Etusivu - English | Vaimomatskuu ruokablogi

Cold cucumber soup with herbs and violets

7.6.2021 By Juulia Leave a Comment

Cold cucumber soup with lots of fresh herbs and edible pansies is my ultimate summer soup! Making of this cucumber soup is a breeze. You can chop the ingredient straight into your blender and with a push of a button you’re done!

This light, refreshing and summery cold cucumber soup is best served with a few ice cubes and a good drizzle of grassy olive oil. The edible flowers on top are NOT optional! 😉 They are not only a pretty garnish, but add a lovely floral note to the soup!

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Herb overload!

I was recently in a situation, where I had hoarded a huge amount of fresh herbs to my home for photography purposes! (You can see those photos here.) A lovely situation in theory, but at the time I had little to no time for kitchen shenanigans. As fresh herbs never seem to thrive in my household, I had to come up with a solution fast. I knew that otherwise all the lovely produce would end up in the bio waste!

Cold cucumber soup

As I was racking my brain for ideas, I remembered Green Goddess dressing! This dressing isn’t well known in Finland, but a few years back I gave it a go and fell in love with its freshness. So I decided to mimic those flavors as a cold cucumber soup! Into the blender went a bunch of de-seeded cucumber, followed by a huge amount of herbs. Flat leaf parsley, mint, tarragon and chervil to be exact! I also added the stems and leaves of the edible “salad” pansies I had at home. This variety of violet has a lovely floral note to the greens, so why not add it in too?

To add body to the soup, I drizzled in grassy extra virgin olive oil and creamy full fat Turkish yogurt. To season the mix, I added a small clove of garlic and some scallion greens – enough to give the soup flavor, but not so much that the alliums would overpower it. A bit of lemon juice, salt and black pepper was added and with the push of a button, my cold cucumber soup was done!

The floral note from the violet stems and leaves turned out to be a lovely addition to the soup! That’s why i think it was only right to also garnish the soup with edible pansies. To amp up the floral notes I also crushed some dried rose petals on top of the soup. Since it’s a cold cucumber soup, it has to be served with ice cubes. And oh what a lovely light, refreshing and summery soup it turned out to be!

Cold cucumber soup with herbs and pansies

Cold cucumber soup with herbs and edible pansies gets done with the press of a blender button! This light and refreshing soup is perfect for a quick lunch or an appetizer on a hot summer day.

Course Appetizer, Lunch, Soup

Diet Vegetarian

Keyword soup, vegetarian

Servings 2 people

Author Juulia

Prep Time 15 mins

Total Time 15 mins

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Equipment

blender / immersion blender

Ingredients

500 g cucumber
2-3 bunches fresh herbs (mint, flat leaf parsley, chervil, tarragon)
300 g Turkish yogurt (full fat)
⅓ dl extra virgin olive oil
1 clove garlic
½ lemon, juiced
1 scallion, green part (or a few chives)
edible pansies
salt, freshly cracked black pepper (to taste)

To serve:

ice
extra virgin olive oil
edible pansies (and/or other edible flowers)
flakey salt, freshly cracked black pepper

Notes:

This recipe makes a nice light lunch for two, or an appetizer for four!

I love to use the combination of flat leaf parsley and mint + chervil and/or tarragon in this soup! The subtle aniseed flavor of chervil and tarragon goes really well with the cucumber.

As mentioned, I also throw in the stems and leaves of the "salad pansies" that I use to decorate the soup with! If you can't get a hold of the type of violets which have a nice flavor also in their stems and leafs, you could add the tiniest bit of rose water (tiny, tiny, tiny !!! amount only) to achieve a similar floral note in the soup. But the soup is lovely also without it.

Other herbs to try are watercress, dill, lemon balm and sorrel. Adjust the amounts and ratios of the different herbs to your liking! During wild food season, I like to add in common wood sorrel, and use the flowers as decoration.

