Weekend Sport, Fungi And A Few Intoxicated Plums

This past weekend was fairly quiet although two exciting sports events kept us occupied for several hours every day. We spent the afternoons listening to the Ashes cricket series between Australia and England. Unfortunately, Australia lost, but it did come down to the 2nd last day of the deciding game. During the nights we kept an eye on the golf channel and the Solheim Cup that was being played in Illinois. The competition was even every day up to the last day when the USA was victorious.

Although there are a few yellow leaves around, the good summer weather is continuing. The wild roses have almost stopped blooming now and are forming colourful rosehips. The nights are also cooler and some mornings the bay is hidden by a layer of mist. On Tuesday, while walking to Pasila library, I came across these huge white mushrooms.

Initially, I thought they were White Chanterelles (Cantharellus subalbidus), but then I decided they were too big to be Chanterelles. Most descriptions I can find on Chanterelle mushrooms state the size of the cap to be from 3cm to 15cm. The large mushrooms in this group were as big as dinner plates stretching from about 24cm to 30cm. I will continue with my efforts in trying to identify them.

It has been a good summer for discovering mushrooms and fungi and my portfolio of pictures is growing fast. These coral mushrooms were growing under the pine trees in the Helsinki University Arboretum.

I am still trying out berry recipes but plums are in abundance too, so I decided to make a recipe I have had for ages and never tried. A plum tart with a creamy liqueur flavoured custard. There are many different types of plums for sale, but for this tart I decided to use the standard large round, dark red plums.

Plum Tart with Creamy Drambuie Custard

1 Cup or 150g Unbleached Flour
3ml Baking Powder
50g Soft Butter
75g Castor Sugar
1 Egg Yolk

1 Tablespoon Drabuie or Liqueur of your choice
1-2 Tablespoons Warm Water
8-10 Dark Plums

For the Custard:
100ml Milk
1 Tablespoon Sugar, or to taste, depending on the sweetness of the liqueur you may be using

1 Egg Yolk
1 Tablespoon Drambuie or Liqueur of your choice

• Prepare a cake or square tart pan. I used a springform cake pan to make it easy to take the tart out after baking and cooling.
• Preheat the oven to 180 C.
• Sift the flour and baking powder.
• Add the soft butter, sugar, egg yolk, 1 tablespoon water and liqueur and work into a dough.
• Add an extra spoonful of water if necessary.
• Roll out the pastry to fit the bottom of the cake pan.
• Cut the plums in half, remove the stones. Place the plums, cut-side down on the pastry base.
• Bake for approximately 20 minutes.
• Let it cool in the pan.

While it is baking – make the custard

• Heat some water in a medium saucepan.
• Whisk the egg yolk, sugar and liqueur in a small saucepan and place it over the warm water.
• Continue whisking while slowly adding the milk and simmer till it thickens to a runny custard.
• Set aside and let it cool.

Remove the cooled tart from the pan or divide into servings.
It can be sprinkled with icing sugar before serving with the custard.

A Summer Cottage and Summer Dessert

We spent last weekend at the little wooden cottage again. Spending summer holidays at a lakeside cottage is a tradition in Finland and we are fortunate enough to have access to such a cottage all year round. It was our first summer visit and we were keen to seen the forest and the lake during summer and without a layer of snow covering everything. Apart from the dense undergrowth, the forest floor was covered with thick soft mosses and fungi in many colours as well as little plants, berries and flowers. Everything looked lush and green. We are looking forward to a visit in the Autumn when all the leaves change colour and the landscape will, once again look completely different from our previous visits. It is nine years since we spent a couple of years in the USA and we are enjoying experiencing the definite changes of the seasons in the northern hemisphere again.

Saturday afternoon was spent lazily puttering around the lake on the motorboat. We spotted two fishing eagles circling above and chasing the crows as well as a couple of swans with 3 cygnets in tow.

Early Sunday morning we went hiking and as the sun came up it lit up the pine trees and the mist over the lake. Later on, the clouds came racing across the lake and it poured with rain for a couple of hours. Afterwards we went out hiking again and spent a long time photographing all the critters that came out after the rain.

Summer in Finland is berry season. All sorts of berries grow wild everywhere and is on sale from roadside stalls. There are so many berries we have never seen or even heard of. Berry picking is a favourite Finnish pastime and on Sunday afternoon, I also went berry picking and collected lots of raspberries.

