A Quiet Evening, Smoky Salmon Soup and Dill Twists

It has been an uneventful week. I did some hiking, chatted to a few ducks and collected a few catkins to arrange with some mossy birch branches that I picked up on the swampy and, in places, still snowy beach.

Then the rest of the week was spent frantically looking for a new camera after the previous camera lost it life in an unfair clash with some cobblestones.

Since both of us are going overseas next week, our Friday night dinner was going to be the last one we had together for a while. We decided to chill out at home on Friday night with some jazz on the stereo and a hot meal.

Back home I used to enjoy smoking a variety of foods myself. I had an old wok to do some stovetop smoking as well as a dedicated smoker for the outdoors. Of course, due to our temporary residence in Helsinki all my posessions are in storage in Sydney. It was a bonus to discover these foil parcels in the local supermarket that makes smoking fish or chicken in your oven or on a grill very quick and easy. They come complete with smoke flavour inside. You just add the fish or chicken and firmly close the parcel before placing in a hot oven or on a grill.

I decided to make our favourite curried, smoked salmon soup and breadsticks flavoured with dill and sea salt.

Curried Salmon Soup

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
2 Medium Onions, roughly chopped
2 Medium Potatoes, chopped into cubes
2 teaspoons Green Curry Paste
2 teaspoons Hot Curry Powder
150 ml White Wine (or water)
1 Can Coconut Cream
Approx 400-500 g Salmon Fillet, cut into bite size strips (I like to use cold, smoked salmon, but you can use raw salmon if you prefer it)
4 Tablespoons fresh Parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon Sea Salt
2 teaspoons Pepper, coarsely ground

__________

• Heat the olive oil in a deep pan or wok and gently brown the onions.
• Add the curry paste and powder and keep frying for 1-2 minutes.
• Add the potatoes and mix through. If in a hurry, par-boil the potatoes in the microwave.
• Add the wine and coconut cream and a little seasoning.
• Cook on a medium heat till the potatoes are soft.
• Add the salmon and cook for only a few minutes till the salmon is cooked or heated through.
• Adjust the seasoning and dish up into warm bowls.
• Sprinkle the parsley over the soup before serving.

It serves 4 normal people or 2 greedy ones.

Dill Twists

The dill in these breadsticks complement the salmon. Make the breadsticks several hours before the soup as the dough takes a few hours to rise.

1 ½ Cups lukewarm Water
1 ½ teaspoons dry Yeast or equivalent fresh Yeast
1 teaspoon Sugar
½ teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon dried or chopped fresh Dill
2 ½ to 3 Cups unbleached all-purpose Flour
Egg Wash: 1 Egg White beaten with 2 teaspoons Water

• Mix the yeast and sugar in ½ cup of the water and leave to froth.
• Mix the dill and salt with 2 cups of flour.
• Add the yeast mix and the rest of the warm water and mix through.
• Work in the rest of the flour as necessary and knead the mix till it stops sticking and is smooth. Work in enough extra flour to make a firm dough.
• Let it rise in the oven with the oven light switched on till it has tripled in size. It will take about 2 hours.
• Deflate the dough and knead a few times more and let it rise again for 30 minutes.
• Roll out the dough into a rectangle and cut into strips, or divide into about 16 pieces and roll by hand to form the breadsticks. Twist or shape them irregularly to resemble a bunch of twigs.
• Place on a baking mat or baking paper on two baking/cookie sheets.
• Let them rise for another 30 minutes. After 20 minutes, preheat the oven to 180 C.
• Paint the breadsticks with the egg white and water mix and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
• Bake in the top of the oven for 20 minutes, swopping the two sheets around half way through the baking.

Dessert required no effort. I purchased a few dark chocolate truffles while shopping for the new camera and we followed that with a little espresso and a smoky whiskey from the isle of Islay.

On Monday morning I am flying to Manchester to visit my cousin who lives on the southside of that city in a picturesque little village called Sandbach. We are planning excursions to Chatsworth House and Llandudno in Wales. I will also spend a day in Stratford-upon-Avon to catch up with an old friend, Hannah, who lived in Australia for some years before moving back to Britain. I am looking forward to exploring a few restaurants while catching up with everyone. I will also be posting photos from my new camera.

Easter, An Island Fortress and Russian Kulich

Easter weekends are notorious for bad weather, but on Saturday the sun shone and we decided to go for a walk around Suomenlinna Island. The Island features a fortress that was build during the last half of the 1700s and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is only a short 15 minute ferry ride from the Helsinki Market Square Quay.

The island looked much as we expected, with grassy knolls and a large population of noisy gulls and geese. It was very pleasant to walk around the shore and structures and play with our cameras. You can take some interesting shots of the city from the island too. It is a popular place for day trips and there are quite a few museums, restaurants, cafés and a brewery.

We may make a habit of going there for lunches in summer when it should be very green with welcome sea breezes. Considering it is a world heritage site, we thought that the Finnish authorities should also make more effort to remove some building rubble and old broken equipment from the island. It would only improve its appeal. A beautiful aerial view of the island can be seen on the Virtual Finland website.

