Arctic Cloudberry: flatbread

Lavash style flat bread - perfect for a Middle-Eastern feast

16:48

My slightly too plump Lavash breads - but they were scrummy.

If you ever feel that time is just flying by and you'd like it to slow down just a bit, I have an immediate solution. Knead. Time will never go slower than when you are kneading. Even running on the treadmill seems like you're just breezing through time, although one treadmill minute equals at least 3 normal life minutes. But kneading happens in a kind of parallel universe where everything stops or even goes backwards, like Matthew McConaughey knocking about behind a bookshelf for 30 years.

But every once in a while you forget how much you hate kneading and you decide it would be lovely to make some home-made bread for your loved ones. Fill the house with that lovely smell, show them the love and other such deluded thoughts. You mix everything together in a bowl and full of hope tip the dough onto the floured surface and get on with it everytime forgetting to remove your rings before it's too late. But the moment the dough hits the work surface the concept of time changes.You don't notice immediately, you keep going pretending it's not the most boring thing in the world including Ed Sheeran and then eventually you think it must be getting close to the magical 10 minutes that always seems to be the requirement set by sadistical home-ec teacher types with arms of steel who can whisk eggwhites into stiff peaks by hand without the smiles on their ruddy faces faltering once.

Baba Ghanoush prettified with some Iranian rose petals.

So you glance at your watch. If it's an iWatch it will ask you "How can I help you" instead of showing the time which you'd think is the obvious thing you'd like it to help you with, apart from kneading, obviously. You moved your arm in way that is not recognised by the Apple corporation, so you do some other weird arm movements to get the time, because you don't want to press the watch face with your fingers covered with the evil dough which refuses to stop sticking everywhere no matter how much flour you keep adding. So finally after much arm flailing you get the time. It's been a minute and a half.

Beetroot hummus with gorgonzola and walnuts

Beetroot hummus with bluecheese and walnuts.

The full 10 minutes is obviously way too much for me and at around the already painful enough 5-6 minure mark I decide I don't care, I will go and run on a treadmill or read a couple of reports from our quality department whilst listening to Ed Sheeran and leave the bloody thing to proof.

But even with the pain of kneading it is still worth it, so I have been baking a bit more lately. I made some really healthy, but possibly a bit dense wholewheat and seed rolls for husband the other night and there may be a French pot loaf happening soon.

This lavash was really lovely served with baked Camembert and some other pretty dips. All light and fluffy, pretty easy to make and 6 minutes of kneading will do!

Top tip: If you'd like your Lavash thinner, make them thinner.

Lavash breads (makes 8 small breads)

2 cups Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp salt
1 bag dried yeast
3 1/4 cups strong bread flour
1/4 cup oil

to finish:
1 egg
3 tbsp poppy or sesame seeds

Heat the yoghurt in microwave until lukewarm. Mix in honey, salt and yeast. Add in the flour mixing it in little by little. Add the oil. Tip onto floured table top and knead as long as you can, but until it forms a nice ball that's not sticking everywhere adding flour if necessary. 5-6 minutes should do the trick. If you have a stand mixer, for God's sakes use it.

Place back in the bowl and cover with a cloth. Leave to proof for 30 minutes or until it's doubled in size - sometimes it seems to take a lot longer than half an hour.

Devide the dough into 8 pieces. Shape the pieces into thin round discs onto baking sheets covered with grease-proof paper. Leave to proof for 30 minutes.

Prick the breads with a fork and brush with eggwash and sprinkle some poppy or sesame seeds on top. Bake in 225 C for 12-15 minutes.

chevre

Smoked reindeer and goat cheese pinwheels and smoked reindeer, rocket and mozzarella salad

21:43

Happy New Year!

I've had a bit of a Christmas break from my laptop and blogging and stuff. But obvs not from cooking and eating. Or watching Christmas cooking programs. And about three thousand episodes of Lost. We are sometimes a bit late to the box set party, by when we finally arrive, well, God help everyone.

Sadly the lovely Christmas fun is all over and the decorations have come down. Husband was in charge of the outdoor lights as always and managed to find a six foot inflatable polar bear with twinkling lights in his belly to crown the display. He loved the bear so much that in the first couple of nights he couldn't sleep a wink because he was worried someone might steel it so he had to get up several times and go to the front room window to check that the bear was still there. The bear survived the festive period bringing Christmas cheer to the neighbourhood kids and us as well and is now safely back in the box and waiting for next Christmas.

