I had invited a friend for lunch today. The idea was to enjoy our new garden as the forecast for the day originally was good, but the closer to today we got the more depressing the forecast. It wasn’t horrendous, but not eating in the garden weather either. Good enough to light the barbecue though!

I always love to cook lots of different little things for these kinds of occasions. I never bother with dips much when it’s just husband and me, but I love them passionately. Today I made a fantastically fishy taramosalata. I've never actually made it before, just tried the lurid pink supermarket kind. But if you like fishy things like I do, YOU MUST TRY THIS. Oops, CapsLock unintentional, but actually works well there, so I'll leave them. So - Taramosalata, definitely loved it. TRY IT!

I did a baked goat cheese dip with heirloom tomatoes and herbs on top which curdled, but tasted good. I served the dips with greek spiced fried pitta crisps and crostini.

For main course I barbecued prawns and fish skewers with scallops, salmon and tuna steak which I had marinated in oil, lemon, Greek herb mix and honey. For sides I had made a Finnish style potato salad with sour cream and mayonnaise dressing with lots of dill of course, a Greek salad and a Rocket, spinach and parmesan salad with a balsamic dressing.

For dessert I’d made a bakewell tart. I saw the recipe on this lovely blog recently and wanted to try it as I've never made a Bakewell tart and it's such a British thing. I remember when I first moved to this lovely country almost 13 years ago and the girls in the office were talking about Cherry Bakewell and I was like "Who is she?"







My Cherry Bakewell turned out perfectly. It looked lovely and what I really liked it wasn’t sickly sweet like some Bakewells I’ve had. We actually shared a slice yesterday with husband in a cafe in town and it was lovely, but it was a bit on the greasy and sweet side. This on the other hand was gorgeous.

Unfortunately I dropped the cake on the floor when I was clearing the table. It's the main problem with this recipe, the cake is weirdly slippery and can slide off the plate just like that even if you haven't just finished a bottle of rose and a bottle of prosecco. But no harm done, we'd already finished. I scooped the bits back to the plate and no one will ever know. It’ll just be me and husband eating the rest anyway. I don’t serve food that has been on the floor to any other people. So if I ever invite you over for lunch or dinner the food has definitely been on the table not floor.

Afterwards we collapsed on the living room sofas too full to move. While sipping our mint and cardamom teas we managed to resolve most issues with world religions (Jesus turning the water into wine propably wasn't a good idea and must have pissed of the muslim population, sorry Glenn Wool - stole your joke), America’s gun problem (just stop shooting everybody in the head), difficulties of modern day dating, pros and cons of biological vs adopted children which I think was particularly well done as neither of us has kids of any kind.

Oh I have step kids of course, forgot about those.

My friend told me about this great new science that has uncovered that by eating a 600 calorie diet for some time, hopefully not for too long as sounds depressing, you can either prevent or reverse type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, Alzheimers disease, divorce and all kinds of things. Ok - not divorce. It might actually bring about a few as I can personally imagine not being a delight to live with on that kind of a diet.

It was called epe, epo, episomething. Epigenetics that’s it. Will report back later on more detail, I will do some research. Today’s a bit of a write-off anyway in epigenetics front as I must have passed the 600 calorie marks long before we moved to the main course.

But fascinating.

Anyway – the recipe I want to share is the taramosalata. Potato salad was nice as well, but to be honest I was getting a bit pressed for time, so I just chucked stuff in, not sure what all of it was. And when my friend kindly complimented on it and asked what was in it I just listed random things that I thought would go in a potato salad. Like potatoes.

For the Bakewell go here, it's a very good recipe, wouldn't know how to improve it.  For the goat cheese dip, this is your best bet and if you follow the recipe the dip probably won’t curdle. But if you particularly fancy a cottage cheese like knobbly version just replace the cream cheese with crème fraiche and yoghurt.

Greek fish roe dip - Taramosalata recipe

3 slices of white bread crusts removed
150g roe (unsmoked better, but I used smoked cod roe)
1 garlic clove
¼ cup milk
½ cup olive oil

Juice of one lemon
Black pepper

Most recipes call for stale bread and ask you to soak it in the milk, then squeeze dry and add to the mix. My bread was fresh and I actually forgot about the soaking bit, I just added all the ingredients together in the food processor and blitzed. And it was beautiful.

