STEELY M you two
Daily Dinners @ Saila & Jérôme's
A finnish girl and a french guy in Finland. The girl is notoriously bad at cooking but likes to eat. The guy has no other solution but to cook to keep the girl happy. And she likes to drink too. Oh dear...
21 March 2023
19 March 2023
And the Iberico goes on
17 March 2023
Les Petits Plaisirs De La Vie
... or "the small pleasures in life". Like having a glass of Prosecco and a few appetizers under the late winter sun. It's not much, but every opportunity to turn a moment into something joyful should be grabbed with both arms.
12 March 2023
Like professionals
Some time ago, we bought this french waffler "Lagrange Premium" on Amazon because we were not satisfied with what's on offer in the local shops. The great thing with this device is that it has been built based on professional wafflers. Let us explain: with wafflers sold in Finland, you just put the waffle dough, close the waffler, let it cook for a few min. and that's it. With Lagrange, you do the same BUT, in mid-cooking, you flip the waffler upside down. By doing this, the dough cook evenly, which is the all important when you do thick waffles. Another difference is that you can cook a multitude of different stuffs by switching the cast iron cooking plates, like the real french or belgian waffles (the rectangular ones 2cm thick) paninis, bagels from scratch, croques-monsieur, even pieces of meat like entrecôtes, etc... The waffler's price depends on the bundle you buy (how many different sets of cooking plates are included) from roughly 130€ to 180€. A user's manual with lots of recipes and tips (also in english & german) is provided with. You can buy extra plates (cast iron coated with teflon) at a cost of around 45€/set. It's not precisely cheap, but because of its versatility, the super easy way to use it and its all round top quality, to buy a Lagrange Premium Waffler is a no brainer. At least it wasn't for us.
11 March 2023
Home vs 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!
05 March 2023
Turkish breakfast delight
Back in october 2022, we ventured in Kontula to try a Syrian restaurant (see message below "Real Deal"). After that lunch, while strolling among the many ethnic restaurants, cafe and shops in the subway area, we did notice a turkish cafe - "Cafe Sabich", who looked particulary interesting because 1. it was full of customers, which is always a good sign, and 2. because it does turkish breakfast. So, a few weeks ago, we decided to have a go and try it. For 9,50€ you get an omelette with turkish spicy sausage, turkish yogurt seasoned with spices, 3 different kind of cheeses, boiled egg, turkish cold cuts (beef salami & chicken kinda mortadella), tomatoes, cucumber, olives, butter, jams, turkish bread and tea. We did finnish the breakfast with a strong turkish coffee. At that price, you get an incredible value for money as the meal was full of flavors with fresh ingredients, a very friendly service and a super clean place. Easily on par with most breakfast you can find in city center and/or hotels, and at a fraction of a price. One last thing, they do breakfast all day long!