fried vendace, paistetut muikut

where do i begin...these tiny fish (muikku in finnish, vendace or european cisco in english, coregonus albula in latin) are so good, provided they are fried in plenty of butter, like these here...







while hunting for the butane for my torch, mom and i found vendace in one of the grocery stores. we bought one kilo, which was a lot of work before we could eat them. mom was kind enough to behead and clean (rip the guts out), rinse and flour (in barley flour) them...







...and taking out the big pan, lots of butter and frying the lot. 40 fish will fit the pan, it took 3 panfulls to fry them all, and that woodburninn stove is hot...







a tiny amount of salt was sprinkled on the hot fish. they were the best very, very hot straight from the pan...







...but i did enjoy them piled on rye crisp bread. my stomach was screaming after this meal, so not something someone with reflux disease should eat, let alone gobble!

rustic creme brulee

or as the french would say crème brûlée...

i had wanted to make creme brulee for a long time. i had also wanted a kitchen "blow-torch" for a long time, couple of weeks ago i finally found one that was reasonably priced (and came with 6 ramekins, not pictured).







the hardest part of making these was trying to find butane in my hometown for the torch, the fourth place had it...

separating the yolks and whites, mixing the ingredients, warming up the cream and tempering, was easy but messy...

the torch came with 6 ramekins and a "recipe book" (as in one recipe in a tiny booklet). the one recipe was meant to serve 4 and to me that is a bit confusing, why would they then have 6 ramekins in the package when the only recipe serves 4?

the internet is full of recipes for creme brulee, but this is the one that came with the torch:

2 cups heavy cream
½ cup plus 4 tbsp sugar
4 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract







as i didn't want to haul the ramekins to cottage (we had enough "stuff" as it was) mom and i had to digging in her cupboards for dishes to cook the cremes in. we found these kilta cups from way back when every kitchen in finland had some. perhaps not quite the right shape but worked this time...







i think i might have used a "wrong" kind of cream, 28% fat, low-lactose and only meant for whipping, therefore the overly yellow color. despite the height of the "ramekin" the creme was nicely cooked thru. with the help of the fresh -15C outside temp, had the cremes cooled sufficient enough to be still cool after torching the sugar on top.







very good...will be even better when i use the proper cream and ramekins...






ps. unfortunately i found a finnish website that sells kitchen gadgets and then some. too many things i didn't know i needed!

chicken soup a la cottage

as there was a lot of left-over, on purpose, of the roasted chicken, there was bound to be a chicken soup...







i had saved the scraps from the day before when preparing the veggies for roasting. made the stock by simmering the scraps, chicken bones and skins for about an hour. then strained the solids and skimmed some of the fat on top.

then added a fresh set of carrots, parsnips and celeriac and cooked for 10 mins







i don't usually go for white pasta, but this fresh fettucine was on sale at the local grocery store, and i thought it would be great in the chicken soup (it was).







after 10 mins i added the fettucine, chicken, a small tin of sweet corn and cubed celelry (3 stalks) and simmered for 5 more mins.

this batch served the 4 of us at the cottage two lunches. the next day i added a few drops of toasted sesame oil to my portion for a little asian kick...

oven roasted lemon chicken, sprouts...& eggnog

i had wanted to roast a chicken, and make chicken soup, for a while now. brought two fresh roasting chickens with me to the cottage. i end up cooking a lot more at the cottage as there are more people to feed. had these babies for dinner yesterday and they were delish!







started with these:
2 fresh roasting chickens
8 carrots
2 yellow onions
2 red onions
brussels sprouts
1 lemon
2 tsbp soft butter
salt (yes!), crushed black pepper







peeled the carrots, sliced the yellow onions to approx 1cm slices, placed the onion on the bottom of a roasting tin, then placed the carrots on top the of onions







then grated half of the lemon and squeezed some of lemon juice onto the butter, added generous amounts of salt and black pepper to butter, halved and then quartered the lemon halves, seasoned them with salt and black pepper.







stuffed the lemon chunks into chickens, mixed butter well and smeared it onto chicken before placing them in 200C oven for 1 hr.







close to when the chickens were done, i started the side dish. first rinsed and halved the sprouts, then sliced the red onions quite fine.







started by sauteeing the onions for a few minutes, removed them onto a plate and first sauteed the sprouts in 1 tbsp butter before adding some water (in two batches) to steam them. when the sprouts were almost done, i added the onions to the pan to warm them. just before serving poured some balsamico on top.

i did take a picture of my plate but i guess i was too hungry to pay attention to its quality...

there was plenty of chicken left over but that was intentional...that was for the chicken soup that i made today (but that is for tomorrow to post about)







certain someone had asked if there was a reason one couldn't have eggnog besides christmas...well, i guess there isn't. and as there were what was needed, and plenty of booze to choose from...







mom even found nutmeg...and vanilla







i made what one of the recipes called "one portion"...it made 8 glasses...mom and i both had one, the guys ended up drinking the rest, i think they might have spiked them up, a bit...

my first attemp at eggnog, not bad but overly sweet for my taste. certain someone seemed to develop an addiction...

grated soup

spending some time at the cottage visiting my parents with certain someone and the dog. lunch today was simple and very easy vegetable soup, here's certain someone's portion with a blob of spreadable cheese with tiny specks of smoked reindeer meat.







here is what went in:
2 medium size sweet potatoes
4 small carrots
2 parsnips
100 gr celeriac
1 white onion
2 tbsp ginger
1 cube buillion

i grated everything with a microplane grater (by now, you all must know how much i like mircoplanes...). if you're worried about your eye-makeup getting smudged, you might want to consider using a knife for mincing the onion...grating it will certainly make you cry (on the other hand, a goog cry never hurt anyone). and for those of you who might occasionally have the need to hide onion in any dish, grating it makes it dissappear...







placed all the grated goodness in a pot on the (wood burning) stove, added water to barely cover the veggies and let it simmer for 15 mins...







once everything was cooked i took the immersion blender and gave the soup a whirl before adding 1 dl creme fraiche and mixing well. no salt, except for dad who thought he soup tasted sweet...







added some crisp bread on my portion. the amount of ginger was spot on, i think i might have added some thyme if not for my dad...there is something about thyme that disagrees with him...or rather, the other way around.