Itsenäisyyspäivä the french way

The finnish Independance Day (december 6) deserve something special for dinner, to celebrate the event properly. And so we made a veal entrecôte "à la normande" (the Normandy way). The entrecôtes are seared a couples minutes each side, and flambé with calvados (apple brandy). Once it's done, put the meat on the side, and deglaze the pan with a glass of dry french cider (from Normandy or Brittany, depending on what you can find in shops). Add a bit of veal stock, let reduce the liquid for a few minutes, then add a few spoons of thick cream (like crème fraiche), salt & pepper, and put the entrecôtes back in the sauce to finish the cooking. The meat should be pink, and soft when touched with a finger. During this time, cut in slices or cubes a few acidic apples (like granny smith), and gently roast them in butter, add a bit of black pepper and a pinch a caster sugar until almost soft. They should have a bit of crunchiness left in them. Dress the plate sauce first, then the meat, and finally the apples on top. Serve with a light red from the Loire valley, or why not a chilled bottle of cider. Delish.

Cherries on top

Today is the french national day (called the Bastille Day in anglo-saxon countries), and for the occasion we're making a classic french dessert, a "Clafoutis aux Cerises" or cherry clafoutis. The recipe below comes from - believe it or not - a tv program magazine called "Télé 7 Jours" (7 days tv). Since the 60s, the mag dedicates its back pages with easy to do food recipes, and last time we were in France, I took photos of some of them.

So, for 6 pers. you need 500g of cherries, 90gr of caster sugar, 3 eggs, 60g of cornstarch, 25cl of  plain milk, and 20g of unsalted melted butter. 

First you whip the eggs and sugar until the mixture becomes almost white, then add the cornstarch, the milk and butter and gently whip some more.

Preheat the oven to 180°, then take a oven plate and generously grease its surface with a piece of butter. Add the cherries, pour the batter on top, and to the oven for 30-40 min. Dead easy.

(the recipe says 30 min. but it's better to leave the cake a little longer, as in my experience, it's always a good idea to be flexible and not to follow instructions to the letter; you should always adapt them according to your needs and tastes, like a little more of this or a little less of that, or try different fruits like apricots, apples, pears, or even add a bit of alcohol in the batter like calvados or brandy, etc...)

There you go: Clafoutis aux Cerises. Yummi!

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.

It's all about Melba

"Fraise Melba" or strawberry melba is the true embodiment of a summer dessert.

Italian vanilla ice cream, fresh strawberries & homemade whipped cream. Because the berries are at their best now, it's not necessary to add strawberry and/or chocolate sauce. A few crushed roasted hazelnuts/almonds on top are an option, as well as italian sponge biscuits soaked with strawberry liquor or Amaretto at the bottom. Works great with raspberries as well. On par with what can be found in restaurants... if not better really!

A la provençale

"A la provençale" means in the way of Provence, or more generally the mediterranean way. When in France, the original recipe usually uses a whole sea bream (or any kind of mediterranean fishes) and a slightly different veggies mix. Being in Finland, the most common fish found in most supermarkets is salmon. You can do it as well with sea bass (k-citymarket Sello, Hakaniemi market hall's fishmongers, or the best bet's Tukkutorin Kala in Teurastamo have such fishes from time to time). Here, the salmon has been skinned, cut in stripes and laid on an oiled aluminium foil. The fish is then covered with slices of peeled lemon, tomatoes, grilled zucchinis, caramelized onions, chopped black olives and garlic, and drizzled with homemade chili oil and sea salt (a dash of dry white wine can be added as well). The foil is then folded to form an hermetic pocket, and into an hot oven for approx.15min. 

Super easy to do and not very expensive - depending of the fish, it makes for a really tasty summer lunch.

That smell...

Char-grilled salmon and béarnaise sauce are a match made in heaven. At least in France. Served with crushed potatoes with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and chopped parsley. Add a bottle of Puligny-Montrachet and it's perfect. So simple and yet so damn delicious.