Instructions

Preparation:

Peel and chop the garlic clove. Chop a few centimeters of scallion green or a few chives and add them to your blender bowl. Top the onions with the juice of a half of lemon.
De-seed the cucumber and roughly chop it. You can peel it too, if you like (the cucumber I use here in Finland must be peeled, since the peel is quite bitter). Add the cucumber to the blender and puree everything until smooth.
Throw in the herbs of your choice! I like to add a lot of flat leaf parsley, stems and all + some mint, tarragon and chervil. If the herbs have a thick hard stem, I remove them. I also throw in some tender leaves and stems of edible violets, since they add a lovely floral note to the soup. The variety I use is sold here under the name "salad pansy" and is fully edible with a mild floral taste. Please note that not all violets can be used like this!
Add in yogurt and blend until everything is super smooth! Season the cold cucumber soup with a good amount of salt and freshly cracked black pepper, blend once more, check the seasoning, adjust if needed... and you're done!
I recommend that you leave the soup covered in the fridge to cool off for half an hour or so to chill and to let the flavors develop a bit. Just remember to mix it well once more before serving!

Serving:

Serve the cold cucumber soup in deep bowls with a few ice cubes. Drizzle with some grassy extra virgin olive oil and finish the bowls with flakey salt, freshly cracked black pepper and edible violets. Serve immediately!

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Spelt tabbouleh with red currants and chervil

4.5.2021 By Juulia 1 Comment

Spelt tabbouleh with red currants and chervil – my take on the traditional Levantine salad!

I serve this spelt salad with Finnish leipäjuusto (bread cheese) which I pan fry golden with some local honey. The hot and sweet squeaky cheese + the herbaceous salad with tart cold berries is a killer good combo!

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Spelt tabbouleh

Tabbouleh is a Levantine classic, known to likely everyone who ever sat at a mezze table. The combination of juicy tomatoes, sharp onions and a mountain of parsley and mint is truly a wonderful thing! Tabbouleh is definitely one of my all time favorite salads ♥ I was lucky enough to be introduced to this salad in my University years by a fellow student, who grew up eating tabbouleh. Unless I’d had his version, I don’t think I would’ve known the correct ratio of herbs to bulgur a tabbouleh should have!

I’ve been making tabbouleh much like his up until recently, when I ended up developing a version using 99% Finnish ingredients. See, I was commissioned to develop a recipe out of produce marked with the “Produced in Finland” label, which I published on my Instagram as an ad for the label last week. The label is used by food industry companies operating in Finland that manufacture their products here using Finnish ingredients. A sign of a product that’s as Finnish as it can be! For this client work, I went shopping at my local grocery store to see what kind of recipe I could come up with produce marked with this label.

Spelt ♥

As I was going through my options, I ended up buying local and organic pearl spelt for the first time. I fell in love with the product instantly, and decided to create the recipe using this lovely ingredient! In a traditional tabbouleh the amount of bulgur wheat isn’t a lot in comparison to all the herbs and veg. But because I love the taste of spelt so much, my version ended up being on the “grainier” side 🙂

I use spelt flour all the time in my sourdough baking, but I’d never used spelt as a grain before. The pearl spelt I’ve now discovered cooks up in 20 minutes, and is incredibly flavorful! This ancient grain has a nutty taste I adore. It’s a good source of protein and fiber and I recently discovered it’s apparently also easier to digest than regular wheat! (You can read more about spelt here.) Spelt has been cultivated in Finland for ages so it’s a local ingredient for me. What’s not to love? Spelt has been my grain of choice lately, over rice in particular. It makes for a lovely base to my vegan watermelon poke bowl for instance!

Tabbouleh made with local ingredients

For my 99% Finnish tabbouleh, I picked up local tomatoes, herbs, bread cheese, organic pearl spelt, canola oil, frozen red currants and honey. I also found local green onions and small Finnish cucumbers called avomaan kurkku! This cucumber variety is grown on open fields and has a bumpy and bitter peel. Size wise it’s similar to Persian cucumbers, just a bit smaller. These cucumbers are a sign of summer for me and I love them to bits! I haven’t found a name for them in English, but they are the kind that is usually pickled whole here in Finland.

