10 years already

 AMY WINEHOUSE love is losing game 😢

As Peter once said...

... We wanna be free! We wanna be free to do what we wanna do. And we wanna get loaded. And we wanna have a good time. And that's what we're gonna do, we're gonna have a good time. We're gonna have a party. (Peter Fonda in "Heavenly Blues" 1966)

Off to somewhere south with an ocean, a sun and a few bars to get loaded...

"Best" is the word

Our last dinner out in Helsinki prior to Covid was ORA almost 18 months ago. Our first since we completed our vaccines is... ORA. Like many people, we've lost months of our social/restaurant life, but after all these dooms and glooms, we were back to our "cantine" and it felt soooo good. And best of all, ORA restaurant is still what he used to be: the best! Best food, best service, best quality/price ratio. Well, we could go on and on for ages. Truly the best restaurant and the best chef in Finland at the moment. And he best way to start our extended holidays. Best indeed.

A little surprise from Sasu. Just and only for the two of us.

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 to lazy to do it at home. Glasses of Père Magloire XO Calvados are the perfect match (bought in France).

Tricky Italy

A good risotto only needs a few ingredients. Good rice, good oil, good broth and in this case good seafood: prawns, octopussy and mussels. The rest is down to your ability with a wooden spoon. Prior to start, you must make a broth. When doing seafood risotto, it's always handy to have a few fish carcasses in your freezer. In this case sea bass. So in there goes the carcasses, onions, carrots, leeks, parsley, bay leaves salt and black pepper in a pot with water and a glass of dry white wine. When the broth has cooked for some time, removes all the bits, then flash cook the prawns for 30sec. the mussels for 1min. and the octopussy pieces for 5min. approx in it. The thing with octopussy is, you cook it either for a short or a long time, but not in between, otherwise you'll end up with rubber in your plate. Reserve the seafood in a sealed tupperware to avoid any dryness. In a cast iron pot, put a few table spoons of olive oil and a piece of butter and let to sweat a finely chopped onion and a garlic clove. Then add some rice and stir for few min. Then the real sport begins. Little by little add the broth while stirring the rice. If you stir it too much, the risotto becomes muddy. Not enough and it'll be watery and not creamy. It's kinda tricky to find the right balance, and it takes some practice. Tbh, I've had my fair share of failures over the years but as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Anyway, when the risotto has almost the right consistency, add a few pieces of fridge cold butter, lemon juice, a bit of chopped parsley, the seafood, and stir gently everything together. Kill the heat, put a lid on, and just let the seafood sucks up the heat without further cooking. A good seafood risotto should be a little runny but not too much, and must be eaten with a spoon.

and so... "Risotto ai Frutti di Mare" with a few glasses of Fontanasanta Manzoni Bianco 2019

New York Style

From Koti Pizza. XL "Frutti di Mare" 51cm diameter. Nuff said !!

 

A slice of heaven

Probably the best raspberry pie (Fazer's Menorca) one can taste in Helsinki. Heavenly good.

Looks like an italian pattern here...

Sometimes, out of the blue, you crave for something in particular. Could be anything, from Nutella to jamón de bellota. At the mo, Saila craves for italian food. So, here's something halfway between a stew and a pasta dish that is not stricto sensu an actual italian recipe, more like a mix of a few existing. So, in a cast iron pot, gently fry a finely chopped onion & 1 garlic clove in olive oil, add more or less dry red chili flakes according to your taste - but this dish should have some heat - and a tin of Mutti arrabbiata tomato sauce (outside homemade sauces, Mutti has the best tomato based products one can buy in finnish supemarkets - of course you can buy as well online, like Amazon Italy), and a glass of good red wine. As a general rule, do not use wines you wouldn't drink otherwise yourselves. After 10min. add about 400gr of fresh spinach and 400gr of fresh italian sausages (those found in Prisma market are particulary tasty), meat removed from the casing and mixed with garlic puree. Let the stew gently cook for 1/2 hour. During that time, cook 250gr of Tofette pasta in salted water. When cooked, add the pastas to the stew, add a few extra spoons of extra virgin olive oil, salt, black pepper, put the lid on and switch off the heat. After 5min. the dish is ready. And so you have...

"Tofette con Salsiccia e Spinaci" with a glass of Amarone della Valpoliccella 2017. Best enjoyed with slices of a good country bread. Parmigiano-Reggiano not recomended in this case.