Some time ago I promised to cook a Sunday lunch at my parents’ for the family and S. I was completely out of ideas and had no vision whatsoever. Such times call for a visit to my favourite butcher, Reinin Liha, at the Hakaniemi Market Hall in Helsinki. The market hall was opened in1916, and has been an excellent source of meat, fish and produce ever since. Reinin Liha is considered one of the best, if not the best, butcher in Finland. They have been in business for 56 years, and their experience really shows in the service.

I was supposed to serve the meal at 3 pm, so I decided to buy the meat the day before. I know few better ways to look for an inspiration than browse the meat-filled counters at a butcher store. It didn’t take for long when I went to Reinin Liha to find beautiful lambkin shanks. When I saw them I immediately knew they’d make the perfect dish to be prepared in my brand-spanking-new Emile Henry earthenware round casserole.

I prepared the lamb shanks with the recipe I got with the shanks. They were marinated in garlic, thyme and rosemary spiced olive oil over the night.

On Sunday morning I did the unthinkable and woke up before nine so that the shanks would have plenty of time to simmer in low temperature. The longer you cook them, the more tender the shanks will be, and ultimately will fall of the bone. Yummy! I cooked mine for 5 hours.

Braised Lamb Shanks

Serves 6

6 organically grown lamb shanks (about 2 kg / 4.5 lbs)
salt, pepper
virgin olive oil
plenty of coarsly crushed garlic
4 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme
1/2 bottle of red wine, for example Señorío de los Llanos Reserva

Prepare the marinade by mixing the oil and spices. Let the shanks marinade in a fridge overnight.

Heat the oven to 150 C / 300 F.

Put the shanks close to each others in a deep pot, the bone facing up. Pour the marinade over the shanks. Pour the wine, about half a bottle, until the shanks are covered up to half their height.

Cover the pot with a lid and lower the temperature to 100 C / 225 F after 30 minutes. Let cook for about 5 hours until tender enough to be eaten without a knife.

Sieve the jus, cook together, and serve as a sauce. Mashed potatoes go well with the shanks. Try mixing a few tablespoons of pesto with the mash.

Not long ago I spent a few days in Barcelona. Although my work schedule was pretty hectic, we managed to squeeze in a memorable dinner at Cata 1.81 in Eixample. Great wine, countless miniature courses of delicious morsels, and effortlessly stylish surroundings that put to shame New York’s wannabe Barcelonas [insert your favorite recently opened Lower East Side eatery here].

A great fast food solution in Barcelona was lunch at a humble Equadoran joint (c/ Calabria, near Gran Via, also in Eixample). They served wonderfully fresh avocado salads and ceviches. In fact, I’m totally obsessed with ceviches. The perfect summer food, they are a staple at Ecuadoran and Peruvian restaurants. My last week in New York was devoted to eating food I’ll miss the most, so one of my last meals there naturally involved a Peruvian salmon ceviche.

Peruvian food belongs among my all-time favorite cuisines, but I’m not counting on finding too many Peruvian restaurants in Northern Europe. Hence, I’m seriously contemplating buying this cookbook. When leaving New York a month ago, my bags were bursting with pisco, ají amarillo, mote blanco, and maiz de tostar from the Trade Fair supermarkets in Queens. Luckily, a lovely check-in guy at JFK waived the excess weight charges (30kg/ 66lbs – a fortune) when he realized how terribly I will miss all the great food I used to be able to get so easily in Astoria and Jackson Heights. (Now that I read about the week-long ConEd power failure that affected one of my favorite haunts in NYC, I’m of course totally horrified, but also smugly happy that I barely managed to escape).

Let’s hope the power stays on as I make this batch! A ceviche involves raw fish or shellfish chemically “cooked” by citric acid. I keep it in the fridge overnight or for at least 8 hours. Ceviche is usually served on a leaf on lettuce, with a cold sweet potato and an ear of corn (or a few tasty, oversize kernels). A few weeks ago I prepared a shortcut version of all this to my husband and a friend – tasty, light, wonderful, highly recommended. Yesterday, I had another ceviche for lunch at work. Somehow I managed to spill ceviche juices all over the place during my bike ride to work, so I smelled strongly of fish for the rest of the day.

Equadoran Ceviche

1 lb white-fleshed fish (eg, sea bass fillets)
juice of 2-3 limes

juice of 2-3 lemons
2 tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
1/4 dl white wine vinegar
1-2 onions, sliced very thin
1 red or yellow hot pepper, deveined, deseeded, and slivered
fresh cilantro by the handful

Cut the fish into bite size pieces and place in a bowl. Pile onions on top of it, and pour citrus juice all over it. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar. Let rest about 6 hours in refrigerator.

Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges

1 medium-large sweet potato
1-2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper

Heat oven to 200 C (425 F). Halve the potato lengthwise, then cut each half into 7 slices. Place them on a baking dish, toss with oil, salt, and pepper. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Flip the potatoes over and bake for another 10 minutes, or until tender.

Everyday Corn on the Cob

Wrap one ear of corn in parchment paper (the husks can stay on), microwave high for 3 minutes (5 minutes if you make two at the same time). Peel, serve hot with a knob of butter.

In Finland this delicacy is know as “lasimestarin silli”, direct translation being “glass master’s herring”. It is herring preserved in sugar and vinegar based liquid, and spiced with onions, carrots, horseradish and peppers. Pickled herring is enjoyed throughout the year, but especially during Christmas time.

I’ve always loved pickled herring, especially ABBA kesäsilli (summer herring) with new season potatoes. Many restaurants offer various, self made spiced and pickled herrings in their lunch buffets, but way too often I’ve found them to be slimy rather than delicious.

A week ago my mum gave me a small jar of self made lasimestarin silli for a pre-xmas present. I was really surprised, since as long as I can remember, she has bought all herring products from stores. When I opened the jar and carefully tasted the herring, I was astonished as it was super delicious. Today I called her and asked for the recipe. She had found it in Pirkka magazine, and told me that my grandmother used to make this herring each Christmas, but because mom didn’t like it when she was young, she didn’t carry on the tradition.

“Better late than never” I thought earlier today and headed to a grocery store to buy some herring fillets. Luckily I have been saving some used glass jars which made this ex tempore preserving session that much easier. You can use either whole fresh or salted herrings, but those have a ton of bones to be removed, or be a wimp like me and buy boneless, skinned fillets. Many herrings are very heavily salted and must be soaked before use.

The following recipe is based on the substitutions used by my mom, the biggest differences to the original recipe being the use of pre-spiced herring fillets and substituting white peppers for black peppers. I made a big batch – 1.5 kg of herring (almost 4 lbs) as I’m planning to give them away as little xmas presents. I’m going to Tallinn tomorrow with S where I’ll also meet Nami-Nami’s lovely Pille, and she was going to get one jar also until I remembered her hatred towards herrings :)

Glass Master’s Herring

Yields one big jar or two smaller ones

500 grams (1 lbs) herring fillets
3 red onions, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
laurel leaves
2.5 cm (1″) horseradish, peeled and thinly sliced
a few dozen black peppers
1 dl (0.5 cups) sugar
1 dl (0.5 cups) white vinegar
2 dl (1 cup) water
optionally sodium benzoate and benzoic acid (E210 & E211) as preservatives

Mix sugar, vinegar and water and bring to boil. Let cool.

Boil the jars and lids to clean them thoroughly, or bake in 125°C (260°F) oven for 15+ minutes.

Peel onions, carrots and horseradish and slice them very thin. Rinse the herring fillets with running water and pat dry with tissue. Cut them in 2 cm slices (slightly less than 1″).

Fill the jars with the ingredients in layers, adding a few laurel leaves and a small handful of black peppers per jar. Top up with chilled sugar-vinegar solution. Mix the preservative (such as Atamon) in the liquid if you opt to use preservatives.

Shake the jars to remove any air bubbles. Store in a fridge.

If you are one of those tens of thousands of Finnish hunters who don’t know what to do with all that elk meat they’ve shot this season, read ahead. If you are like me and didn’t have the time to go hunting for the fifth year in a row, read ahead. If you just love venison, read ahead. Everybody else is also invited to enjoy the delicious texture and taste of elk!

A couple of days ago when I went to my butcher-de-facto Reinin Liha to buy some beef, I saw these über-beautiful elk shanks. Osso Buco made from beef, calf or goat is one of my all-time favorite dishes. The rich, hearty and meaty taste of the broth from hours of slow simmering of the marrow bones is difficult to beat. So when I saw the elk shanks I immediately knew I had to buy them and cook some elk buco!

In addition to being an excellent source of fresh meat, Reinin Liha is becoming one of my favorite sources of tasty recipes. This time the shanks were accompanied by an Elk Osso Buco recipe, courtesy of Chef Nicola Tanda. Unlike traditional osso buco recipes this uses very few spices but relies on the rich game taste of the elk meat. Juniper berries give the broth an elegant, faint trace of the resinous forests where the elk spent his time before ending up on my plate =)

Elk Osso Buco

Serves 2-4

For the Osso Buco:
6 slices of elk shanks, 3 cm (1”) thick
1 dl all purpose flour
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
8 juniper berries, crushed
salt, pepper to taste
2.5 dl (1 cup) dry white wine
5 dl (2 cups) beef broth
(Optional: brown Maizena)
(Optional: 2 cans of Heinz beans in tomato sauce)

For the Gremolata:
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp lemon zest
half bunch of fresh flat leave parsley

Mix salt and pepper to the flour on a flat plate and cover the shanks evenly with flour. Heat butter and oil in a heavy casserole and brown the shanks from both sides. It’s easier to do this in several batches.