Although the recipe was developed with a certain goal in mind, you don’t need to stick to these exact ingredients of course. The whole idea is to make something with local ingredients, so I hope you use ingredients that are local to you! Pick an oil produced in your region, a berry that grows in your backyard and a grain of your country! If nobody is growing spelt where you live, try buckwheat or oat groats, pearl barley, farro, quinoa, amaranth, couscous… Or simply go for the traditional bulgur.

At our house the spelt tabbouleh was served with leipäjuusto, a Finnish squeaky cheese which I pan fry with some honey. You could totally serve the salad also with cheese curds, paneer or tofu for a vegan version. Or something on the other end of the cheese spectrum, like halloumi perhaps?

Spelt tabbouleh with red currants and chervil

This take on tabbouleh gets its tartness from red currants! As herbs I opt for plenty of fresh chervil along with the more traditional flat leaf parsley. I like to serve the spelt tabbouleh with Finnish squeaky cheese, pan seared with honey. If you can't get a hold of Finnish squeaky cheese, you could use paneer, cheese curds or even halloumi (which is of a totally different taste but a good combo with this salad all the same). For a vegan version I'd opt for some (cold smoked) tofu seared with agave syrup!

Course Appetizer, Lunch, Salad

Cuisine Fusion

Diet Vegan, Vegetarian

Keyword salad

Servings 2 people

Author Juulia

Prep Time 20 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 35 mins

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Ingredients

2 dl pearl spelt
1 bunch fresh chervil (or mint and/or tarragon)
1-2 bunch of fresh flat leaf parsley
1 green onion
1-2 small cucumbers (depending on their size)
3 large ripe tomatoes
1 dl red currants
salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
canola oil (or extra virgin olive oil)
200 g Finnish bread cheese (or paneer, cheese curds, halloumi, tofu)
1-2 tsp honey (or agave syrup)

Notes:

I use small Finnish cucumbers that have a hard and bitter peel in this (the kind that's usually made into a pickle), so I peel them before dicing them up for the salad. I you aren't using said cucumbers, no need to peel them! Just dice them quite small (I go for ½-1 cm cubes). You can remove the seeds if you want, I don't bother since I serve the salad immediately after making it.

Instead of red currants you can try white currants, lingonberries or sea buckthorn! Adjust the amount of berries according to your preferred tartness. If you want something a little less tart go for bilberries or blueberries!

I like to use frozen berries in this salad - the combination of the hot sweet cheese and the cold tart berries is wonderful! As the berries defrost in the salad, their juices season the grains.

I love fresh chervil, but you can definitely also mix in fresh mint or even some tarragon!

Instructions

Prep:

Cook the pearl spelt according to the instructions of the package. Season to taste with salt and black pepper + a generous drizzle of canola oil. Leave to cool.
Peel and dice the cucumbers. Chop up also the tomatoes and finely dice the green onion.
Chop up the fresh flat leaf parsley and chervil (and/or mint/tarragon). I use also the tender stems of parsley and chervil and I chop the bunches of herbs with scissors straight to the mixing bowl.
Once the pearl spelt has cooled down to room temperature, mix in the veggies, (frozen) berries and herbs. Mix well and taste, add more oil, salt and pepper if necessary.

Serving:

Portion the spelt tabbouleh to two bowls.
Cut the bread cheese to pieces (I like to do little triangles) and pan fry until golden on both sides. Drizzle the pieces with some honey at the end and turn the pieces to coat them evenly. Season with a sprinkle of salt and serve the hot cheese with the spelt tabbouleh immediately!

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Watermelon poke bowl (vegan)

25.4.2021 By Juulia 1 Comment

Watermelon poke bowl is a fresh, crunchy and addictively delicious vegan poke bowl that I Just. Can’t. Get. Enough of!

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Poke, poke, poke! (Bowl)

I have been eating poke on repeat lately. Mainly made by someone else (the epic take away period in my life seems to not be cooling down any time soon), but sometimes I surprise myself and make a poke bowl at home! I love all kinds of seafood and often order my take away with fish… But at home this vegan watermelon poke bowl has my heart.

When you marinate the watermelon with soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger, the result is truly addictive! Watermelon poke bowl is a light, fresh and crisp lunch that can pack a punch, depending on what else you throw in. As the watermelon season begins, I really can see myself eating this on the daily!

