dinner – Page 4 – luxlifefinn

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.

Sweet and sour chicken

As I was driving home from work I didn’t yet know what to cook for dinner. My husband fancied some sweet and sour chicken, and I thought it was a great idea to use up the left over rice we had too, so that was decided. Luckily, I still had one portion of my homemade chicken stock in the freezer too. This was also a good dish to make that didn’t take up too much of my evening once at home.

350ml chicken stock (Homemade chicken stock)
2 tbsp light soy sauce
4 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground white pepper
2 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp rice vinegar
4 tbsp tomato puree
4 tsp potato flour (or corn flour), mixed with 1-2 tbsp water
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2 chicken breasts, cut in pieces
5 chestnut mushrooms
1 carrot
1 red or green pepper
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
2 spring onions

1. Peel and slice the carrot, and chop the pepper into fairly big pieces. Place in boiling water for 4 minutes. Pour the water away and set carrot and pepper aside.

2. In the pan, heat your chicken stock. I tend to take my homemade stock out of the freezer just when needing it, and I just defrost it by melting in the pan. While the stock is warming, mix the other sauce ingredients, apart from the flour and water. Add to the stock, and bring to boil. Add the carrot and pepper. Mix the flour and water, and add to the stock. Boil for couple of minutes, then reduce the heat to simmer. Stir from time to time.

3. Fry the chicken in a pan (I use groundnut oil with this dish). Once just about cooked, add the chopped mushrooms, garlic, onion and spring onion, and fry, stirring, for couple of minutes.

4. Pour the sauce on the chicken, and stir everything together.

Seafood pasta

This is a simple and tasty dish, and I would also encourage everyone to have a go at making their own pasta. You only need two ingredients for basic pasta; flour and eggs. You can then make different variations with tomato purée, spinach or even squid ink if you’re feeling adventurous. For this recipe I used tomato purée. The octopus I use is already cooked (steamed in it’s juices), so it doesn’t require much additional cooking.

Serves 3
250g flour, preferably fine 00 grade pasta flour
2 eggs
1 tbsp tomato purée
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200g cherry tomatoes
juice of one lemon, or 2 tbsp.
1 courgette / zucchini
25g bunch or parsley, chopped
2 octopus tentacles, about 225g
90g small scallops
1-2 squids, about 150g, thinly sliced
150g raw king prawns
2 shallots
2 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt, to taste
coarsely ground black pepper

1. Measure the flour in a bowl. I used fine 00 grade pasta flour, but I have also in the past used normal plain flour. Make a well in the centre, and tip the eggs in. Start mixing the eggs with a fork, slowly incorporating the surrounding flour into the eggs. When it gets quite firm, I find it’s difficult to continue mixing with the fork, so I change to kneading by hand. Even though I use large eggs, I don’t tend to use all of the flour. Keep the dough soft, but not sticky.

2. I wanted to make tomato pasta today. For this, warm the purée in a pan, and once you’re happy with your standard dough, knead it into the dough. To make it easier to mix it into the dough, make sure your workstation has flour on it.

3. I would recommend investing on a pasta rolling machine. At a low cost you will get a useful helper to your kitchen for pasta making. Cut the pasta dough into four pieces, and repeat the steps with all of the pieces. Flatten the piece into about 1cm / half an inch thickness. Set your machine on the biggest setting (7). Push the end of the piece right onto the rollers, and roll. The piece should now go through. Once the dough has come out, fold in half, and put through the same setting again. After this, reduce the setting to 6, and roll through once, then same with settings 5,4 and 3.

4. With floured hands, pat the pasta sheet on both sides. Then, roll the sheet through the tagliatelle roller. Separate the tagliatelle strands, and place on a baking sheet. Once you have prepared all dough pieces this way, leave to dry while you prepare the seafood sauce.

5. Finely chop the shallots and garlic, and fry in olive oil for 1-2 minutes.

6. Add the squid and king prawns, and fry for about 3 minutes. Then add the small scallops, and fry for another 3-4 minutes, stirring. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Add the courgettes to the pan, and fry, stirring, for 2 minutes. Pour the lemon juice into the pan.

8. Add the octopus and tomatoes, and heat through.

9. Tip the chopped parsley into the pan, and stir.

10. Boil water in a large pan, with a good splash of salt. Add the pasta into the boiling water. The fresh pasta will only need to cook for 3 minutes. Strain, and add to the seafood sauce.

Braised ox cheek (or braising beef)

My recipe is originally for ox cheek, which are big pieces, but as this isn’t something generally sold in supermarkets (and therefore requiring a trip to the butchers, which I unfortunately don’t often have time for), I think it also works with the beef braising steak, which I happened to have in my fridge this time. I do however have to honestly say that I prefer the cheek. Both are parts of the animal that are tough and require slow cooking to make them melt-in-the-mouth soft. The cheeks in particular used to be more of a wasted part of the beef, but in the recent years upmarket restaurants have made it more fashionable. I would love to make this dish more often, as I love the braised ox cheek, but my husband doesn’t count braised meat as one of his favourites.

