About the Soufflé

Shakshuka

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 15:30:00 +0300

During weekdays I often browse through possible breakfast and brunch foods to cook in the weekends. I was not familiar with Israeli brunch food shakshuka until I bumped into this and this recipe. The pictures were so beautiful that even though I was doubtful about tomato sauce combined with eggs I wanted to give it a try.

And yes it worked. I think eggs are always a must at brunch, in form or another. With tomato sauce they again have a different flavor than when eating scrambled or fried. And as the original recipes say, this dish is extremely adaptable! I also did not follow the recipe, but made it my own version based on what we happened to have at home. This recipe works perfectly like that, as you can mix in different vegetables, different cheese and for example beans, lentils or even sausage of your choice. I had English cheshire cheese in my fridge, but you can as well use feta cheese, cheddar, goat cheese or ricotta, for example.

A friend of mine who lived in Israel told that shakshuka works even better with hummus spread on the sides of your pan. Wipe the hummus and shakshuka with a piece of fresh bread and enjoy the flavors together. Sounds really worth a try!

Here’s my adaptation.

Israeli Shakshuka (serves 2)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 small green bell pepper, chopped in small cubes

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon chili flakes, or to taste

400g jar chopped tomatoes

1 tablespoon tomato paste

freshly ground black pepper and Himalayan pink salt

pinch of sugar

1 handful of baby spinach, roughly chopped

1 can of chickpeas, drained

50g English cheshire cheese, crumbled

4 eggs

fresh cilantro to garnish

Preheat oven to 200° C.

Sautée onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet until the onion softens and gets transparent color. Add cubed bell pepper and sautée for a few minutes more.

Add cumin, paprika and chili and stir to incorporate.

Lower the heat to medium-low. Mix in chopped tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper and sugar. Add spinach and chickpeas and let bubble gently for a few minutes.

Move the mixture in two small oven-safe skillets or pans. Sprinkle with cheese crumbs.

Make two holes in the tomato mixture and carefully crack the eggs in the holes.

Place the skillets in the oven and bake until the eggs have settled. Mine got a bit over-cooked, don’t you let yours to do that ;-)

Top with cilantro and serve with freshly baked bread.

Green Asparagus and Broccoli Pizza

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:59:26 +0300

I think for starters I should admit something. I did not succeed in my cleansing diet of just green and superfood that I last blogged of. I feel kind of embarrassed about it, but on the other hand I realized something: for me food is primarily, and utterly, about enjoyment. When I had raw spinach, broccoli and arugula for dinner, without salt, just a splash of olive oil, I didn’t enjoy it. Instead of wishing the portion would last forever, so that I could keep eating, I wished it would end soon. Eating felt like an obligation, just to fill my stomach and be done with it.

And I don’t want that! I love food, I want to be happy for every bit of it! So I realized that these diets are not for me. Not even this kind of lifestyle is for me. But I can keep these healthy bits in my diet, and give up some less healthy things in it. One thing I cannot give up is pizza. I think my blog activity doesn’t give a correct image of how much we actually eat pizza. We basically never, or at least veeeery rarely eat pizza out, because I love doing it from beginning to end, and we both enjoy getting our favorite toppings in our pizzas.

This time I gave a go to asparagus in pizza. I never tried it before, but it was delicious! And you know, asparagus is one of my definitive favorite veggies. Sautéed broccoli gave it a nice twist, and this white version goes also to those (like S) who don’t like tomato in their pizza that much. So based on this experiment I would highly recommend this crunchy piece of spring to anyone out there :-)

White Pizza with Asparagus and Broccoli

Pizza dough:

See recipe here. This amount makes two medium pizzas.

Toppings:

300g green asparagus, washed and tough ends trimmed

150g broccoli, washed and cut into small florets

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 tablespoons lemon juice

250g fresh mozzarella (2 balls), sliced

150g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)

2 handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese

Pine nuts

Salt & black pepper

Prepare the dough with recipe above. Once it has doubled in size, roll it into two balls, and then roll both of them out into two pizza bases. Place the bases over parchment paper.

Preheat oven into 275° or as hot as it gets. If you use a pizza stone, let it get hot in the oven too while it heats up.

Sautée the broccoli florets over high heat in a frying pan with olive oil until they get just slightly burned from the smallest tips. Spice up with a splash of lemon juice, salt and black pepper.

Using a cheese slicer or a peeler slice the asparaguses from ends all the way to the top, forming beautiful green strips.

Spread the cream cheese evenly on both pizza bases. Top with handfuls of parmesan cheese (as said many times, DON’T ever use the ready grated “cheese”) and arrange the sliced mozzarella balls on top, evenly.

Spread the sliced asparagus and sautéed broccoli on top of the cheese. Sprinkle with pine nuts and some olive oil and bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes depending on the temperature of your oven.

Say Green for Good

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 18:56:00 +0300

Today I’m not gonna write a recipe post. I’m gonna write about the color green! And a little bit of the expensiveness of food in Finland.

My friend has been updating detox statuses on Facebook lately. It has seemed like a great thing, so it made me think about myself and my eating habits too. Last night I was already in bed when it hit me: I love greasy, sugary food a little bit too much, don’t I? I love the taste of chocolate and the feeling after eating a huge bowl of pasta. This cannot continue, I said to S and immediately decided to make a change. For five days from now I would give my body a chance to clean itself - detox, as they say. No wheat, no fast carbs, no sugar, soy products or dairy products. Then gradually I would take the previous back in my diet, but not in excessive amounts, not daily.