POKE / POKE BOWL

Poke is a Hawaiian dish, with a name that apparently stands for chopped up or cubed up. And although poke bowls have been trending for years now, poke was originally a humble dish made by fishermen! The OG poke has mainly cubed up raw fish or cured octopus seasoned with soy, sesame oil and different seasonings. The flavors are familiar to me from Japanese and multiple Asian cuisines! I’ve read that poke is seasoned for instance with lime, chili, seaweed, onions and scallions, as well as different nuts that are mixed in with the fish. Oh how I wish I could visit Hawaii, where they sell this kind of poke in supermarkets!!!

The trendy poke bowl that has taken over the worlds can however include SO MUCH MORE. In the bowl of rice anything goes. Tropical fruits such as pineapple and mango, different veggies and salads… topped off with loads of mayo and other sauces and crispy toppings! The poke restaurants here in Helsinki offer at least a variety of crispy fried onions, toasted coconut flakes, peanuts and sesame seeds. But often there’s also nori seaweed or furikake, chopped chili and cilantro sprinkled on top. The end result reminds me of japanese chirashizushi, mixed in with some salad and fruit salad. WITH MAYO. Hell yeah!

Watermelon poke Bowl, my way

The idea of making a vegan poke bowl with watermelon is not mine – I have seen many make it! Some use it raw like me, some cook it (like Avant-Garde Vegan). Whoever thought of it first is a genius! When I make this vegan watermelon poke bowl at home, I love it best with some creamy and fatty avocado to complement the fresh and juicy watermelon and the other crispy veg. I usually make my base with spelt grains or brown rice, and seasoned with the watermelon marinade. (So nothing goes to waste!) Since I made some shiso vinegar last Autumn (recipe here in Finnish), I sometimes use that too.

Whatever the case, I always add in plenty of vegan mayo, which I sometimes season with wasabi, miso paste, black garlic or yuzukosho. Mostly I just add it in as is… since I always seem to be in a hurry to get my bowl ready! Finally I load in all the crispy toppings of my dreams. Crispy fried onions, sesame seeds, coconut flakes, peanuts, furikake and plenty of the aromatic Japanese seven spice shichimi togarashi.

See that moderately dressed bowl in my pictures? You bet it got a treatment of lots more toppings after I had finished my shoot and finally dug in 😀

Watermelon poke bowl

Watermelon poke bowl is a fresh, crunchy and addictively delicious vegan poke bowl I can't get enough of!

Course Lunch, Salad

Cuisine American, Fusion, Hawaiian

Diet Vegan, Vegetarian

Servings 2 persons

Author Juulia

Prep Time 30 mins

Resting time 2 hrs

Total Time 2 hrs 30 mins

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Ingredients

Marinated watermelon:

400 g peeled watermelon
3 tbsp soy sauce (you can replace a part of the soy with ponzu!)
1 tsp rice vinegar (or 1 tbsp lime juice)
½ tsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp agave syrup
1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
0,5-1 tsp chili flakes (or shichimi togarashi)
1-2 scallions, white part
1 tsp minced fresh or pickled ginger

Base:

4 dl cooked brown rice / sushi rice / spelt grains ( c. 2 dl uncooked product - cook according to the package instructions)
6-8 radishes (or a c. 4-5 cm piece of Daikon radish)
1-2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 ripe avocado
1 dl sliced sugar snap peas (or cooked edamame beans)
1 very small cucumber (or 4-5 cm piece of large cucumber)
1-2 scallion, green part

Add ons, as you wish:

4+ tbsp vegan mayo (+ wasabi / togarashia / sriracha / yuzukosho / miso paste / black garlic to taste if you want.....)
1-2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
2-3 tbsp crispy fried onions
1 tbsp vegan furikake (or korean nori snacks / sliced or crumbled toasted nori seaweed)
2 tbsp toasted peanuts (or coconut flakes)
fresh chili / jalapeno ( to taste)
fresh coriander / shiso / perilla / mint / Thai basil (to taste)
edible flowers
shichimi togarashia (to taste)

Notes:

If you want to make your bowl a bit more hearty, you can add in some cold smoked tofu or tempeh, quickly seared golden with oil, soy sauce and agave suryp.
You can absolutely add in here any veggies and fruits you wish! What I listed are my favorites, but shredded carrots, cabbage, tomato, wakame salad, mango, nasi pear, japanese marinated Daikon, kimchi... they would all work wonders here.
All the measurements are adjustable to your taste, this is just how I like to make my watermelon poke and even I change around with them based on my mood and what i have at hand!