Two weeks ago Paul’s sister visited us accompanied by our beautiful niece and nephew. It being summer we often discussed and consumed ice-cream during the visit. So my thoughts turned to ice-cream and specifically to sorbet when it came to time to use all those raspberries I harvested. Making a sorbet is so easy and lets the flavour of the berries come through.

While talking about ice-creams and our favourite flavours, Jane and I discovered that we both like green ice-creams but she opted for pistachio while I like mint. I had quite a bag of pistachio nuts in the pantry anyway, so I thought that a pistachio gelato would be good accompaniment for the raspberry sorbet.

Raspberry Sorbet

180 ml Water
180 ml Sugar
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
2 Tablespoons Liqueur of your choice(optional)
Lots of raspberries

• Simply boil the sugar and water together and let it cool.
• Blend the berries and add to the sugar syrup together with the lemon juice and liqueur.
• Let it cool in the fridge for an hour.
• If you don’t have an ice-cream machine, place in a flat cake tin or ice tray in the freezer.
• Beat it with a fork every half hour until frozen.

Pistachio Gelato

I found the recipe for Pistachio Gelato on the David Leibovitz website. I looked everywhere but cannot buy pistachio paste here in Helsinki, so had to make my own. The link to making pistachio butter is here or can also be followed from the recipe on David’s website.

What I did find while exploring for pistachio paste was a summery drink. A cute looking milkshake that I had to taste. Not made from berries, but a good match to have with all those frozen desserts.

A Wild Coast and Fish Foodies

The Wild Coast is a beautiful, remote part of Southern Africa and we had such a good time exploring the coast that I extended my stay by a week before returning to Helsinki. My brother, who lives in that part of the world, does spearfishing and we ate fresh fish and crayfish for dinner every night...

.......while watching the moonlight on the ocean and talking for hours on end.

It is winter down there however and a few cold fronts blowing in from the southern oceans meant that some of our planned hikes and dives did not eventuate. Instead, we did a lot of exploration on 4 wheels visiting lovely little coastal towns like Port St. Johns and Coffee Bay.

The few times we did get out into the ocean we had to contend with strong wind and currents but we still spotted quite a few whales jumping and blowing while swimming north. We spotted only one small baitball of sardines swimming up the coast being followed by birds, tuna, sharks and whales. The rest of the sardine run happened after I had already returned to Finland.

The rough roads and flat tyres resulted in our return to ‘civilisation’ and tarred roads a day earlier than originally planned. But having spent time down there, we plan to return during summer in the near future to make the most of the ocean in warm weather.

Everyone knows how to cook fresh fish. You do not have to do much to it, it is delicious when fresh. Living in Australia means that fresh fish is always available and I never bothered with anything frozen or canned. If you do not have access to fresh fish however, it presents more of a challenge. I found this recipe for a Tuna Frittata in an Australian magazine called Notebook . The November 2008 issue included this recipe which is probably one of the best ways to serve canned tuna. I changed the recipe slightly by adding some potato to the pan as well as chives.

Tuna Frittata

• 1 Bunch Fresh (or frozen) Asparagus – cut diagonally
• 4-6 Eggs – whisked4-6 Eggs – whisked
• 125ml Thickened Cream – optional
• 20g Butter
• 4 Spring Onions – sliced thinly
• Small Bunch Chives – cut into 4cm/2 inch slices
• ¼ Cup Fresh Dill – chopped
• 2 Tablespoons Fresh Mint Leaves – chopped (alternatively, use Thai Basil)
• Extra Mint Leaves for garnish
• 1 Tablespoon Capers – drained
• 185g Can Tuna – drained
• 2 Small Potatoes – peeled, cubed, cooked and drained

Boil or steam the asparagus for a few minutes. Refresh under cold water & drain well.
Whisk the eggs & cream together. Season with salt & pepper to taste.
Melt the butter in a wok or pan.
Gently cook the spring onions & capers for a couple of minutes till soft.
Add the potato cubes, asparagus, dill, chives and mint and toss briefly.
Pour the egg mixture into the pan.
Reduce the heat to medium-high and gently cook the frittata till set and golden. I like to put the pan under the grill for a minute to set the top and give it a golden crust before serving.
Top with the reserved dill, chives and mint leaves.
Cut into wedges and serve with a fresh green salad and cherry tomatoes.