Ideal situation would be to marinade the meat for 24 hours, however if this isn’t possible I would go for minimum of two hours.

2 ox cheeks (or 750g beef braising steak)
300ml red wine
100ml port wine
1 small onion / 4 small shallots, finely chopped
1 stalk of celery, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
5 cloves of garlic, smashed and roughly chopped
6 stalks of fresh thyme
1 tbsp of black pepper (I tend to freshly crush whole peppercorns with pestle and mortar)
1 bay leaf

1. Place all ingredients in a bowl, and marinade for 24 hour if possible for best result, or minimum of 2 hours.

2. Fry the meat pieces for few minutes, stirring, then add the other ingredients.

3. Simmer for 2.5 hours.

4. Once the meat is tender, remove from the liquid (mostly for ox cheek, difficult otherwise).

5. Strain liquid through fine sieve. You can also use a piece of muslin in the sieve for finer result. Boil the strained liquid in a clean pan until reduced to half.

6. Quickly fry the meat pieces and serve with the red wine glaze (if ox cheeks).

Sea bass with Greek salad

This simple, healthy meal is perfect for those evenings when you get home from work very late, and don’t really have that much energy for cooking, as it requires minimum amount of effort and cooking. Greek salad itself is very simple, with only a few ingredients, and there are many variations of this basic salad. You can always adjust it with additional ingredients to suit your taste. I served my dish with boiled baby potatoes and samphire. The below Greek salad recipe may be salty to some tastes, you can reduce the amount of feta and olives, or increase the amount of other ingredients to change the ratio of ingredients.

serves 2
2 sea bass fillets
splash of olive oil
salt
black pepper
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2 leaves of romaine heart lettuce
few handfuls of cherry tomatoes
half a cucumber
red onion
200g feta cheese
200g olives
2 tbsp capers
1/2 dl olive oil
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp dried oregano

1. Cut the tomatoes, salad leaves, cucumber, feta, and onion, and add the olives and capers.

2. Mix the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar and oregano together, and pour over the salad. Mix well, turning the ingredients so that all are coated with the oil mixture. Rest in the fridge whilst cooking the fish.

3. Heat a splash of olive oil in a pan, and place the fish in the pan, skin side down. Season the flesh with salt and pepper, and cook for 3-5 minutes, to crisp the skin up.

4. Place in a preheated oven 180°C / 355°F for about 7 minutes.

Salt crust baked crispy skin pork belly

I’ve had good pork belly with perfect crispy skin in restaurants, and I’ve also had not so good ones. I’ve tried to cook it myself unsuccessfully too, until now. You see, the crispy skin is an absolute must making this dish a fantastic one. If I have pork belly with a disappointing skin, I feel cheated. In the past, the prep of the pork has required scoring and spice rubbing of the skin, and then still ending up with either half cooked or too cooked skin that’s thick and tough. No more of this problem, since after my extensive research I decided to try salt crust baked method. It worked beautifully, and gave me the best pork belly I’ve ever cooked!

900g – 1kg piece of pork belly

Marinade
1 clove garlic
2-3 stalk of fresh thyme, leaves only
2 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper

Salt crust
1-2 dl table salt, depending on the size of the meat

1. Dry the piece of meat on all sides with a kitchen tissue. Mix the marinade ingredients together, and rub on the meat side only. Put in a container, skin side up. dry the skin again, cover and leave in a fridge for 2 hours (or longer).

2. In a roasting tin, add about 1cm (half an inch) of water at the bottom. Place the pork on a rack. Pat dry the skin once more, and pour the salt on the skin. The salt will become a hard crust during cooking, and will be easy to remove later on. There is no need to score / slit the skin.

3. Cook at 170°C / 340°F for 40 minutes.

4. Remove from the oven, and turn the heat up to 240°C / 465°F. Remove the salt crust. If any salt has fallen onto the meat on the sides, scrape off. Cook in the hot oven for further 30 minutes. You should end up with a perfectly crispy, golden colour skin and juicy meat.

5. Rest the meat for about 5-10 minutes, covered with foil.

Spicy ginger and carrot soup

When I heard this combination mentioned recently I thought it makes sense. I also thought it sounds like something that could benefit from a bit of heat from a chilli, as well as the usual suspects onion and garlic. And I always tend to add potatoes to pureed soups, for that rich, smooth texture. I have just been experimental and thrown ingredients together for this soup, however I do think the ginger, sweet carrot and spicy chilli make a good team. And did you know that ginger, chilli, garlic, onion and turmeric are all natural medicines to fight off those colds too, so perfect for boosting your immune system when the weather is getting cold outside.