Instructions

Marinated watermelon:

Mix soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar/lime juice, chili/shichimi togarashi, agave syrup and minced scallion whites in a bowl. Add in minced fresh or pickled ginger. I sometimes replace part of the soy sauce with ponzu and/or smoked soy sauce.
Cube the watermelon to app. 1x1 cm cubes and mix with the marinade. Cover and let rest in the fridge at least a few hours, or overnight. If I marinate the watermelon for longer, I try to give it a mix a few times along the way!

Base:

Cook your rice or grain of choice according to the package instructions. Season with some salt and rice vinegar, leave covered to cool down while you prep the other ingredients.
Slice or cube up your cucumber. Slice the radish and season with a splash of rice vinegar in a small bowl. Mince the green parts of scallions. Cook the edamame (or defrost if using cooked frozen like I am). If you are using sugar snaps, snip off the ends of the pods and slice the pea pods to pieces.
Cube up the avocado and season with rice vinegar to prevent browning.

Assembly + add ons!

If you want to season your vegan mayo, mix in small bowl with desired amount of desired ingredient! I love to season the mayo with wasabi, yuzukosho or sometimes black garlic, but mayo au naturel works very well too here!
When all ingredients are prepared, divide the luke warm grain/rice in two bowls. Add in the watermelon to one side, drizzle some of the watermelon marinade on top of the rice/grain.
Add in the avocado, cucumbers, peas/edamame, scallion greens and the radishes.
Perfect your watermelon poke with a generous drizzle of vegan mayo and all the add ons you wish! My favorite toppings are crispy fried onions, toastes sesame seeds, nuts and coconut flakes and furikake. And edible flowers if I get my hands on them! I also like to add one last sprinkle of aromatic shichimi togarashi on top.

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Turkish eggs aka Çılbır

5.4.2021 By Juulia Leave a Comment

Çılbır

Çılbır aka “Turkish eggs” is a simple yet mind blowing poached egg dish originating from Turkey. The gooey poached eggs are nestled on a bed of garlicky yogurt and smothered in melted butter seasoned with Aleppo pepper… Dig in, and you are instantly teleported to eggy heaven!

I’ve been admiring this tempting looking egg dish on the Instagram account of the incredibly talented Ros for years. She posts gorgeous photos of this dish once or twice per month! Yet for some reason I never got around to trying Turkish eggs myself until last summer. Needles to say, after that initial try these poached eggs have become a staple in our home! Turkish eggs are especially heavenly on slow weekend mornings, but they have also saved many busy remote working days in this household 🙂

Turkish eggs

Turkish eggs = a poached egg recipe from Turkey, with roots all the way down to the 15th century (thanks, Wikipedia). I’m not surprised the recipe has been around for such a long time. It’s SO GOOD, so quick and so simple! If you have yogurt, eggs, butter, chili flakes and garlic (all essential pantry items at our house), that’s pretty much all you need!

Aleppo pepper

If I’ve understood correctly, the traditional seasoning for the butter (or oil) is Aleppo pepper. Considering the ongoing crisis in Syria, finding Aleppo pepper isn’t easy. You might have better luck looking for it with its Turkish name Pul Biber instead! The flavor of Aleppo pepper / Pul Biber is mildly hot, fruity, earthy, tomatoey, a bit tangy and ever so slightly salty. It’s one of my favorite red pepper alongside the Korean gochugaru and I use it A LOT. If you can’t find Pul Biber either, try mixing some paprika (or smoked paprika… yuuuum…) with mild chili flakes or a pinch of cayenne. (This site actually recommends substituting Aleppo pepper with Mexican ancho chilies.)