At about 3pm on Saturday afternoon a wall of fog moved in from the ocean and raced the ferry back home to Helsinki.

Easter shopping was also different for me in Finland. No shelves upon shelves full of hot cross buns and we were surprised that you could buy real eggshells filled with chocolate and painted in bright colours. The hole in the shell was sealed with a little coloured paper flower.

I decided to give the hot cross buns a miss and bake a Russian Kulich for Easter as a tribute to my Russian friend, Natalia. She was born just across the border from we were are living now, in Karelia. I miss the Friday afternoon lunches we used to spend at the Opera Bar on the waterfront at the Sydney Opera House. We spent long sunny Friday afternoons eating those exquisite Ceaser Salads, that only the Opera Bar makes, and swapping tales of our lives in all the countries we have lived in. After a glass of crisp white West Australian wine we believed we could solve the world's problems. Happy memories. Happy Easter, Natalia.

Russian Kulich

I have never baked a kulich and got my recipe from Beth Hensperger's Bread Bible. The only change I made was to macerate the fruit in cognac instead of brandy.

It took all day to make the Kulich. It rises very slowly but rewards you with a featherlight crumb for your patience. It was delicious eaten with pasha. It made equally tasty toast with butter for breakfast the next morning.

Cold Nights, Hot Performances and Parmesan Pretzels

There is no shortage of good music or theatre on offer in Helsinki even if you don’t speak Finnish. My Finnish has improved to the point where I can actually manage to buy tickets without speaking any English, unless they come up with complicated questions regarding my attendance. Actually I could not even answer a very simple question in Finnish, but I am working on it. The Finns have been very kind though. Every time I open my mouth to practice my newly acquired Finnish language skills, they kindly switch to English. How on earth did they guess? Thank heavens though, their English skills are far superior to my Finnish ones.

In the past few weeks I’ve attended and enjoyed performances of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at Komedia Teaterri and the Helsinki City Orchestra at Finlandia Hall. The orchestra has an impressive repertoire and plays music from a wide variety of composers. During April 2009, I am looking forward to a performance of choreographer Jyri Kylian’s dances at the Helsinki Opera House. And... an upcoming performance of Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ with surtitles in English, had me reaching for my credit card against my better judgement too.

The Opera House and Finlandia Hall are linked by a garden walkway next to the water. Cross the road and you have the historic old Storyville Jazz Bar with autographed photos of Satchmo on the wall and world class jazz performances most nights of the year. In addition, we can relax with a beer and sandwich for dinner and enjoy two hours of live jazz at Cafe Ursula on the downtown shorefront every second Wednesday evening too.

In summary, a feast for music and theatre lovers at extremely affordable prices. We plan to spend many chilly nights and some Sunday afternoons enjoying some of the best music on offer. Before the show we like to relax with a glass of wine and some freshly baked soft pretzels. I am particularly fond of parmesan cheese so I’ve adapted my recipe to give me a savoury parmesan hit with my wine before we head out into the cold for a night on the town.

Parmesan Pretzels

For the pretzels:

1 ½ Cups (375ml) Unbleached flour
1 ½ Tablespoon raw sugar
2 teaspoons Sea salt
2 teaspoons Dried yeast dissolved in 125ml lukewarm water
1/2 Cup (125ml) Parmesan cheese plus extra for topping

For boiling the pretzels:
4 Cups boiling water
2 Tablespoons bicarbonate of soda
Egg wash:
1 Egg beaten with 1 teaspoon of cold water
This recipe makes 4 medium sized pretzels. Double the ingredients to make the big pretzels.

• Mix the sugar, flour, parmesan and salt in a bowl.
• Once the yeast is frothing, after 5 minutes in the warm water, add it to the flour mix.
• Mix and/or knead the dough till smooth. Add a little bit of flour if too sticky.
• Put the dough in a lightly greased bowl and let it rise for an hour. It should double in size.
• Turn out the dough onto a baking mat and divide into 4 pieces.
• Roll each piece of dough into a rope about 25cm long with a thicker piece in the centre.
• Prepare a baking sheet by lining with baking paper or a baking mat.
• Make the pretzel knots and place on the baking paper. Let them rise again for 45 minutes till doubled in size.
• Preheat the oven to 200 C.
• Bring the 4 cups of water to boiling point in a medium size deep stainless steel casserole.
• Once the water is boiling, add the bicarbonate of soda.
• Gently lower one or two pretzels at a time into the boiling water.
• Boil each pretzel for 30 seconds. They will puff up and look a bit wrinkled.
• Gently remove the pretzels from the boiling water, let the water drain off and place them back on the baking mat or on the baking sheet.
• Paint each pretzel with the egg wash and sprinkle liberally with parmesan cheese or , if you prefer, herbs, paprika, chilli, curry powder etc.

• Bake for approximately 10 to 15 minutes till a rich golden brown colour.
• Let the pretzels cool a few minutes before you tuck in. I like to eat them warm as is. I believe that hot chilli sauce and mustard are also good with them.