The night I didn’t sleep very sound. I was probably waiting eagerly for my healthy week. I woke up, had a cup of white tea instead of my daily morning latte and went to work. After 30 minutes of work I was yawning, my energy levels were somewhere below the ground and I could not think clearly. I NEEDED my daily drug dosis, I couldn’t start my engine without coffee. Pretty soon I realized I was going to do an interview IN A CHAMPAGNE BAR, TASTING CHAMPAGNE AND CAKES today. Something I had forgotten, so bye bye my plan. And so I got myself a grande cup of coffee and the life smiled again.

When I left the bar after we got the work done I felt so bad. I had just had simply wonderful taste experiences but it was not something I felt comfortable with. So I went to the supermarket and started to look for something…..GREEN. I bought spinach, kale, arugula, asparagus, broccoli, pink grapefruit, zucchini, beets, quinoa, beluga lentils, agave syrup, cashew nut butter and pomegranate & white tea juice. Most of this organic. All this cost me more than 40 euros. Can you imagine? So basically I become more sure that eating healthy, clean food is a privilege of chosen people (not me). For instance, a small bag or kale cost me 3 euros, 400 grams of asparagus 4,50 euros and agave syrup 7,90 euros! I don’t like to complain, but come on, it’s so much cheaper to buy the frozen pizza with 2 euros, so I don’t wonder people do exactly that.

Now, with my fridge full of greens I would like to know what to do with them, and I’m especially interested in the green smoothies. Any suggestion of great flavor combinations, of super smoothies with great health benefits? I also have coconut oil and hemp seeds to use in them, so all recipes would be great!

This post, by the way, doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a recipe for pizza in my next post…actually it might just be! ;-)

Eggs Benedict with Asparagus

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:42:29 +0200

Eggs Benedict, or Oscar Benedict, or my own version between those two. Good morning, it’s Easter Saturday! And only for celebrating the four-days holiday I decided to prepare a nice home brunch. Last night I made a dinner for me and S, the main course being Finnish whitefish and mashed potatoes with white wine sauce. The result was rather disappointing, I will tell you later about it. So my hopes were not that high when I started to prepare the brunch: poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and asparagus.

To be honest, this was my first time ever preparing the very original Hollandaise. I have made before something similar, with less chance to ruin it completely. But this time it was fo’ real. And it turned out perfectly! As did the poached eggs! S was on a computer doing stuff, and sometimes asking what’s happening in the kitchen when he could only hear happy shouts of joy - like “ahh! beautiful! deliccccciouussss! I made it!”

For both Hollandaise and poached eggs I used a video recipe by a Finnish daily newspaper. That helped a lot more than just reading the recipe, so probably would be a good thing to do if you’re not familiar with the preparation style.

So here’s my version of eggs benedict. With this I served a self-baked pita bread, even traditionally you should have your eggs benedict with an English muffin. Also toast would do!

Enjoy the Easter days with good brunches!

Almost Eggs Benedict with Asparagus (for 2)

A small bunch of green asparagus, washed and ends trimmed if necessary

salt

Bring water to a boil in a tall saucepan and add salt. Place the bunch of asparagus into the water, ends down. Cook asparagus (bound together with a rubber band) for around 2-3 minutes. Serve immediately.

Poached eggs:

2 liters water

1 dl spirit vinegar

2-3 eggs

Bring water almost to a boil in a wide saucepan. Keep the heat relatively low, if you let it boil, you will get scrambled eggs instead of poached. Add vinegar.

Crack each egg into a cup individually. Don’t break the yolk.

Create a whirlpool in the saucepan by spinning the water around for a few rounds with a wooden spoon.

Place the cup with an egg very close to the surface of the water and drop the egg at once in the middle of the whirlpool.

Keep giving the water a gentle spin every now and then, so that the egg keeps slightly moving all the time. It’s ready when the egg white is set, for a few minutes. The yolk is supposed to be runny so don’t overcook.

Lift the eggs out of the pan and place on a paper towel to drain.

Repeat with the rest of the eggs.

Hollandaise sauce:

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 egg yolks

150 g butter

salt, pepper

In a saucepan or microwave melt half of the butter. Collect the white whey off the butter so that it becomes clear yellow in color.

Place a small, thick-bottomed saucepan on a stove over a very low heat. I heated my electric stove for 10 minutes with the lowest heat and then turned it off, using the after heat to make the sauce. You can also use bain marie, but be careful not to heat it too hot. If you use too high heat the eggs will cook and the sauce curdle.

Add lemon juice and the yolks in the pan and start stirring constantly. Do not stop but keep whisking for 5 minutes or until the mixture starts to get thicker and is very light yellow in color.

Keep whisking vigorously and add first the melted butter in a thin string in to the pan. When all incorporated add the firm butter in cubes, still whisking (I know this asks for some muscles, eh).

When all is incorporated, let warm up a bit, then spice with salt and pepper and serve on top of toasted bread, poached eggs and asparagus.

Pasha, Russian Easter Dessert

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:38:59 +0200

First of all, let me start with my amusement caused by the fact that in English the traditional Russian Easter dessert I’m going to present here is called pashka. Now there’s a reason I am going to use the Finnish (& original Russian) name pasha for this delicious dessert, as the English one doesn’t really make justice to it. Why? Because in Finnish pashka means something that comes out of you after you have eaten your pasha, so we better not go further with that.