A recipe that’s been around for half a millennia most certainly doesn’t need any changes. However, since I am a huge fan of golden crispy garlic, I do add sliced garlic to the pan as I melt the butter. I also like to bulk up my bowl with some blanched spinach, if I have it around the house. But only for the sake of adding some greens to my diet!

Poached eggs

Turkish eggs are made with poached eggs. If you’ve been avoiding making poached eggs, I strongly urge you to finally give them a go! I promise it’s not that difficult 🙂

How I poach my eggs:

I sieve the egg. When you pass the egg through a sieve, you get rid of the watery thin part of the egg white. This part creates those wispy strands of egg white around the poached egg, that I personally dislike. If you don’t feel like straining your eggs, you can of course also just pick out those strands before serving. If you don’t mind them, don’t bother to do even that.
I add vinegar in the poaching water. Vinegar helps the egg to coagulate faster, so there’s less danger of the yolk breaking and ruining the egg. The amount one should add seems to however change from recipe to recipe – and some say not to add vinegar at all. This article says that vinegar makes the whites set too quick, so that they become chalky. I have not made a side by side comparison (at least yet) so I can’t say much about this! I personally don’t taste the vinegar in my poached eggs – so I don’t mind adding it. Nor do my poached eggs feel chalky 🙂
I don’t salt the poaching water. why should I – I can salt my eggs upon serving them!
I use the freshest of eggs. The fresher the egg, the more solid the egg white!
If I have many to feed, I poach the eggs in advance. Yes, you can lower your stress levels and poach the eggs in advance! Poach them as normal, and cool the eggs down in a bowl of ice water. You can then store the poached eggs in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 2 days. When you want to eat your poached eggs, you just warm them up in some hot water for a couple of minutes.

So… in my opinion, you really don’t need any cling film pouch tricks. Just use fresh eggs and pay attention to them as you poach them! In fact, I think the only way to mess poached eggs up is to forget to set the timer. I mean, who wants hard yolks in their poached eggs?

Turkish eggs aka çılbır

Turkish eggs aka çılbır is a marvellous dish for slow weekend mornings but also a perfect light and easy lunch on the go. All you need is a few pantry ingredients: yogurt, eggs, butter, garlic and chili and you're all set for an eggcellent quick meal!

Course Breakfast, Lunch, Snack

Cuisine Turkish

Servings 2 people

Author Juulia

Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 30 mins

Equipment

a big pot
a little pot
small sieve
a timer
a slotted spoon

Ingredients

50 g butter ( organic)
4 cloves of garlic
2-3 tsp Pul Biber / Aleppo pepper (or (smoked) paprika mixed with a pinch of cayenne pepper or ground up ancho chili)
300 g Turkish yogurt (full fat)
salt and freshly cracked black pepper ( to taste)
2-4 fresh organic eggs
3 tbsp vinegar (per liter of poaching water)
100 g fresh spinach (if you want!)
2 + sprigs of dill

Notes:

It takes me 15 minutes to make one portion of Turkish eggs - when the process is familiar, this is truly a quick dish to whip up. If you are making turkish eggs for the first time, I'd reserve 25-30 minutes for making two portions.
Sometimes I make this as a snack with just one egg per bowl and a bit less garlic yogurt.

Instructions

Preparations:

Grate one clove of garlic to the yogurt and season to taste with salt. Divide in to two serving bowls and leave at room temperature while you prep other ingredients!
If you are using spinach, remove the thick stalks and wash the spinach well. Boil some water in the small pot and blanch the spinach quickly, just enough for it to wilt. Drain well, squeezing out the water and divide into the bowls of yogurt.
Heat water in the big pot to boiling point. I add around 10 cm of water to the pot so it's deep enough. If you are planning on poaching more than one egg at a time, make sure the pot is also quite wide, so there's room for more eggs. Drizzle the vinegar to the water (c. 3 tbsp per 1 liter of water). Lower the heat to a simmer and leave the pot covered to wait for poaching time.
Put the Aleppo pepper / Pul Biber into a small heat proof bowl. Slice the remaining three cloves of garlic thinly. Put them in the little pot and add the butter. Turn the stove on to medium heat and start melting the butter. Once the butter is fully melted and is foaming away, keep an eye out for the garlic. As soon as you see the garlic slices getting color, pour the butter and garlic over the chili flakes. Stir and leave to wait for serving time!
If you want to sieve the runny whites off, break your eggs one at a time and carefully sieve out the watery egg white. You can break (and sieve) all eggs in advance and put them in individual glasses or bowls to get ready for their warm bath, or prep one batch of eggs at a time. In any case, be careful not to break the yolks!