In my family we always eat fish roe like this, mixed with sour cream or Smetana as we call it and onion. A more prevalent way to serve fish eggs, for instance with blinis, is to have the different ingredients in separate bowls. But pre-mixing them gives the flavours a chance to mingle and coalesce and develop into so much more than their simple sum.


This recipe works with any type of fish eggs. I like them all; small, big, fishy, mild, orange or black. Salmon roe is easily available and affordable. It has a lovely colour and the eggs are big so it makes a good-looking dish. The finer grained and paler whitefish and vendace eggs have a more refined and delicate taste, but can be expensive. I don’t know if you can get them here in the UK. I smuggle mine frozen from Finland.

My parents get their roe and much of the fresh fish they eat from a local fisherman in their village, a retired local guy who fishes for his own amusement and to earn some extra cash I guess. He heads out early in the morning to the lake to check his nets and traps. A few hours later, when the rest of the village is just waking up he goes home with his booty. He guts and cleans the fish his loyal Karelian bear dog by his side. Sometimes he smokes some of the fish and then drives around the village selling it all from his car boot.

Mostly it’s pike, perch, whitefish, vendace and sander. Maybe trout as well. And when it is the season he also collects the roe which he neatly packs into little sachets easy to freeze. It's always a good idea to freeze any freshwater fish-products if you intend to eat them uncooked unless you are looking for a tapeworm for weight loss or other purposes. The risk apparently is very low with vendace and whitefish, but I wouldn't chance it.

I think it’s such a luxury to get wonderful fresh sustainable fish delivered to your door. And he looks after his regular customers making sure he starts his rounds with them. I think my parents are among his favourites along with the self-proclaimed “wealthy ladies” down the road. They are two unmarried elderly sisters who recently inherited some forest (Finland's green gold!) from an even more elderly unmarried relative. They then announced to the village that they now are wealthy ladies. By the looks of it they live the good life eating fresh fish whenever they fancy.

Unfortunately the fisherman has been suffering from an aortic aneurysm recently and has had to have surgery so supply has been suspended. He missed most of the vendace roe season last autumn, so mum and dad only had one bag of the stuff left when I last visited. They served it to me, their most beloved child, with homemade blinis. My youngest brother "the golden boy", a great roe lover, was alarmed by this development. He should visit his old parents more frequently now, shouldn't he.

Blinis with vendace roe and sour cream

So hopefully the fisherman is recovering well. Our thoughts are with him! At the moment it is too late for ice-fishing anyway, although fishermen tend to go out even when no one else would venture. There is a saying in Finland that at 10cm thick ice will carry a man, and at 5cm a fisherman. Which of course it often doesn’t with sad but predictable outcomes. We are hoping that by the time the lake is clear again our guy is back in action pushing his boat out towards the open waters, a happy glimmer in his bright blue eyes and wind tousling his receding hair.

Today I did this roe spread with lumpfish roe, which as the name already suggests is as non-delicate as it gets. I have some vendace and whitefish roe in the freezer but I am saving it for some appreciative guests, maybe my parents when they come in May. Husband is not a huge fan, but I needed some fish egg love so used a jar of the lumpfish roe I had in the fridge for just these kinds of emergencies.


And it was really good. The roe was quite salty and also surprisingly fishy so I used more sour cream than I would have with a milder roe. On top of a Vaasan Ruispala, my favourite Finnish rye bread which I keep in the freezer and defrost by toasting lightly, this was the perfect Good Friday breakfast. I am not ashamed to admit that after emptying the left-overs to a container for fridge, I actually licked the serving bowl clean.

Sour-cream and caviar spread recipe

150g fish roe
150ml Sour cream (or use half crème fraiche if you want it less sour)
½ red onion or one shallot
2 tbs chopped dill
Black pepper or lemon pepper
Salt (but taste first, if the roe is already salted you might not need to add)
Fresh dill for garnish

Just mix all the ingredients. It gets better if you prepare ahead and give the flavours a few hours to develop. Serve with blinis, eggs, toast or toasted rye bread. Garnish with fresh dill.