Winter Chanterelle and Vegetable Solyanka

Finally had the time to make a post. There are so many twists and turns in my life at the moment I haven't had the time plan and do food blog cooking. Here's one though. This mushroom-vegetable soup makes a nice, light summer day meal. Serve bread with it, to make it a sturdier meal. Solyanka can also contain meat or fish, so if you want to make it more filling, just add them.
 
I actually got the idea for this soup from my sister-in-law. It's originally from a magnificient book, which every Finnish food lover should have. In the book this recipe is under the name "Valamo's mushroom-vegetable solyanka". I consider the book the contemporary Finnish food bible and will be introducing recipes (twisted or not) from it. The book I am gabbing about is Ruokatorstai (in Finnish), and it nicely reflects the mixed influences on Finnish home cooking - italian, russian, french, swedish and especially lately, oriental.

This soup is of russian origin. The original recipe uses penny buns, also known as ceps, or salted milk-caps, which have been soaked to remove excess salt. As I still have winter chanterelles from my huge catch from last autumn (and new season is approaching) I decided to use them. These soups are traditinonally served with smetana but also creme fraiche will do.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 1/2 dl vegetable oil
• 300gr root vegetables sliced into matchsticks (carrot, celeriac, swede etc.) I used carrot, celeriac and amandine.
• 70gr tomato purée
• 1 L vegetable stock
• 250 gr mushrooms, fresh or soaked
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 dl pickled cucumber sliced into matchsticks
• Juice from sauerkraut or vinegar
• Parsley, tarragon, chervil

1. Finely chop onion and mushrooms, cut vegetables and pickled cucumber.










2. Saute onion and vegetables in oil.











3. Add tomato purée, mix and saute for a little while more.










3. Add stock, mushroom, spices (not the herbs) and pickled cucumber. Simmer until ready.

4. Add vinegar to taste, I suggest beginning with 1 tbsp and then adding more after tasting if needed. Chop and add herbs.








5. Serve with smetana.

Macaroni Bake and Cherry Pie

Here's a macaroni bake I conjured up for my daily lunch. This is what most Finns of my age grew up with! Good stuff for making in large quantities and then freezing for later use. Normally macaroni bake is quite simple, and this isn't much more complex, but I added bell peppers and blue cheese for extra taste and colour. If you want additional softness with bell peppers, you might lightly sauté them before adding them to the mix but it is by no means necessary. Also other stuff might suitable to the mix, such as corn, peas and tomatos. For spicing you might use black and white pepper, chilli, marjoram, garlic and paprika, for instance.

For this you need macaroni, mince meat, milk, eggs, some vegetables and cheese. Macaroni and mince should be about equal amounts. For 400 gr (14.1 oz) unboiled macaroni you need 7 dl (1.23 pints) milk and 3 eggs.
Boil macaronis and fry mince that while. Remember to fry the meat in small enough portions, so that it will actually fry and not boil. I mean this. If there's too much meat in the pan, the juice coming out of meat wont vaporize but makes an area of liquid on the bottom and the meat will boil in it. Depending on meat you are frying, it should cover only 1/3-1/4 of the bottom of the pan.
Slice the bell peppers in small dices, and break the blue cheese in small crumbs. Mix boiled macaroni, fried mince and bell pepper dices together and pour into an oven proof casserole. Whisk milk, spices, eggs and cheese crumbs together. Pour over macaroni mix and stir. Bake the casserole at 200c (Celsius) for an hour. In Finland, ketchup goes traditionally with this food.

This is my favourite berry pie. Cherries! Oh! Ah! Traditionally this kind of crust goes with blue berries but I find it very good with cherries too. The crust is simple to make (I found this recipe off a flour bag ages ago):

4 eggs
3 - 4 dl sugar (use more sugar for sour berries)
4 tsp vanilla sugar
6 dl wheat flour
3 tsp baking powder
300 gr butter (melted)
2 dl milk or juice

The recipe says to use 6 dl berries but I used 2 L cherries. Slice and take the stone off before you do anything else.

1. Beat eggs & sugar together.
2. Mix the dry stuffs
3. Add flour etc., butter and milk/juice. Stir until even.
4. Cover an oven sheet with parchment paper. Pour the dough over it and add the berries evenly.
5. Bake at 200c, for 25-35.

Welcome to Blunt Cook!

Hi there! Welcome to my food blog!

Greetings from sunny *cough cough* Finland. I begun this blog to share my experiences, keep a public food diary and maybe have discussions with other food lovers. Ah well, but most of all to spare my friends from the continous cavalcade of food pictures in Facebook.

I was practically brought up in a restaurant kitchen as my mom worked in catering and restaurant business, so food and experimenting with new ideas and foodstuffs have been with me from very young. Although I do something else for my living, I love cooking, trying out different things and feeding my friends. Ah, there's nothing better to see when your guests lick the plate clean when they've finished!

And I am blunt. Those who have had the bad fortune to cook with me, know that I can get very bossy and dish out orders. For some miraculous reason, I've been forgiven. I usually tend to get straight to the point and say things as they are. So there.

Generally, I prefer Asian and Italian foods. That is not to say that I won't present anything profoundly Finnish but usually I do something entirely different. Another preference is that I will not make anything that has fish or seafood, kiwi, avocado and gooseberry in it because of food allergies. That is one reason for working around traditional recipes. Thirdly, I am rather health conscious, so no exessive use of fat, cream and sugar here!

These are tenets of my food philosophy
1. I rarely use measures, except when I am baking. For the most part, I am tasting my way through cooking and sizing up proportions visually.
2. Learn to differentiate between real, valuable time savers and pure ignorance and laziness. For instance, for me it is ok to use sometimes premade red wine sauce but to use salsa from a can is totally unacceptable.
3. Avoid useless trickery, instead enhance what is genuine and natural.
4. Follow your own taste.
5. Develop your memory for tastes, this way you can unite flavours and have new ideas.
6. Have fun!