Spice up your life

It's now easy to cook ethnic food in a city like Helsinki, as long as you know where to go to buy the right ingredients. There are 2 main areas (and surely more, but we don't know them, yet) where you can find specialized groceries: Hakaniemi & Itis. Itis is probably the best bet, as most newer immigrants from the middle east live in the eastern part of the city. Indeed, there's a large choice among the many restaurants, bakeries or groceries in the area, mainly from Syria, Irak, Turkey, and a few other countries. And when we are there, we always go to Alanya grocery, to re-supply in spices. They probably have the largest choice of spices form all over the world (they have 2 shops: one in the Itis mall basement, the other one 200m away in Puhos, where most bakeries are located - and boy, the smell there!). So, to make a (little) middle eastern feast at home is easy peasy. 

Inside Alanya shop, with a whole wall full of spices in all shapes and forms.

So, to make Köfte (or Kofta, depending the country), we used organic minced lamb and beef 50/50, lots of finely chopped yellow onions and fresh coriander, a few table spoons of Köfte Baharati spice mix, a bit of lemon juice, salt and black pepper. Once mixed well, to the fridge for an hour or so to rest.

The Köfte are grilled on charcoal with specially designed turkish flat skewers.

And here we are. A little middle eastern feast at home.

The Köfte are served on a freshly baked bed of flat bread bought in a syrian bakery, with a thick turkish yogurt (seasoned with shredded cucumber, garlic, mint, lemon, bit of cayenne red pepper, and olive oil), sliced red onions, fresh coriander and pieces of lemon. On a side note, when you buy breads (there are lots of different varieties) in a bakery in Puhos, they're most of the time oven hot and ready to be eaten on the spot if you want to. A true delish to be experienced.

A taboule salad rich in herbs completes the menu. The wine (Tavel Rosé) is from France. This kind of wine is a great match for spicy food. Alternately, you can enjoy a turkish yogurt drink "Ayran", natural or mint flavored (a bit like piimä), sold as well in Alanya shop.

Good Vibes

 CHRISTOPHE GOZE the nightfly 

Des moules, des frites.

It's been a while since we cooked mussels at home, but when strolling in K-Citymarket Easton, we noticed that they had smaller mussels than usual. Let us explain: until recently, blue mussels from Denmark were the ones you generally found in shops. They're fine - let's say - for paellas or risottos, but way too big for a whole platter degustation (well you can stuff them with garlic butter and cook them under a very hot oven grill for a few minutes). The mussels we bought this time were from Sweden, and were much like the smaller ones one can find in the north of France and in Belgium (we have a shared gastro history with our belgian cousins). So here we are with "moules à la crème", or mussels in a cream sauce. Dead easy to prepare really: in a deep casserole/marmite, finely chop an onion or shallot and some parsley, add a full glass of dry Muscadet, salt and black pepper. Bring to the boil for a couple of minutes, throw the mussels in, and cook them lid on for 1 to 2 minutes. Add a few spoons of very thick cream (the thicker/richer the better), gently stir a bit, and serve with crispy french fries. If you decide not to add cream, they become "moules à la marinière", as there are lots of different recipes to enjoy (with beer, cider, different cheeses to add to the cream, curry, tomatoes, etc... the list goes on and on). 

If we do the home vs restaurant thing again, we paid for this lunch for 2 around 35€ (2kg of mussels, onion + parsley, cream, a bag of fries, 1 bottle of Muscadet). Now, if you go to "Belge Bar & Bistro" restaurant on Keskuskatu, you'll pay for 1 person:

... Wine or beers not included of course. But if customers are willing to pay that kind of money, restaurants would be crazy not to milk them dry.

Oh and btw, there's no such thing as mussels in lobster broth, or creamy garlic broth, or beurre blanc (usually served only with fishes). On the north coast of France, a marmite of mussels + fries will cost you 12-15€ max depending were you are.

Fête Nationale

To celebrate the "Fête Nationale du 14 juillet" (french national day 14th of july), we grilled in the garden under the evening sun. This is the same meat from the message "grilling with airfryer" (scroll down a bit /or use tag: beef), namely Atria's "World's Best Steak" marble beef, which is arguably among the best money can buy in this country. The difference with the larger piece we previously cooked in the airfryer is, that we trimmed the excess fat to to make 2 tournedos / chateaubriands - 250gr each. The meat - seasoned with sea salt & black pepper - is then grilled approx. 5min. each side to be red and juicy - at roughly 55° inside each piece. Once the grilling's done and the meat rested a bit, it is served with a bearnaise. A green salad and a bottle of Châteauneuf du Pape L'Oratoire des Papes 2022 complete the dinner.

Frozen raspberry

In a blender, put some ice cubes, scoops of raspberry sorbet, fresh raspberries, a few drops of raspberry syrup, and a generous dash of vodka or gin. Blend the mix well and pour in a frozen glass. At first, the drink  has a light puree consistency, but as it becomes warmer, it liquifies. This recipe works for lots of fruits like strawberries or pineapples (using white rum), as long as you can find the corresponding sorbets (most of the time in K-Citymarkets). Alcohol is not mandatory but...

 

World cuisine or just a big mess?

Yakitoris with airfryer, bad idea? 

Any japanese worthy of the name would do seppuku at the sight of the pic below. Traditionally, the japanese use a shichirin (long and narrow grill using binchōtan wood for grilling at very high temp.) to cook their skewers. But since we live in Finland, finding a working shichirin is easier said than done. Airfryer then!

We prepared a marinade with japanese teriyaki base sauce, sake, garlic, lime, a bit of sesame oil, and Shishimi Togarashi (japanese spice mix). Pieces of organic chicken have been left soaking in that mix for a couple of hours in the fridge, then cooked for approx. 12min, the time for the meat to reach 71°.

Since we still had a rack of pork ribs in the freezer, we decided to have it along the skewers, using the same marinade with a bit of added honey for better caramelization (ribs recipe below). 

From there, things went sideways: the meat is served with a moroccan taboule salad with lots of herbs like mint, coriander, etc... (recipe in this blog), homemade marinated red onions (white vinegar, water, sugar, black peeper corns, left in the fridge a couple of days before use), Pirkka hummus heavily customized with olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, and cayenne pepper powder, and middle eastern flat bread (not on the pic) To go along, a chilled bottle of "Arthur Metz Pinot Noir Rosé" from Alsace. 

So... Morrocanese? Japanan? Or just yummi.

Where are the dogs?

It's kinda tricky to find joints in Helsinki selling hot dogs outside the occasional late night food trucks. The only places where you're sure to find some any hour of the day are the gas stations. And this exactly where we've been to... 

Melba... again

Pieces of Polka strawberries topped by a scoop of italian vanilla ice cream, and burried under a (very) generous amount of whipped cream. We were so eager to eat that thing that we didn't bother making strawberry sauce, or to roast some slivered almonds.