought they’ll need to improve to be the required standard.

Second appetiser and ‘palate cleanser’ was mussel with seaweed broth. The broth was ok, but tasted quite bland. The taste of the mussel wasn’t great, and it had some sort of dry crumbly topping, which made it dry. It tasted somewhat weird and unpleasant. We didn’t understand how this was called a palate cleanser, which are usually fresh, light and sharp on the palate, as this was not that. My husband thought the mussel was awful.

The butter test was passed nicely, as the butter was fluffy and very soft. The bread however didn’t impress.

The first actual course of scallop and sea urchin had a really weird, terrible taste to it. My husband thought it was the worst scallop dish he’s ever had, and I wouldn’t be far behind him.

I got my hopes up when the Arctic char and kavring dish came. It was ok for me, however my husband didn’t like this one either. The dish was edible, however not worthy of two stars. A common nominator for all the dishes during the meal seemed to be a weird taste throughout, and there were too many pickled things that weren’t even pickled in a nice way. This dish was also lacking some attention to detail. I love a dish of salmon or fish from the same family, with some dill and wonderfully pickled cucumbers. The lack of attention to detail was that the cucumber had the skin on. Now, I can easily name places where the cucumber balls have been pickled better, are fully round balls and have no skin on them. Not impressed.

The Spanish turbot and sunchoke dish was the best of the meal at that point, however still not the greatest of flavours. The fish was cooked fine, it was nice and juicy.

Next up was a mini slider isterband and apple. It was ok, however bland, and didn’t really bring anything to the meal.

I was hoping the duck and honeynut squash dish was going to rectify the so far bad experience, but again left you wondering where the two stars have come from. The duck did have a crispy skin, which was positive. The squash disk was too undercooked and therefore unpleasant. Overall, again, the flavour of the whole dish was disappointing.

The palate cleanser of lingonberry and ginger was the best part of the dish. Lingonberries can be very sour, however their taste had been sweetened just right, and surprisingly the ginger went quite well with the lingonberry.

The wild strawberry and pistachio cake was unfortunately again somewhat bland. I was excited about the wild strawberries, as their taste is truly magnificent and sweet (I have picked these straight from the bushes in the past), but sadly they didn’t have any of the flavour I know these strawberries should have. And see from the picture yourself if you can spot why I would once again say they need to up their game when it comes to attention to detail.

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Chinese chicken noodle soup

I love this basic Chinese soup. I make different variations of it, sometimes with chicken, sometimes with king prawns. It’s also easy to add / leave ingredients out, I sometimes add thinly sliced red peppers, as well as sesame seeds on top for visual effect. Also, I don’t always use the egg. The only thing however that is a must to me, is to have my homemade chicken stock in the freezer. I’ve never made this soup with shop bought stock, and I’m not interested in trying it either. This doesn’t mean you can’t try it of course, I just don’t know how that kind of stock would affect the end taste. Sometimes I use chicken cut in pieces, today I wanted to use shredded chicken.

serves 2
1 egg
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 spring onion
2 chestnut mushrooms
half a thumb size piece of fresh root ginger
1 small green chilli
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp light soy sauce
800-900ml chicken stock Homemade chicken stock
vermicelli rice noodles
1 chicken breast

1. Poach the chicken breast in the simmering stock for 10-15 minutes.

2. Finely chop garlic, ginger and chilli. Slice the mushrooms and spring onion. Remove the chicken breast from the stock, and cool. Add garlic, ginger,chilli, mushrooms and spring onions to the liquid, and simmer for few minutes.

3. If using the egg, beat it together with the sesame oil. Add all other remaining ingredients to the stock apart from the egg and chicken. Cook for few minutes, and add the vermicelli noodle. The noodle I use is a packet of 5 ‘blocks’, total weight of 225g. All that is needed is one of the blocks.

4. Once the chicken has cooled, shred it by hand. It will very easily break into strands when you start pulling it apart. One breast gives you surprisingly much. Once shredded, add to the stock.

5. Pour the egg to the stock in a fine stream. Stock will become cloudy at first, but once the egg is cooked, stock will be clearer again. Pull egg into strands by a fork or chopsticks.

Spaghetti with squid and chorizo

Even though the weather in the UK has gone really cold, this dish has transported me right to the Mediterranean climate. Making the pasta for the spaghetti couldn’t be easier, it takes less time than chopping all the other ingredients. I would suggest to start with the pasta, as it can then dry a little while you prepare everything else.