Last Easter I blogged about the traditional Finnish Easter dessert mämmi, which is made of rye flour, malts and sugar, and typically served with double cream. But pasha…my favorite of all the Easter desserts. Originating from Russia and into the Orthodox Christian Easter tradition it has also found its way to Finland probably centuries ago. Many might know we have a lot of Russian influence here after being under the Russian rule in the 19th century, and pasha is one of those. In Russia pasha is traditionally prepared on Good Friday and enjoyed as a dessert or with afternoon coffee, typically with kulich, a sweet Easter cake.

The recipe of pasha varies depending on who does the treat and where. The two main ingredients, however, stay. They are butter and quark, a thick, sour and very low-fat milk product, typical here in the North. Actually I think I have mentioned quark in my other posts too, wondering what it might be called in other countries. Might also be cottage cheese in the US, for example. Am I any right? With the main ingredients there are many ways to spice pasha, most common of which are orange, lemon (especially the dried and sugared pieces of lemon peel), raisins and nuts or almonds.

Before starting to make pasha, it’s good to know that this version of it is not a “mix & go” type of a dessert. It’s very quick to prepare, but has to drain at least overnight (mine did for 16 hours and could drain even more). So you need also a cheese cloth and a coffee filter to do the draining.

It was the first time for me to prepare this silky dessert, so I modified the original recipe a little bit to suit better my own taste. The recipe can be found here (in Finnish).

Russian Easter Pasha

100 g butter, slightly softened

1 dl sugar

1 egg

200 g quark

2 dl heavy whipping cream

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 heaping tablespoon orange marmalade

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 dl almond chips or crushed almonds

(1/2 dl raisins)

Lemon/orange peel and almonds to decorate.

Whip the cream until soft peaks lightly form. Using an electric mixer cream together butter and sugar until light in color.

Mix into the butter mixture all the other ingredients and beat gently to incorporate everything.

Line two small or one big steady coffee filter with damp cheese cloth. Spoon the mixture in it until the very top of the filter. Fold the rest of the cheese cloth on the mixture and top with a heavy weight.

Place the filter in a plastic jar where it doesn’t hit the bottom. The excess liquid will drain into the jar without making the pasha wet.

Let drain in a refrigerator for at least 12 hours. Pasha is at its best on the next day.

Breakfast Pizza

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 13:51:00 +0200

I used to be a big fan of breakfasts. Actually, I still am but these days I’m rarely putting effort on cooking them. When we lived in our previous home it was a weekly tradition to cook in the mornings, try different things and new recipes. Now we mostly spend our mornings grabbing something from the fridge, reading news and browsing social media sites before getting into the things to do during the weekend. Both of us would like to change this though, so maybe in the future you’ll indeed see again more breakfast things in the blog.

The following recipe is adapted from the original recipe of Smitten Kitchen. I actually loved the pizza dough so much that I have used the recipe in my pizzas ever since. The particular thing in it is that you refrigerate it overnight, while it won’t grow big, but in the oven give you a perfectly soft and crispy pizza crust. It’s worth all the time it takes! Talking about pizzas, I love making them and I always - always - make my own dough and never buy the ready ones. I think this is essential for a good, crispy and chewy, wonderfully tasty pizza, don’t you? :-)

The original recipe didn’t call for tomato sauce but I used it in my pizza. I just slowly cooked together crushed tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, a pinch of sugar, salt and black pepper. It makes a perfect basic sauce when you let it boil on a low heat for an hour or so.

Here’s the recipe, I suggest you try it our tomorrow morning. A perfect treat for your slow Sunday! This amount makes two medium sized pizzas.

Breakfast Pizza

Dough:

250ml lukewarm water

1/2 teaspoon dry active yeast

5 dl plus 2 tablespoons bread flour, plus more for dusting

salt

Toppings:

tomato sauce, self made or ready bought

ripe cherry tomatoes

ham to taste, I used smoked turkey

50g grated Parmesan

5 dl grated mozzarella

6 large eggs

freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons minced flat-leaf parsley

2 scallions, thinly sliced

The night before prepare the dough.

Place lukewarm water in a warm bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast, stir and let sit for 5 minutes. Add the flour and 1 teaspoon of salt and knead around 5 minutes until it forms a firm dough. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, divide into two equal pieces and form each half into a tight ball. Place the balls in separate bowls, cover with plastic film and refrigerate overnight.

One to two hours before baking, place the dough in a warm spot. Preheat the oven to 275 °C 30 minutes before you are ready to bake the pizza.

Then we’re ready to prepare the pizza.

Dip your hands and a ball of dough into the flour. On a lightly floured countertop, pat the dough into a disc with your fingertips, then drape the dough over your fists and carefully stretch it from beneath to form a circle.

Generously dust the baking sheet (covered with baking paper) with flour and place the stretched dough on it. Spread first a little bit of tomato sauce on the dough. Place the ham on the dough. Sprinkle on top half of the Parmesan, mozzarella and cherry tomatoes. Crack 3 eggs over the top (you can prevent the egg whites from running by forming “walls” of cheese around them) and season with salt and pepper.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on your oven. It’s ready when the crust is golden, the cheese is melted and the egg yolks are cooked. Sprinkle half of the parsley, chives, scallions and shallot on top. Let cool for 2 minutes, slice and serve immediately. Prepare the second pizza in the same way.

About the Soufflé is now also on Facebook! Follow us:...

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 20:55:00 +0200

About the Soufflé is now also on Facebook!

First of all, thanks to each and everyone that you keep following, despite my busy (and sometimes also lazy, I gotta admit) posture on blogging these days. One reason I put up a Facebook page is that I want to get back to the business, I wanna be more active and with a Facebook page you kind of have to. Nobody wants to follow a blogger who never updates anything. And besides, Facebook is all about interaction. I wish to receive comments, participate in discussions all around cooking, baking and of course, Nouvelle vague :-)

My page will be mostly in Finnish, that is my mother tongue and I assume that my audience will mostly be from Finland. However, you are most welcome to start conversations, post recipes/questions/etc. in English and I will answer them just the way I’ve been doing here.

