17 March 2024

Champagne!

We got the day before these fresh scallops from Norway, by someone we know who imports fine meats, fishes and cheeses from France (plus a few other countries) for Helsinki's finest restaurants. On a side note, we're among the privileged ones who have unrestricted access to the importer's whole catalogue of goodies outside restaurant's professionals. 
So, with these premium scallops, I decided to do a classic french recipe: "Coquilles St Jacques sauce au Champagne", or "Scallops in a Champagne sauce". First the shells are open (4/pers), the meat is delicately removed, cleaned, washed, and put on the side. All the bits and trims are washed as well, and put in a deep pan with an onion, some bay leaves, black pepper, salt, and put to the boil to make a light stock. Once the stock done, it's time to make the sauce itself. You finely chop a shallot and make it sweat in butter. Once translucent, add a glass of Champagne brut, and half a glass of stock (for 2 pers.). Let the liquid gently boil until reduced to half. Remove the shallots bits and add a couple of spoons of creme fraiche, salt and white pepper. Let further reduce until it reaches a creamy consistency. At the end, you can add a bit more Champagne, but it's entirely up to you. It's possible as well to add a few small cubes of cold butter and/or a few drops of lemon, but it's not mandatory. Now it's time to deal with the scallops. You take a pan and add a generous amount of unsalted butter. Once the butter is of a light brown color and foamy, cook the scallops for 1min. each side (depending of the size, the scallops should be soft when touched with the finger, not ferm). Now, pour some sauce on a hot plate and dispose the scallops on top of it. Finally, drizzle a bit of chopped chive (or parsley/dill) and serve immediately. In our case, the scallops are served with a light cauliflower puree. Ideally, you serve this dish with a Champagne or a premium Bourgogne white. If you have money to spare, go for a Bâtard-Montrachet, a Corton-Charlemagne, a Meursault Grand Cru, or a Chablis Grand Cru (the list goes on and on). Otherwise, a Puligny-Montrachet or a Pouilly-Fuissé will do just fine. For us, the wine of choice was a Bâtard-Montrachet 2011 from Oliver Leflaive (bought in France).
I don't think you can find this kind of dish in a Helsinki restaurant at the moment (the only one I see could be "Palace"), but if you organise a dinner party with some (good) friends, do that dish. It's sure to bring the "wow factor" around the table.




10 December 2023

The taste of stillness

 CAFE DEL MAR give me a better world 

02 December 2023

2 in 1


Back in september, we bought a few kilos of "cèpes" (penny bun or boletus mushrooms), cleaned them, chopped them, vacuumed them in bags and finally frozed them with a view to use them at a alter time. 
The time now has come. The ingredients seen in the pic above make 2 recipes possible: "Cèpes à la bordelaise" and "omelette aux cèpes". You gently fry a persillade (chopped garlic & parsley) in duck fat, then add the mushrooms, add black pepper & salt and let fry for a few min. Served with some good bread, you have cèpes à la bordelaise. 2nd recipe: you break and beat some organic eggs (2/pers) that you add in the mushrooms/persillade mix, then you have an omelette aux cèpes. 2 great french recipes. One last thing: recipes being from the city/area of Bordeaux, you need, a wine from that area to truly enjoy the mushrooms, like a Pomerol, Saint-Émilion, Saint-Estèphe or Pauillac.

16 November 2023

Starfield Deep

I'm currently playing Bethesda's space opera/rpg/fps "Starfield", which in my opinion is one of the most complelling game I've played in recent years. Anyway, when on Neon, some missions brought you to the local disco, the "Astral Lounge". And the music played in there was a surprisingly good Deep House with some spatial flavor. The first time I went in I stopped to listen the music, then realised after a while that 15min. had already passed (no wonder you can play Starfield for 100s of hours). Below you'll find 2 tracks - I think the entire playlist should be around 10. Of course if you're not in electronic music, don't bother and move  along. And if you haven't try the game yet, give it a go. Worth of your gaming time.






21 October 2023

09 September 2023

28 August 2023

Let's chill the best we can

 COMFORT Rhodes chill 


For more Chillout & Lounge tracks, hit the tag "chillout/lounge" below.
Hit the tag "music" for the entire music library (deep house, chill house,
chillout, lounge,  downtempo, disco, funk, rap, 80s, etc...)

26 August 2023

Classic french dessert wine

We hosted a dinner party last evening (again), the occasion for us to open for our finnish guests a bottle of what is probably one of the most famous french sweet wine: the "Monbazillac". The great thing with this wine is that you can drink it at the end of a dinner/lunch... or at the beginning with e.g. "foie gras". Not the most pricey (even though some bottles can challenge your pocket depending of the vintage), but certainly one of the most popular, at least in France. Best drunk slightly chilled at around 12°C.
Can be found sometimes in Alko webshop.


 

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