4-5 medium-large potatoes (900g), peeled and cut into pieces
1 kg carrots, peeled and cut into pieces
100g fresh root ginger, peeled and chopped
2 garclic cloves, peeled and chopped
2 medium onions (I used red onions)
1 small green chilli (the smaller the variety, the hotter it will be), chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin powder
2 tsp turmeric (optional)
1 liter water
1/2 dl cream
salt and black pepper

1. Roughly chop onions. Heat the olive oil in a pan, and fry onion in medium heat for 5 minutes.

2. Add the ginger, garlic and chilli, and fry for few minutes. Add turmeric and cumin, and fry until fragrant.

3. Add the carrots and potatoes, as well as water. Bring to boil, and cook, covered, for 45 minutes, or until carrots and potatoes are soft.

4. Let cool slightly, and puree in a blender.

5. Add cream, and depending on thickness, a splash of water. Season with salt and pepper.

Vegetarian bake

This tasty vegetarian bake is a dish I learnt from my friend years ago, when we lived together as single ladies. Even though I’m more of a carnivore, this dish has stuck with me, and is something I make regularly, as it’s really flavoursome.

2 dl red lentils
1 onion
3 garlic cloves
1 carrot, peeled and grated
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
3dl vegetable stock
handful of fresh basil
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp dried oregano
1-2 aubergines (eggplants)
4 large tomatoes
2 courgettes (zucchinis)
1-2 balls of mozzarella
grated parmesan cheese

1. Rinse the lentils, and drain in a sieve. Place in a saucepan, and cover with water. Bring to boil, and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain.

2. Finely chop onion and garlic, and fry in oil for 5 minutes. Add the carrot, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, basil, stock, salt, pepper and oregano. Cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Finally, add the cooked lentils.

3. Slice the aubergines, courgettes, tomatoes and mozzarella.

4. Layer in an oven dish. I tend to put a little bit of the sauce mixture at the bottom, as well as in between each layer, and also on top.

5. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top and cook in preheated oven 200°C / 390°F for 40 minutes.

Hake with scallop, brown shrimp and samphire

When I planned for this dish, I didn’t have anything in particular in mind. I chose hake because I try to alternate fish I use. I normally use smoked hake and make the same dish with it, so it was perfect time to experiment with unsmoked and cook it like I would normally cook cod, pan fried. For the accompaniment, I was just browsing throught the seafood section (I do my food shopping online and have it delivered, to save my precious time after work), and when I saw the small scallops and brown shrimps they sang out to me, wanting to be part of this dish. My husband would like me to get samphire more often than I do, so I decided to get that too. This recipe makes big portions, so you could probably also make this for 3, maybe even 4 people. I had some leftover puy lentils and quinoa, so I served the fish with that.

serves 2
400g fillet of unsmoked hake, cut in two pieces
70g brown shrimp
180g small scallops
90g samphire, washed
2 shallots
50g butter
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 dl frozen peas
1/2 dl cream
salt
white pepper

1. Melt the butter in a frying pan, and add the hake fillet pieces. Season both sides with a little bit of salt and pepper, and fry for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Move to a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.

2. Add finely chopped shallots to the same pan, fry for a minute or two, and add the scallops and lemon juice. Fry for few minutes, stirring.

3. Add the peas, followed by samphire and shrimp. Season with a dash of pepper. You probably won’t need much salt, as the samphire itself is quite salty. Fry, stirring, for couple of minutes, until all ingredients are warmed through.

4. Add the cream, and warm through.

Pheasant breast and confit leg

I was practicing my butchery skills with this dish, as I bought the whole bird, but if you don’t want to get your hands messy you can buy these ready prepared. There are a couple of things to keep in mind when cooking wild game: it is very lean meat, so care should be taken not to overcook it, as it will get tough otherwise. Also, it’s good to remember that the meat might contain a pellet or two on occasion. I served my pheasant with puy lentils and quinoa, roasted parsnips and steamed tenderstem broccoli.

Confit leg
sea salt
ground black pepper
thyme leaves
2 dl vegetable oil
2 dl duck fat
2 garlic cloves

Breast
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
ground black pepper
thyme leaves

Sauce
2 shallots
1 thyme stalk
1 dl port wine
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 dl chicken stock
1 tbsp grainy mustard
salt
black pepper

1. Rub some sea salt, ground black pepper and thyme leaves on the legs. Cover with cling film, and rest in the fridge for 1-2 hours.

2. Wash the salt rub off the legs, and pat dry the them. Heat the oil – fat mixture to very low temperature, including garlic cloves and thyme stalk. Place the legs in the oil, and cook on very low heat for 3 hours. Make sure you have enough oil/fat to cover the meat.

3. Whilst the legs are cooking, marinate the breast, cover and place in the fridge for couple of hours.

4. Finely chop shallots, and fry in olive oil together with the thyme stalk until shallots are translucent. Add port, sherry vinegar and stock, and reduce by boiling uncovered until desired thickness. Add grainy mustard, check the taste and add salt and pepper if needed.

5. Pan fry the breasts for 1 minute, skin side down. Turn skin side up, and place in preheated oven 200°C / 390°F for 10 minutes.