My next recipe will be about a soup that is very, very comforting at these hights right at the moment. As the Finnish winter never seems to end. I mean NEVER. Today it was -12 °C and we’re living March already! I thought I’m gonna start wearing a tee and shorts, just to show the summer she should be coming already. Until the next time! :-)

Chocolate and Guinness Cake Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all the...

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:15:00 +0200

Chocolate and Guinness Cake

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all the Irish – and all of us that just want to celebrate for no reason! I’m one of them, as w edo not celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Finland. But that is a perfect excuse to bake something and have a beer. Or even better, to bake something with beer.

This recipe is both super simple, and SUPER delicious. It was first introduced to me by a friend. I stole a couple of pieces of the cake from the party it was baked for, and could only stop eating it after each and every crumb was finished. It’s chocolaty, it’s dense and moist, and the frosting is super fluffy and light (if you can say light of something that has cream cheese, double cream and sugar in it?). The coolest thing of course is, that the cake resembles a black and white pint of Guinness. I’m not such a fan of stouts myself, so I rather have my Guinness in this form ;-)

If something gives you a small hint of what this cake is all about, is that the original recipe is by Nigella Lawson. Do not save butter, sugar or cream, eat with a good conscience and rememeber it’s a holiday! Ah, and I used salted butter because I think it gives a reasonable depth on the flavors of this cake.

The original recipe asks for a round springform cake tin but I had forgotten mine at the office, so I used a square pan.

Here’s the recipe once more:

St. Patrick’s Day Chocolate Guinness Cake

2,5 dl Guinness

250 g butter

1,8 dl dark cocoa powder

4,5 dl caster sugar

1,5 dl sour cream

2 medium eggs

5 dl plain flour

2,5 teaspoons baking soda

For frosting:

250 g cream cheese

2,5 dl icing sugar

1,25 dl double cream (or heavy cream)

Preheat the oven to 180°C, and butter a 23cm springform tin (or a square 8-inch brownie tin).

Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter - in spoons or slices - and heat until the butter’s melted, at which time you should whisk in the cocoa and sugar. Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the brown, buttery, beery pan and finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

Pour the cake batter into the greased and lined tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour (I took 50 minutes to bake my cake). Leave to cool completely in the tin, as it is quite a damp cake.

When the cake’s completely cold, sit it on a flat platter or cake stand and get on with the icing. Lightly whip the cream cheese until smooth, sieve over the icing sugar and then beat them both together.

Add the cream and beat again until it makes a spreadable consistency. Ice the top of the black cake so that it resembles the frothy top of the famous pint.

Chorizo, Savoy Cabbage and White Bean Soup

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:07:00 +0200

Hi all! I think every time I update my blog I am having a flu. This goes for today as well. Me and S made a trip to Madrid this week, I caught cold on the second day of it, and the rest of the stay I operated more or less with ibuprofen and paracetamol. We returned home two days ago and S was already sick when we flew back to Helsinki. Today I got a diagnosis of influenza, which I heard might take even more time to heal than it already has… Now we’re both in bed, trying desperately to get rid of this virus as this was our only week of holiday during the winter/spring. What a luck!

So yes, we were in Madrid, and it was the first trip for the both of us in the capital of Spain. I had an idea to photograph each and every portion of food I had during the trip, but some of them I forgot and some of them I could not photograph due to the lighting conditions or such. But I will post here some pics later on.

For now I share with you a recipe, that despite looking absolutely delicious was actually not that great in flavor. I say this so that you will not be disappointed, haha. I found the recipe in a Finnish food magazine Glorian Ruoka & Viini, which I am a fan of. It was called caldo verde, “the green broth”, but as S is Brazilian with Portuguese origin he could tell this was not actually THE Portuguese caldo verde it said it was.

The strong flavor of chorizo definitely makes a difference, so use good quality one. I don’t eat red meat myself so I substituted half of the chorizo with soy chorizo, which was a delicious surprise in taste! Other than that this simple soup consisted of large white beans, savoy cabbage and vegetable broth. I added later on some sriracha as it gave a little bit of edge and sweetness to the otherwise mild soup.

Have a great weekend and don’t catch cold out there! :)

Caldo Verde or Soup with Chorizo, White Beans and Savoy Cabbage

1 onion, minced

3 garlic cloves, sliced

1 tablespoon cold pressed canola oil

1 liter vegetarian broth

250g chorizo, sliced

2 cans large white beans, drained

200g savoy cabbage, coarsely chopped

parsley and good olive oil for serving

Heat the oil in a casserole. Sautee the onions and garlic over a low-medium fire until almost transparent.

Add the broth and bring to a boil.

Roast the chorizo slices on a dry frying pan over high heat for 2-3 minutes. Add sliced cabbage, chorizo and drained beans to the casserole. Let simmer for 5 minutes and spice up with salt and pepper if needed.

Serve with chopped herbs like parsley, and some splash of good olive oil.

Blueberry and Mascarpone Tartlets In my last post about a week...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 19:39:00 +0200

Blueberry and Mascarpone Tartlets

In my last post about a week ago I told you we’re going to put up a small project of food videos (perhaps some other videos too in the future, who knows) but the first part of the series came out quicker than we thought ourselves. So here it is, our first EVER video about food. We’re so proud of it, as neither of us had worked on a similar thing before, and the result we find quite good, considering that. We benchmarked a lot of sites for the style we were after, and the biggest thanks goes to Tiger in a jar that was both an inspiration and an example for us while stepping on this new ground.