Easter Lamb

An arch classic dish from the french gastro repertoire is the "Gigot d'Agneau Flageolets" or leg of lamb with flageolet beans. There is no escape. When you do lamb, you have to serve it with flageolets. A bit like like fish & lemon, or pastas & Parmiggiano Regiano. Unfortunately for the french living in Finland, this kind of beans is not sold in the country. The only way is to buy online (Amazon). Pity really because the locals have no idea how good these beans are, full of flavors (a cross between white beans and peas), soft and delicates, and an absolute match made in heaven with the lamb. 

This is a 1.5kg leg of organic young lamb from Ahvenanmaa, which is probably the best you can find in Helsinki. Small incisions have been made all around the leg and been stuffed with with freshly made garlic puree. Then the leg has been rubbed with the rest of the puree mixed with a bit of extra virgin olive oil and sea salt.

Now, there are some rules when you cook lamb. The golden rule is, when you do use quality meat like this one, that it should be cooked pink. Otherwise it would be a total waste. To start with, the meat should be at room temperature and not cold. It's a good idea to have it out of the fridge at the very least 2 hours in advance. Usually, the cooking time is 15min. at 220° per 500gr. and the meat temperature should be between 50°-55° (the use of an electronic oven thermometer is essential in this case). So for this leg, knowing that the ratio meat/ bone is roughly 2/3-1/3, we did cook it for almost 40min. the meat being at 53° when out of the oven.

The leg has been resting with a sheet of aluminium on top for 10min. The meat is now moist, juicy and tender, ready to be carved.

There you go: Gigot d'Agneau Flageolets.

Traditionally, a roasted leg of lamb is served with a Bordeaux, like a Pauillac, or a Côte Rôtie (Rhone). At first, we were leaning toward the 2nd, when we did spot this lonely bottle in Alko Stockmann: "Bruno Rocca Barbaresco 2018". This light fruity italian red was described as specifically for the lamb, and indeed was a great match. Superb.

Du pain, du vin, du Boursin*

"Boursin" is a national institution. A monument in the french gastro folklore.

Most children are introduced to the world of cheeses through Boursin - along with 2 other classics "Babybel" and "La vache qui rit". Since its creation in the 60s, generations of french have enjoyed this garlic & parsley flavored fresh cheese, and I could bet my life that there isn't a single french who doesn't know about it. There are many ways to eat it: spread on bread or in sandwiches, with eggs, mixed in sauces, or like us on a baked potato. While slowly melting on the hot potato, the Boursin releases its engaging garlicky scents that makes you really hungry. And it's super yummi.

Can be found - sometimes - in Prisma or K-City market.

* "bread, wine, Boursin" refers to the commercial slogan used for over 20 years on tv.

With the Boursin baked potato, a few pieces of grilled pork tenderloin and a salad (as well as strong Dijon mustard). A few glasses of a light Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil bought in France complete the dinner. 

Home v Restaurant

It's not because it's still snowy outside that we can't grill things. And because we have kilos of premium beef cuts in our freezer, we keep grilling in the cold finnish evenings like maniacs. With the grilled meat, we decided to skip potatoes altogether, and make a celeriac mash, as well as a wine sauce, or as we call it in France "sauce marchand de vin" (wine merchant sauce). For the mash, we cut a kg of celeriac in cubes. Then the cubes were placed in a sealed vacuumed bag, and cook in hot water until tender. When the celeriac was cooked, the bag was opened, and the cubes were mashed with a bit of cream (crème fraiche or even sour cream are good options here), butter, white pepper and salt. As for the sauce, we peeled, cut, and gently fried until soft 1/2 kg of shallots. Then 1 bottle of red wine (spanish Tempranillo) was added (when reaching boiling point, the wine was flamed to remove the acrity), as well as some fresh thyme. Once the wine was reduced by half in a gentle boiling, all the bits were removed and a small bottle of veal stock was added. Then we let reduce the liquid further until it became like a syrup. At that point cubes of fridge cold butter were gently added, as well as black pepper and salt. And voila! Can't even begin to imagine the price in a restaurant for a dinner like this. Hopefully we don't have to!