Poaching the eggs

When all the prepping is done, it's time to start poaching! Check the temperature of the simmering water: water should be calmly bubbling; adjust heat if necessary.
Make sure your timer is set and ready. Carefully drop an egg to the water and immediately set the timer - I poach my eggs 3-4 minutes for a perfectly soft runny yolk! You can swirl the water to create a vortex before adding the egg, if you are cooking your eggs one at a time. When the time is up, lift up the egg with a slotted spoon and place in the yogurt bowl. Repeat with the remaining of the eggs.
If poaching eggs is familiar to you, I recommend poaching two eggs at a time. Prepare them as recommended above and add them in to the simmering water one behind the other. Set the timer, adding 30 seconds to the cooking time. Make sure your pot is filled deep with water and that it's wide enough for two eggs to cook at the same time!

Finishing the dish:

When both bowls are filled with poached eggs, pour the garlicky chili butter on top of the eggs and garnish the bowls with a few sprigs of fresh dill. Season to taste with salt and freshly cracked black pepper and serve with a piece of crusty bread!

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Smoked salmon risotto with asparagus + lemon

30.3.2021 By Juulia Leave a Comment

Smoked salmon risotto with asparagus and lemon = my Easter lunch à la 2021!

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Easter Pressure!

Oh look. It’s the end of March… and just like that, it’s almost Easter! Have I done something regarding Easter? Nope. All I’m thinking about is the long weekend it brings! As a family of two adults, holidays come and go unless there’s the extended family and children to celebrate it with. And it just so happens, this year those gatherings are out of the question.

I guess I’d be fine with not paying much attention to Easter, unless I had this food blogger side to myself! Surely a food blogger should come up with a recipe appropriate for Easter around this time? Too bad said food blogger has lately preferred take away over home cooked meals, and isn’t really feeling like cooking – Easter or not. There is zero chance I’ll be whipping up any three course meals any time soon! Luckily something fitting the Easter-table can be cooked up relatively fast and easy: a smoked salmon risotto with asparagus and lemon! To be totally honest, this is what we’ve already eaten twice during the previous week… but I am not getting tired of it by far!

Smoked salmon “risotto”

Yup, I said risotto. But this is certainly not a traditional Italian risotto, nor is the recipe Italian. In fact, the name of the person who made this recipe (i.e. ME) means unlucky in Italian 😀 so I guess that’s saying a lot… My smoked salmon “risotto” is more a nod towards a risotto than a real risotto, but delicious all the same! I even go as far as to add a splash of oat cream in my risotto. The risotto would be creamy and delicious also without it, but I happen to like how it rounds up the flavor!

Smoked salmon?

In Finland pretty much every grocery store sells both hot smoked salmon and cold smoked salmon! In the first case the salmon is smoked in hot smoke (= it’s cooked as it’s smoked), and in the latter case in cold smoke (= salmon remains “raw” although the salt level is such that it’s not “raw” per se). I love cooking with both of these ingredients, since even a small amount of smoked salmon adds a ton of flavor to a dish! (Psst. You can find my recipe for cold smoked salmon pasta (with asparagus… see how creative I’ve been with my cooking lately) here)

I’m using hot smoked salmon in this smoked salmon risotto. The fish is folded in at the end, along with the pre-cooked asparagus. When the asparagus is cooked separately in the broth used for the risotto, you can perfectly control it’s doneness. Added bonus is the hint of asparagus in the stock! This risotto doesn’t include any cheese, but is finished with toasted pine nuts and grassy extra virgin olive oil instead. Although the smoked salmon is very rich in flavor, the end result is nice and fresh thanks to the generous use of lemon and mint!