Our video had its premiere today at my workplace, where I got a good feedback about what could be done better next time. Please feel free to give yours, what would you want to see in our next video?

The recipe for the video was adapted from Sugar and Snapshots. And I can tell you it was simple to do, lovely to look at and even lovelier to eat!

So here’s the detailed recipe, enjoy!

Blueberry and Mascarpone Tartlets

For the pastry:

1 large egg

2 tbsp sour cream

1 dl powdered sugar

2,5 dl all purpose flour

1 dl almond meal/flour

Pinch of salt

90g cold unsalted butter, cubed

For the filling:

250 g mascarpone cheese

1 dl heavy whipping cream

Zest of 1 lemon

Powdered sugar to taste (I used 1 dl)

3 dl of ripe blueberries, washed and dried

In a glass combine the egg and sour cream until well combined and refrigerate. Mix together the powered sugar, flour, almond meal and salt. Add in the cold butter and work until it forms small to medium size clumps, about the size of peas. Slowly add the egg mixture until the dough begins to form together in a ball. Shape into a ball, wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Prepare the filling. Whisk the heavy cream in a medium-sized bowl until it begins to form soft peaks. Mix in the mascarpone, powdered sugar and lemon zest. Once all incorporated, taste and add more powered sugar until desired sweetness is achieved. Refrigerate.

When you’re ready to roll out your tart dough, lightly flour your work area and roll into the desired shape of your tart pan (I used the small tartlet tins so I cut my dough in smaller parts). Flour as needed to prevent sticking, making sure your dough is approx. 5cm wider then the base of your pan. Gently lift the crust and unroll into the tart pan. Fit the pastry into the sides and trim off any excess. Preheat your oven to 200°C. Line with wax paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove the weights and bake for 5 min more until the base of the crust is a nice golden brown in color. Let cool until room temperature.

Fill the crust(s) with mascarpone mixture. Sprinkle the top with blueberries. Refrigerate half an hour before serving.

Sometimes all it takes is a cup of tea A bit of what’s...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 20:51:00 +0200

Sometimes all it takes is a cup of tea

A bit of what’s coming in the near future. We are starting to produce videos for About the Soufflé - for the love of food and other simple things in life. We hope you enjoy the upcoming things as much as we enjoy doing them!

Noora & Sérgio

Breakfast Granola with Mixed Fruit and Nuts

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:00:00 +0200

Last summer I lived in a flat that one girl had sublet for me for three months. While leaving the apartment into my good care she also left some of her things there. One of them being a big jar of homemade granola. It was my first touch to this delicious breakfast treat, the American muesli as I call it. Actually, I couldn’t help but secretly have some of that delicious but simple granola. I hope she never noticed there was something missing, ugh!

I’m generally not very good breakfast eater, as during the week I wake up at the last possible minute to get to work, and therefore never have time to have a proper breakfast. Usually my breakfast consists of a big bucket of coffee and that’s it. Lately though a colleague of mine has been challenging me to start my days with a 30g protein portion, (which is said to be good for your figure and appetite - as I complained being slightly out of shape these days). I’m considering this…but while I do, let’s get back to granola.

After preparing this portion of granola I can just ask myself WHY I never did this before? It’s so sweet and crunchy and divine, especially with some agave syrup and full, fatty Turkish yogurt… It became an essential part of my weekend breakfasts and actually, I’m gonna have it just now! This recipe was invented by me so probably it needs still some fine tuning, but I figured it was a good start!

Sweet Breakfast Granola

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup mixed nuts and fruits (I used almonds, cashews, peanuts, hazelnuts, dark and yellow raisins)

handful of pecan nuts

handful of dried cranberries

30 ml canola oil

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 heaping tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons organic agave syrup

1 egg white

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 150 C°. Line a medium oven pan with parchment paper.

Heat honey, brown sugar, canola oil, coconut oil and salt, and stir until sugar has dissolved.

Mix the oats and nuts in a bowl. Add the warm mixture of honey, sugar and oil to the oats. Add the agave syrup and stir to coat. The mixture should be moist so if necessary, you can add some canola oil.

Beat the egg white in a bowl until firm peaks form. Mix the egg white into the oat mixture and stir until everything is well combined.

Spread the granola evenly on your baking pan. Bake for approximately 40 minutes, but check the oven from time to time. The granola should be golden in color and feel dry when you poke it with a fork, and that’s when it’s ready.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely. Crumb granola into crumbs and mix the dried nuts in. Store the granola in an air-tight container up to 1 month. Just a word of warning: you will never be able to store it that long :-)

Creamy Cauliflower Soup and Basil Oil

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:33:00 +0200

Since last autumn I have felt a need to start eating lighter meals and less calories. I have always had a tooth for food that could perhaps contain a little less cream, cheese, sugar and chocolate. I think lately as I passed the border of 30 years I have also started to notice my eating in my body. Not anymore I can simply eat what I want and not think of the consequences. Actually, I’ve been quite active gym-goer for most of my adult life, but now it seems I should be even more.

So, as kind of a new year’s resolution me and S decided to start eating lighter in the dinner time during the working days. We both eat lunch in restaurants near our offices every day, so we found it quite a good idea to lighten up the evening meals mainly to soups and salads.