Almost a kg of Atria's Premium Entrecote - winner of the World's Best Steak Challenge 2019 - cooked 11min. each side for rare (14min. for medium rare)

Without the sauce

With the sauce

Charcuterie

If you go to Stockmann food market (city center), you can now buy this "Pâté en Croûte Richelieu" - or pâté in a pastry crust "Richelieu". This is the exact same pâté on sale in most french food markets at roughly the same price (30€/kg). As a french, I can eat kilos of this stuff, as it is one of my all-time favorite. If you haven't tried it yet buy some, and like me, you'll be soon addicted. As far as I know and unlike in France, it's only on sale at around the end of the year for Christmas.

We served the pâté at dinner with a bit of italian cold cuts...

... with some more french pâtés (chilli & mushrooms), olives and baby gherkins.

Bottles of Amore della Valpolicella Zenato Classico 2017 complete the dinner.

 

Juhannus "à la française"

The "Juhannus" tradition in Finland is about to go to sauna. Then swim in lakes or elsewhere. Then grill some things, usually sausages but not only. And to drink, reasonably or not. The point is to be with friends and or family and have a good time. So...

1kg of thick premium entrecôte for 4 pers.

grilled rare to perfection...

served with green beans with persillade, and strong Dijon mustard...

followed by some stinky french cheeses...

all washed down with bottles of Pommard "Grand Clos des Épenots" 1er Cru 2010

(bought online on a french site specialized in Bourgogne wines)

from Toulouse with sausage

The "saucisse de Toulouse" takes its name from the south-west city where she was first created. There are many ways to cook it: gill. pan, oven, in stew or with the french classic "cassoulet". Its taste is very characteristic and can't be mistaken for another sausage. When in France, it's usually bought fresh from the butcher shop. Of course here in Finland, since there's no french butchers - at least not in Helsinki - it can only be found packed (Stockmann Food Market - Aleksanterinkatu), but it's already good to have that.

The unpacked sausage.

First, the sausage is pan fried for a few min. in sunflower oil. It's not a good idea to use olive oil in this case, because it becomes too hot too quickly, and the sausage would grill too much or being burned.

Then chopped garlic is added, a glass or two of dry white or red wine, a few cherry tomatoes, a bit of "Pasta Rossa" spice mix (found in most supermarkets), salt & black pepper. The dish is cooked for 20min. lid on. When ready, chopped parsley and a few table spoons of extra virgin olive oil are added, and it's ready to serve. Can be eaten by itself with a good bread, or with a creamy mash or polenta, or in our case with sauté potatoes. Not very expensive, super easy to do, and truly yammi.

No explanations needed

Classic french

This piece of Artic Char & the organic white aspargus (Stockmann Itis) have been steamed for a few min. and served with an hollandaise (recipe elsewhere in this blog). Perfect for an "almost spring" evening (sunny but cold) and relatively inexpensive, compared to restaurants.

Because Bourgogne whites are best for fish, shellfish, or crustaceans, we have opened a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé "Château- Fuissé Tête de Cuvée 2019" (Alko - Stockmann Aleksanterinkatu). Perfect.

 

World grocery

Wanna eat french? Like the french? And not paying over the odds in Hki local delis or restaurants? Then go shopping on Amazon. Simple!

Buying in large quantities reduces prices and delivery fees. And of course, the same apply for italian food, or spanish, etc... And you can even buy wines.

Comme en France

 

If you have a "french" sweet tooth, and if you don't know it yet, the classic "Tarte aux Pommes Normande" is on sale at Stockmann Food Market (has been for a few years anyway). Albeit frozen, this classic creamy french apple pie is not bad at all. The only down is the crust which tastes a bit... industrial. But hey, we're already happy to be able to buy some when too lazy to do it at home. Glasses of "Père Magloire XO Calvados" are the perfect match (bought in France).

Simplicity

No need to go for complicated food recipes when you use good ingredients: 1/2kg of  Black Angus filet grilled rare, a few potatoes oven baked in duck fat with a "persillade", a green salad, and a bottle of Flor de Pingus 2016. The simpler the better.