Smoked salmon risotto with asparagus and lemon

This smoked salmon risotto with asparagus and lemon is both rich in flavor and fresh & bright first course for four, or a nice lunch or dinner for two!

Course first course, Main Course

Cuisine Fusion

Keyword risotto

Servings 2 people

Author Juulia

Prep Time 20 mins

Cook Time 25 mins

Total Time 45 mins

Pin Recipe

Equipment

slotted spoon
box grater

Ingredients

200 g warm smoked salmon
2-3 tbsp olive oil
100 g fennel
3 cloves garlic
1 shallot (medium size)
175 g risotto rice (c. 2 dl)
¾ dl dry vermouth
7 dl fish or veggie stock
200 g green asparagus and/or sugar snap peas
1 dl oat cream (or single / light cream, cream suitable for cooking )
1 organic lemon (peel and juice)
salt and freshly cracked black pepper (to taste)

To finish the dish:

fresh mint (to taste)
3-4 tbsp pine nuts
extra virgin olive oil (to taste)
1 scallion (green part)

Notes:

Once you start adding in the hot stock to the rice, there is no walking away from the stove! It's also a good moment to make sure the table is set and diners are ready to eat once the risotto is done! Diners should wait for the risotto, not the other way around 🙂

I'm aware that risotto isn't usually eaten as main course in Italy ... but the two of us have risotto by itself for lunch and dinner all the time. You can totally serve this amount as a first course for four persons!

Note on the oat cream - this is a plant based cooking cream that I use all the time. The fact that I use oat cream hasn't got anything to do with flavor, I just prefer to use plant based products when I can! You can use any cooking cream you wish, or even leave it out. In that case you might need a bit more stock to have the consistency of the risotto runny enough - and I would also stir in some extra virgin olive oil to add richness and fat into the mix.

....and regarding the extra virgin olive oil used at the end: I love a top notch grassy, herbaceous and peppery extra virgin olive oil in this context!

Instructions

Preparation:

Wash your lemon and all the veggies well. Break the smoked salmon to bite sized pieces. If you are subbing the smoked salmon with a salmon fillet, cook it the way you like, let cool, and break it into pieces.
Remove the hard woody stems of the asparagus and chop the stalks up to short pieces. If you are using sugar snap peas, remove the ends from the pods and chop them up too. Finely mince the onion, garlic and fennel.
Toast the pine nuts on a dry pan until golden. Take of the pan and leave to cool.
Heat the stock you are using to boiling point. Cook the asparagus and/or sugar snaps until barely done (2-4 minutes depending on the size). Remove with slotted spoon and leave to wait! Keep the stock hot under a lid.
Start warming up your serving plates in a 50-60°C oven.

Cooking the risotto:

Heat enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a pot and sautee the onion, fennel and garlic on medium heat until softened and translucent.
Add in the rice and stir to coat each grain of rice with the oil.
Add in the vermouth and stir. Once the liquid is almost entirely absorbed, it's time start adding in the hot stock! Add in the stock one ladleful / desiliter at a time, constantly stirring until the stock is almost fully absorbed. Then you can add another ladleful and repeat the process!
Keep the temperature such, that the bubbling is calm to medium and keep stirring your risotto constantly. Keep adding stock as described above until the rice is cooked but still has a little bite to it, and the texture of the risotto is creamy and runny. For this amount of rice 7 dl of stock should be enough in my experience, but if you were to run out of stock, you can add in hot water instead at the end.
Once the rice is almost cooked but still has a bite to it, add in the desiliter of (oat) cream, the pre cooked asparagus and/or sugar snaps and the smoked salmon. Grate the yellow fragrant outer peel of the lemon to the pot, followed by the juices. Season the risotto to taste with salt and freshly cracked black pepper.
Serve the smoked salmon risotto immediately on warmed plates. Garnish with as much fresh mint as you desire + some chopped scallion greens, toasted pine nuts and a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil!

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