For the following cauliflower soup I got an inspiration from the newest edition of a Finnish food magazine Kotiliesi. I however made some changes in the original recipe, like added cheese, haha! Actually, in this soup I again used a cheese product I have been discussing in my earlier post of Swiss rösti. I still don’t know what is the name for this product in English, but here’s a photo of how it should look like. In Finland we call it melted cheese, and for all the Finns: in this recipe I used the one in the pic, Koskenlaskija strong.

Here it goes, probably the best cauliflower soup I have ever had.

Cauliflower Soup with Basil Oil

900g cauliflower head, washed and cut in florets

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 leek, well washed, green parts cut out, white part chopped

1 clove of garlic

1 liter light chicken/vegetarian broth

100 ml cream

150g processed cheese/cheese spread

pinch of smoked paprika

pinch of white pepper

salt to taste

Basil Oil

2 handfuls of fresh basil leaves

3-4 tablespoons good olive oil

pinch of pink Himalayan rock salt

Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Sautee leeks and garlic for a couple of minutes until the leek starts to get color. Be careful not to burn the garlic, as it gets a bitter flavor.

Add the cauliflower florets and broth. Bring to a boil and let bubble until the cauliflowers are completely cooked. Lift the soup off the fire and puree using a hand blender. Add water if needed.

Lower the fire to low and place the pan back on the stove. Mix in cream and the cheese. Let boil gently until cheese has melted completely.

Spice up with white pepper, smoked paprika and salt.

Prepare the basil oil. Place the oil and basil leaves in a high edge container and puree using a hand blender (you can also do it with a regular blender). Season with pink Himalayan chrystal salt.

Top the soup with basil oil and enjoy!

Apple & Cinnamon Pancakes

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:14:00 +0200

Hello dear friends, fellow home cooks, food lovers and everyone else! I am so deeply sorry to have kept the blog in silence for almost 6 months now. Oh I cannot believe it was actually so long! But now we’re back online, back in cooking and sharing the best recipes with you.

So many things have happened during the silent period: we have moved (still living in Helsinki) and we both, me and S have new jobs from the same field, which I could say is something like consulting/content/web/communication. Not much more about that though, because this is not a blog about my work life - just saying I really enjoy it, and have been happy to learn so much new already. And so is S. He’s doing great in his job, and I am extremely proud about that!

Anyway, the most significant thing about the new year, concerning this blog, is that I’m trying to find time to make it bigger and better. First of all I have already invested in it as we bought a new camera, which hopefully will make the pictures better than they have been. In Christmas I also got a book called Styling, Lighting and Photographing Food, which I’m gonna read throughout as I am still learning the secrets of great food photography. The next thing is to get proper lights for our tinier than tiny home studio (if anyone has any suggestions about how to best imitate daylight in darker conditions, I would love to hear), and then everything should be set. Except for the styling part of course, as at the moment I own quite a small amount of kitchenware and dishes to style the images with. So here I come, stores full of lovely stuff!

Today we woke up real late and I made us some pancakes. The recipe was found from my new site crush, Williams-Sonoma. I changed the way of doing the pancakes slightly: Instead of frying the apples straight with the pancake batter I first fried them with butter and sugar and then again under the pancake.

Fluffy Apple & Cinnamon Pancakes

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk

50 grams + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 peeled green apples, 1 cored and finely grated, 1 thinly sliced

In a bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the eggs on medium speed until frothy.

Add the flour, the 1/3 cup sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, buttermilk, butter and vanilla. Stir just until smooth and no lumps of flour remain; do not overmix. Add the grated apple and stir just until combined.

Heat a tablespoon of butter on a non-stick pan over medium heat. Dip the apple slices in sugar and fry them with butter until golden brown from another side, about 5 minutes. Set aside and clean the pan.

Heat up the clean pan again over medium-low heat. One by one place a slice of apple on the pan and pour about 1/3 cups of the batter on top of the apple slice. Cook until bubbles form on top and the batter is set, a few minutes. Using a spatula, flip the pancakes and cook until golden brown on the other side, about 2 minutes more.

Serve warm with maple syrup and confectioners sugar.

Mediterranean Turkey Burgers with Halloumi Cheese & Tomato Mint Salsa

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 18:51:00 +0300

Thank you thank you thank you everyone of you who still has kept reading and liking my posts, even I am nowadays updating new stuff so rarely! Your feedback is super important, so please stay tuned in future too.

As you might guess, the reason I haven’t been actively posting these days is that I’ve been….WORKING! I love my work, it’s not that, but I seriously haven’t even had time to properly relax while at home, not to even talk about seeing friends or, well, cooking.

I’m working quite a lot of evening shifts lately, which means I don’t have a chance to prepare dinners, and usually before going to work early afternoon I just wanna chill and not use too much time for cooking special breakfasts etc. Today is my only free day this week, so I have a blueberry mascarpone tart crust in the oven, and plans for some sinful cheeseburgers in mind for dinner.

Talking about burgers, it’s the recipe of today in this blog too. A while ago I ran into a recipe of a Turkish köfte style lamb burgers, and it sounded so delicious I had to try it. The burgers were accompanied with Greek halloumi cheese and tomato-mint-pine nut salsa. The original recipe I took here. I substituted the lamb meat with ground turkey and arugula with some crispy romaine lettuce. This time I didn’t bake my own burger buns but used store-bought.

The lack of images is because S went to shoot a short film last week, took my memory card and this one was the only one I could save before all the images were disappeared.

By the way, does anyone else think that burgers are one of the most difficult foods to photograph? Cause I do!