250g pasta flour 00 grade
2 eggs
~~~~~
3 medium squid tubes
3 chorizo sausages
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 red or yellow pepper
12 cherry tomatoes, cut in quarters
handful of parsley
1 courgette / zucchini
splash of olive oil
salt and black pepper
juice of 1 lemon

1. Measure the pasta flour in a bowl. Make a well in the centre, and pour the eggs in. Then, starting with a fork, break the eggs and little by little mix the eggs with the surrounding flour. Once the dough gets firmer, move onto kneading by hand.

2. Divide the dough into two pieces. Flatten the pieces with your hands, and roll through the pasta machine, on the biggest setting. Fold the dough over in half, and roll through the same setting again. Then reduce the setting to the next, and roll through. Repeat until desired thickness is achieved. Next, using the spaghetti cutting roller part, cut the pasta sheet into spaghetti. Then, leave to dry while you prepare the rest.

3. Prepare all the other ingredients. Heat olive oil in a pan, and fry the onions, squid and chorizo for few minutes, until cooked.

4. Add the garlic, pepper and courgette. Fry for few minutes. At the same time, boil water with salt added, and put the spaghetti in. Boil for about three minutes, then drain.

5. Add the tomatoes and lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Add the spaghetti, mixing everything together. Lastly stir in the parsley.

Cottage pie / Shepherd’s pie

This is a heart and belly warming classic British dish, however I’m sure other nations have their own variation of the same thing. Even in my native Finland we have something similar. I have added ingredients to the basic version, so it actually probably doesn’t even have any particular national background. For a long time, I always had to check with my British husband what the difference with cottage pie and shepherd’s pie is. The difference is very simple: cottage pie is shepherd’s pie, but with a cheese crust on top. This kind of food is proper, honest home cooking. I tend to make a large batch, which will give you couple of dinners, or dinner for the first night and lunch to take to work with you for few days. I like mine with slight heat from the pepper, if you would like yours mild I would suggest reducing the black pepper and white pepper to half (or just use full amount of black pepper and leave white pepper out).

1.5 kg potatoes
2 tsp salt
50g butter
3dl milk
pinch of salt
~~~~~
1 medium onion
2 small or 1 large carrots, peeled
1 courgette / zucchini
4 chestnut mushrooms
500g mince beef (if you don’t eat red meat, you can easily swap this to mince turkey)
2 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
1/2 – 1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp ground paprika
1 tsp ground allspice
~~~~~
3 dl cheese

1. Peel and rinse the potatoes. Cut in half or quarters, depending on size. Place in a pan and cover with cold water. Add the salt, and bring to boil. Depending on the size of the pieces, boil gently for about 20 minutes, or until soft.

2. While the potatoes are boiling, finely chop the onion, carrots, courgette and mushrooms. I normally use standard brown/yellow onions for cooking, but I have a lot of very strong red onions in my cupboard, so I used that instead.

3. Fry the onions in the oil for few minutes, until starting to turn translucent.

4. Add the meat. Keep beating it with a wooden spatula as it’s cooking, to break it into small crumbly texture. During the cooking, add all the spices. This’s whole step will take you around 10 minutes.

5. Once the meat is cooked, add the carrots, courgette and mushrooms, and fry for 5 minutes, stirring.

6. Once the potatoes are soft, discard the cooking water. Mash the potatoes, and add the butter, milk and salt. I prefer my mash to be firmer when using it in a dish like this, otherwise it won’t hold the mince mixture in a separate layer.

7. Layer half of the mash at the bottom of an oven casserole dish. Then add a layer of the meat mixture. I usually pat it into a firm, dense, even layer. They add the remaining mash. To make sure you have an equal amount to cover the whole dish, I usually start by adding a dollop in the corners, then in the middle, and then plead it across evenly.

8. Finally, add the cheese. I normally tend to use a mixture of extra mature cheddar and red leicester, however this time I replaced the latter with gruyere. Cook in preheated oven 180°C / 355°F for 40-45 minutes until the cheese top has become slightly crunchy.

Sea bream with mango and crab salad

This plate of food is like sunshine on a plate. It’s so fresh and colourful, and all the flavours just simply work really well. Even though raw garlic and chilli are used, when eating this you don’t notice it. It’s also a quick dish to make.

1 mango

1 avocado

2 large red chillies (mild, or to your liking), finely chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely chopped

3 spring onions, chopped into thin slices

100g cooked white crab meat

100g king prawns (I tend to use raw and cook them myself, but cooked are ok too)

1 lime (juice)

1. Cut the mango and avocado into cubes.

2. Add finely chopped garlic and chilli (deseeded). Add all the other salad ingredients.

3. I usually use raw prawns so I put the mixed salad into fridge, and pan-fry the prawns. I then let them cool, while cooking the fish (pan-fry for about 5 minutes, then finish under a grill in the oven for another 5 minutes). Then mix the prawns into the salad, and serve with the fish.

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.

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.

Restaurant review: Gauthier Soho, London