Chop the onions and add in the pot with the shanks. Cook for a while and add more salt and pepper to taste. Crush the juniper berries and add to the pot. Add the wine and beef broth and bring to boil. Set temperature to low and simmer for 3-4 hours until the meat is tender and falls of the bone.

When the meat is done, remove from the pot and boil the broth until thick, and/or add brown Maizena until the broth is nice and thick. Add the meat back to the broth.

For the gremolata, zest the lemon, chop the garlic and parsley until very fine and mix carefully. Sprinkle on top of the osso buco.

Optional: Remove the bones but leave the marrow. Add two cans of beans in the broth and mix well. This way you don’t necessarily need additional rice or potatoes but have a nice standalone dish.

The November issue of Saveur had a tasty and interesting looking recipe titled “Coffee-Crusted Beef Tenderloin”. Because I’m dieting again and need to cook daily in order to know what I eat, a lean tenderloin recipe suited my needs perfectly. The ingredients called for coffee which I love, but also three kinds of chillies – guajillo, ancho and chipotle. In Finland it’s quite difficult to find anything else but Dutch/Israeli grown “green chillies” or “red chillies”. The packages never mention the exact type of the chilli(es) in question. For most people this is ok, as they only want to spice up their dishes a little bit, but a foodie like me could use the species name.

Anyhow, the quest for correct chillies gave me an excuse to spend my lunch hour wandering around the specialty food stores in Helsinki. After a frustrating search I had to settle for those dang “Dutch red chillies” which were the closest thing to mirasol (fresh version of guajillo). Anchos are made by drying poblanos, which are round, green chillies about the size of a golf ball. They are not very hot, but used to add mild heat. The closest thing to poblanos I was able to find was a basket full of habaneros. As many of you know, they are really, really hot. Since I was also lacking chipotles (I only have Chipotle Tabasco), I decided to go for the habaneros as well. This ended up being a good decision for the dish, but not so much for S :D

Because of the lack of proper chillies I had to modify the recipe to use the ingredients I was able to find. I used four stemmed seeded red chillies, half a habanero and a lot of chipotle tabasco for the sauce. During the whole preparation I used disposable gloves, and when the sauce was boiling on the stove the fumes actually made my lungs feel weird. This is why I found it really odd when S came home and tasted the sauce. She didn’t find it hot at all, and ended up eating it by the spoonful. By then I felt stupid for wearing the gloves while handling those “hot” habaneros, and decided to cook the other 1.5 habaneros with the tenderloin in the oven. We even took a tiny bite of the habaneros before cooking, and they didn’t taste that hot. When everything was ready, I kindly offered S one of the cooked habaneros, and she happily accepted – you know, baked bell peppers are super good too… Well, 30 seconds later she came back to the kitchen, desperately looking for milk. And then the uncontrollable drooling started. I was too afraid to take pictures, but you can get a pretty good idea by taking a look at this guy :D

Without further ado, the original recipe from Saveur (the beef itself wasn’t hot at all!):

Coffee-Crusted Beef Tenderloin

Serves 6

1 beef tenderloin, about 1.5 kg (3 lbs)
4 guajillo chillies, stemmed and seeded
2 ancho chillies, stemmed and seeded
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2.5 dl (1 cup) water
2 chipotle chillies in adobo
1/2 small white onion
2 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
3 tbsp finely ground coffee
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Toast 4 the guajillo and ancho chillies over medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Soak in 2.5 dl (1 cup) of warm water until soft, about 30 minutes.

Purée chillies, the soaking water, garlic, chipotles in adobo and the onion until smooth. Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes. Add sugar, vinegar, 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Simmer for another 15 minutes or until thickened. Let cool.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).

Rub the tenderloin with olive oil, salt and pepper. Brush all over with the sauce saving the remainder for another use. Mix the coffee, cocoa powder and ground cinnamon together, and roll the tenderloin in the mixture until completely covered. Let the tenderloin sit for 30 minutes in room temperature.

Roast the tenderloin for 10 minutes, then lover the temperature to 105°C (225°F), and continue roasting until the internal temperature from the thickest part reaches 58°C (135°F).

Let rest for 15 minutes. Slice and serve.