Turkey Burgers with Halloumi and Tomato Mint Salsa

For the burgers:

500 g ground turkey

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoons ground coriander

bunch of fresh cilantro, chopped

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

salt and pepper to taste

For the tomato salsa:

2 medium tomatoes, cut in small cubes

half red onion, cut into small cubes

2 tablespoons pine nuts, lightly toasted

2 teaspoons olive oil

1 teaspoon lemon juice

salt and pepper, to taste

bunch of fresh mint, chopped

And:

halloumi cheese, sliced in desired thickness and grilled on a skillet

romaine lettuce

burger buns, lightly grilled

Turkish yogurt mixed with 1 crushed clove of garlic + salt + black pepper

Mix all the ingredients of the burgers until properly combined. With moist hands form the mixture into 4-5 round burgers.

Preheat your oven to 225 C°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the burgers on it. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until almost done.

Heat a drop of olive oil in a skillet and quickly fry the ready burgers from both sides over medium-high heat, just to get some color on them.

Mix the ingredients of the salsa. Remember to toast the pine nuts on a dry skillet, no oil.

In a little olive oil over medium-high heat, lightly grill the halloumi cheese from both sides. Cut the burger buns in half and grill the cut sides lightly too.

Build your burgers and enjoy!

That game is called Hangman in England, and that tart looked amazing!

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 14:12:25 +0300

Thanks for clarifying this to me, I was sure it’s an international thing, just didn’t know what you call it in English! :-)

Chocolate Truffle Tart

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 13:30:00 +0300

A while ago in my post I told you about a Monday morning when I woke up as usual, followed my morning routines, and then realized I’m having a free day from work!

While I went back to bed me and S talked about the day that was starting, and he draw me a riddle. I’m not sure how this is called in English, but in Finnish as well as in Portuguese that particular word riddle is called “gallows”. Sounds brutal, yes, but the idea is to give the other person the amount of letters there are in the words, and she has to guess what those words are by asking, one at the time, if the words contain certain letters. If they do, the riddler adds the letter into the words. If they don’t, the riddler draws one piece of a gallows next to the words. The aim is for the player to guess the words before the gallows is ready and she is “hanged”.

You have this game too? I’m curious! At least it was known is Finland as well as in Brazil, even with the same name, so I guess it’s rather universal.

Anyway, my words in the game were _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _. And for some reason (maybe I was too tired) I didn’t get it right! The words were of course “chocolate cake”, which S wanted me to bake as for once I had time.

He spent his evening in a Finnish course (which by the way now ended and he did so well in the exam!) and I spent mine baking not a cake but a chocolate tart. I found two recipes, that I put together. The originals can be found here and here.

The Gourmet.com recipe for the filling says it should be chilled in a fridge for hours before serving, but we couldn’t wait and ate (+ photographed) it immediately when it was cooled.

Just a word of warning before I give you the recipe. Bake this tart to share it with a bunch of people. Otherwise you will eat it all by yourself.

Sinful Chocolate Truffle Tart

For the chocolate pastry:

5 dl all-purpose flour

1,5 dl cocoa powder

2 dl minus 2 tablespoons caster sugar

160 g butter, diced

2 eggs

(pinch of salt if you used unsalted butter)

For the chocolate truffle filling:

300g good-quality bitter-sweet chocolate, chopped

100g unsalted butter, diced

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

100 ml heavy cream

0,5 dl caster sugar

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Prepare the pastry.

Place flour, cocoa, sugar, salt and butter in a bowl of food processor and process until fine as breadcrumbs. Add eggs and process until it holds together.

Turn onto a lightly floured board and gently knead until smooth. Shape into a thick disc and cover with plastic wrap. Place in fridge for 10 minutes to rest.

Line a bottom of a springform pan with baking paper. Lightly rub the sides with butter. I suggest you use a springform pan with removable sides because this tart is easier and prettier to serve like that. I used a 22 cm diameter pan.

Roll out pastry on a floured surface into about 5mm thickness. Place it in the pan so that the sides rise about 4cm.

Let it rest in the fridge while you preheat your oven to 175 C°.

Line pastry with baking paper, fill with beans or pie weights and bake for 10 minutes. Take it out, remove beans, and bake again for more 5 minutes or until firm. Set aside and let cool.

Prepare the filling.

Melt chocolate and butter in a bain marie over a saucepan filled 1/3 with water, over medium heat. Constantly stir until smooth, then remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

Whisk together eggs, cream, sugar, salt, and vanilla in a bowl. Whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture until combined well.

Pour filling into cooled crust and rap pan once on counter to eliminate any air bubbles. Bake until filling 1 inch from edge is set and slightly puffed but center trembles slightly when pan is gently shaken, 20 to 25 minutes. (Center will continue to set as it cools.)

Cool tart completely in the pan, about 2 hours. Chill, uncovered, until center is firm, at least 4 hours. Remove sides of the pan and sprinkle with cocoa to serve.

Baked Apple and Pecan French Toast Casserole

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:59:00 +0300

I used to be eager to try new things for breakfast every weekend possible. Great sides of student life! As I started to work I’ve grown lazier and lazier, and rather spend my late mornings sleeping than preparing luxurious brekkies to S and myself.

While browsing through the memory card of my camera I came across with this breakfast dish I prepared already some months ago. It was a perfect breakfast in a sense that it took only a quick moment to prepare. Next time I would perhaps make it a brunch dessert, as it’s too sweet to be a breakfast dish alone.

In case you’re not a big fan of apples, I assume you could substitute them with pears, pineapple or peaches as well. Talking about peaches, I’ve been thinking of this supergood looking grilled peach dessert for some time now, and will do it sometime soon!

The basic casserole recipe was adapted from here.