I’m sad to be writing a review of this charming old townhouse, located right in the heart of buzzing Central London, Soho. Sad because it unfortunately cannot be as good as I wanted it to be. We have been here several times, and always think it as one of the nice places we go back to. They do a fantastic value reduced Tasting Menu for lunch, which has been getting us going back for more over and over again. This time we went for dinner, and for some reason the overall experience seemed underwhelming, and I remembered thinking the same last time we visited. You couldn’t really pinpoint why you were left feeling like this, but the meal somehow left you wanting more, as if something hadn’t been satisfied (we were completely full after the meal, so the quantity wasn’t it). As a fine dining restaurant, it felt like the attention to detail wasn’t present (this is important part of a fine dining experience), from dressing of the plates to service. New cutlery wasn’t laid down neatly, but very messily. Messy / sloppy was also the word for some of the plating. And when it comes to wine pairing, we very rarely have any criticism to say, however with this meal also some of the pairings didn’t work. We arrived 5 minutes early for our first seating slot, and were asked to wait outside on the street, in the cold (luckily it wasn’t raining). I have in the past successfully predicted some restaurants to lose their Michelin stars, and would also have predicted it for Gauthier Soho. On closer inspection, they in fact have already lost it.

There was a good selection of fresh bread, I had white roll which was light and fluffy, and flavoursome. My husband had beetroot brioche roll. Again, soft, light and fluffy, but the beetroot didn’t really bring any additional flavour. One of the first things we assess a restaurant by is softness of the butter. I don’t hate many things more than hard butter you can’t spread when in a restaurant. In a lot of nice places the butter is amazingly soft and fluffy. Unfortunately, at Gauthier Soho, the butter was hard.

I was glad to get the appetisers, as I was really hungry. The parmesan crisp was nice, thin and crispy. The quinoa crisp with beetroot hummus was nice and tasty. The last thing, which remained unknown to what it was, was ok, I couldn’t taste the wasabi that was promised.

First course was a carrot tartare. We loved the theatrics that followed. What appeared to be a meat mincer was brought to the table. Condiments were placed in front of you (guacamole, finely chopped shallots, ginger and something else we weren’t sure of what it was. On a plate in front of you, you had plum jam. The waiter then brought carrots, holding them on the green stalks, and proceed to mince the carrots in the mincer in front of you. The mince was then placed on your plate, on top of the plum jam. You then added the condiments of your liking, and mixed everything together, to be enjoyed with lovely thin and crisp Melba toast. I added everything to mine, however not all of the ginger. I found the taste of this all a bit weird, and wouldn’t rush to have it again. The carrot itself was soft and juicy.

Next course was scallop with cauliflower, roe crisp and romanesco. The scallop was nicely cooked, however the star of this dish without a doubt was the crustacean sauce. Full of flavour, this was one of the best elements of the entire meal. The wine had quite a floral taste, and perhaps not something I would pare with this kind of dish.

Next up was truffle risotto. This has been one of my favourite dishes of this restaurant for as long as I can remember. I thought the risotto was cooked well, just a bit al dente as it should be, however my husband thought it was a little too cooked. Risotto was nice an creamy, and had a generous amount of black truffle.

The meal then continued with a fish dish of halibut. This was the best dish of the meal. The fish was cooked well, however I’m still trying to decide if mine could’ve been cooked slightly less. My husband thought the fish was cooked perfect. It was moist and soft. There was pickled beetroot with the fish, which was nice on its own, however I’m not sure if it was the best accomplishment for the fish, as the sharpness overpowered the delicate flavour of the fish. We were also served quite sharp red wine with this dish, which we didn’t think suited the dish, as this too overpowered the fish.

I’m not entirely sure what to say about the next dish of Barbary duck. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it wasn’t magnificent either. It just left you a bit underwhelmed I guess. The duck itself was cooked well (medium), and one of the accompaniments of what seemed to be swede purée went really well with it. I did enjoy the slow cooked meat ‘cake’.

Next came Gruyere cheese with fennel and chestnut. The cheese was very nice. I’m not usually a great fan of fennel (same with my husband), it can sometimes be quite pungent, however this was very thinly sliced and brought great freshness to the dish, and what you wanted at this stage of the meal. The chestnut was ok, the apple balls were a bit hard.

The first dessert was a palate cleanser. The light, airy shell was meringue-like, but completely vegan, made of chickpea water. It was filled with sharp pear sorbet, and also served with pear purée and lemongrass purée, as well as pear bits. Overall quite sour (perhaps a bit too sour), but refreshing.

The main dessert was Golden Louis XV. This decadent, very sweet dessert would satisfy the most demanding chocolate lovers, I’m sure. Light, but crunchy base, topped up with two different layers of chocolate, with a rich chocolate glazing and edible gold decoration, this is a wonderful dessert, however after a big meal you may struggle to eat it, however you won’t be able to stop trying!

The whole meal was finished with petit fours.

Rating:★★★☆☆