Baked Apple and Pecan French Toast Casserole

1 loaf brioche or French bread, sliced into 2cm thick slices

8 eggs, slightly beaten

500 ml whole milk

1,5 dl light brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 green apples, halved, seeds removed and rather thinly sliced

0,75 dl brown sugar (I used muscovado)

50g butter, softened

1 teaspoon cinnamon

handful of pecan nuts

+ butter to grease the baking dish

Preheat oven to 175 C°. Rub a medium baking dish with butter.

Place the bread slices on the dish, overlapping.

In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla. Pour 2/3 of the mixture over the bread slices.

Arrange the apple slices nicely on top of the bread and top with rest of the egg mixture.

Mix together brown sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle evenly on top of the apples.

Dot the surface generously with butter and pecan nuts.

Bake casserole for 30-40 minutes on a center oven rack. Let cool before serving and enjoy with some vanilla ice cream.

Pasta Puttanesca

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:13:00 +0300

Hi all! I can’t believe I’ve stayed away for so long! I mean, I’ve been around all the time, just not updating the blog. Just one word of explanation: work.

But now as I’m back I don’t wanna waste time in writing something that might not interest you, like the weather conditions in Finland (awful) or my work (tough) or other things not concerning food. So straight to the point.

I love Italian food - who wouldn’t!? I love pasta and I could eat pasta dishes every day. Or at least Italian dishes, when I could include also pizzas and risottos into my daily diet. Yum!

One of my favorite pastas of all times is spaghetti alla puttanesca, spaghetti in whores’ style. It traditionally consists of tomato, anchovies, capers, olives, chili and garlic. There are many explanations to the spicy name of this spicy dish. The ladies of the night wanted to have quick meals between the customers, so this one was super simple to prepare. Or they attracted the men from the street to the brothels with the wonderful scent of this food. Or, as it’s strong in flavor, by eating it they could keep the customers from trying to kiss them. And of course, the dish is as hot and spicy as the women themselves.

I don’t normally cook many pastas with tomato, simply because my better half S is not very fond of tomato sauces. This time I didn’t ask, which was smart, because S loved it. For once I will be able to prepare a tomato based pasta again!

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca

300g dry spaghetti

500g whole canned tomatoes

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

6 canned anchovy fillets

3 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 red chili or 2 smaller peperoncinos if you can get them, finely minced

1/2 small onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons capers

20 black olives (I used kalamata), stones removed

salt and black pepper to taste

chopped fresh parsley or basil

parmesan cheese, to serve

Prepare the sauce. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet. Add anchovies, garlic, onion and chili. Let simmer constantly stirring until the anchovies have “melted” in the oil, about 5 minutes.

Crush the canned tomatoes and add them to the skillet. Let the sauce simmer while you boil the pasta according to the package instructions.

Drain the cooked pasta. Add capers and olives into the tomato sauce, heat up and toss with the pasta.

Serve immediately with chopped herbs and grated parmesan cheese.

African Sweet Potato, Peanut and White Bean Soup

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 23:21:00 +0300

Today I woke up early, as normally, did my morning routines, took a shower, brushed my teeth, made and drank coffee, did some pinteresting and browsed the news online. I was about to leave home when I started to check my shifts, in order to be sure I had the morning shift. The amazement was huge when the list said “free”! I had to call my colleagues at the office and ask them to check if that was really true.

And it was, so me and S decided to clean up the apartment, I planned to go to the supermarket to get our weekly stuff and S was going to spend the evening at the Finnish language course, where he’s doing really well (I’m so proud, as anyone who has ever tried to learn Finnish knows it’s one of the hardest languages in the world, alongside of Hungarian and Estonian). So when we were waking up in bed very late this afternoon S made me a riddle by drawing…which I had to solve to find out he wished me to bake a chocolate cake.

So after his daily dose of Finnish there was a chocolate tart waiting for him. The recipe will follow, but first I want to tell you what I cooked for dinner tonight.

The soup was so hearty, so flavorous and so good. The recipe is adapted from Vegetarian Times. The original calls for spinach, but I forgot to buy it. Instead I used some baked white beans, as I guessed S would like some protein in the soup. It worked fine, but I am sure spinach would have been lovely too!

A word about harissa paste too. This North African delicious spice paste is so rich in flavor, that I just love it. However, I’ve noticed some brands are hotter than others. So I have decided to use the mildest one I’ve found, so that I can use it in quite large amounts and get all benefits of the wonderful flavors.

African Sweet Potato, Peanut and White Bean Soup (serves your whole family)

2 large sweet potatoes, washed

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 small leek (white and light green parts), halved and washed

2 cloves garlic

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon cumin

3 tablespoons peanut butter

2 heaping tablespoons harissa paste

750ml light chicken stock

1 can baked white beans, drained

salt to taste

peanuts, fresh coriander and Turkish yogurt to garnish

Place the sweet potatoes in a microwave and cook in full power for 10 minutes. Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise, and cook for 10 minutes more, or so long that they are relatively soft.

Cut the meat off the potato skins with a spoon.

Heat the olive oil in a medium/large saucepan or a Dutch oven. Chop the leaks and sautée them over a medium heat for 5 minutes. Add garlic, turmeric and cumin, and keep sauteeing for 1 minute more. Add harissa, peanut butter, sweet potatoes and chicken stock and let simmer for 20 minutes, half covered.

Take the pan off the heat and puree the soup by using a stick blender.

Put back to heat and add the beans. Add some water if the soup is too thick. Season with salt if needed.

Serve with some yogurt, coriander and peanuts.