Can't help but make you smile!

So here is a little summary of my cookery fest and a collection of links that will perhaps serve as ideas the next time around.

Until then it's time to strap on my new running shoes and head for the hills. Husband kindly performed an imitation of what I look like when I run, which unexpectedly reminded me of Phoebe in Friends. Remember when she went running with Rachel in Central Park. Funny. I always imagine myself a lot more like Jessica Ennis.

One of my favourite things I cooked this Christmas, and not only because of the two types of sangria it included, but possibly partly because of the two types of sangria, was the Christmas tapas lunch I did for a friend just before Christmas including.... drumroll.... two types of Sangria, white and red! And a selection of Christmassy tapas. what else. One of the tapas was a traditional Catalan smoked reindeer pinwheel in Lappish flatbread. Recipe - if you can call it a recipe, maybe more just an instruction - below.

Rosemary infused white wine and apple juice sangria with sprigs of rosemary and cranberries.

The sangria recipes unfortunately I didn't write down, but for the white one I got the idea from this recipe. Using the rosemary was an inspired touch, there is a suble taste in the sangria infused with a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and dusted with confectioner's sugar they make cute Christmassy decoration. And when you drink the sprig of rosemary touches your nose and you smell the herb which smells a bit like Christmas tree and some of the confectioners sugar gets stuck on your nose adding a nice wintry touch around the table.

The red one was a mixture of red wine, cinnamon, cloves, clementine, a sparkling pomegranate drink and cranberries.

Another highlight was my Christmas Eve dinner. Christmas Eve is the big day for us Finns, which is an anomaly that husband never seems to understand and always disappears for last minute shopping although Christmas peace has been announced in Turku Finland at noon and all the world should stop all activity apart from listening to Christmas music and eating ginger biscuits. So once the errant husband was back I served a starter of smoked reindeer with rocket and mozzarella - recipe below. Reindeer is a part of a Finnish Christmas, not so much pulling Santa's sleigh as a critically important supporting act on the Christmas table. We always have had some cold-smoked reindeer in the Christmas table, usually served cold on it's own as an antipasto kind of thing, And on the Chrtistmas Day in the breakfast table as something to put on top of your slice of sourdough rye bread, sweet Christmas loaf or Karelian pasty.

For my Christmas eve main I did a veal osso buco milanese with a wonderful yellow saffron risotto inspired by Jamie's Christmas cooking programs. Husband sometimes questions the necessity of hours of Good Food channel and Food Network, so these moments are great proof that there is sense to it all. I also made a panzanella salad and a raspberry tiramisu for dessert. Fantastic.

Veal osso buco milanese with a saffron risotto

The one traditional Finnish Christmas food I can't seem to do without is the sweetened potato bake. I actually thought I would soldier through this Christmas without it, but on Christmas morning I caved in having not thought about anything else all Christmas eve and not being able to sleep very well at all. I had a jar of pickled herring and couldn't get it out of my head. How could I possibly not make this awesome potato dish to accompany the herring.

So on Christmas day I served some cold fish starters with the lovely potato bake and some roast potatoes for husband, pickled herring, mediterranean anchovies, smoked salmon and whitefish roe with dill, onion and sour cream - another absolute Christmas must. The main was my provencal duck legs, roast potatoes and roast carrots and parsnip. I was really excited with my purple heritage carrots, but they just actually looked like I had burned my veg. Everything tasted really good though.

Whitefish roe with dill, onion and sour cream

The best way to eat roe - mixed with sour cream, chopped onion and dill.

Below my two super easy reindeer starters. Smoked reindeer can be hard to find here (although a quite ethical way to grow meat), so you could replace with other smoked meat, Waitrose sells smoked venison, or bresaola would work as well. My sister helpfully suggested cold-smoked horse as a substitute when we were discussing the difficulties obtaining reindeer in the UK. But horse meat is equally or even more difficult to find and very much frowned upon here. Whereas in Finland, practical as ever, we eat our horses after their time has come, even though we don't grow them for that purpose specifically. Waste not, want not kind of a thing. Plus it's tasty. But I told my sister that eating horse to British people is probably a bit like eating labrador puppies would be to us. However practical even we don't eat labrador puppies.

Smoked reindeer, goat cheese and rocket flatbread pinwheels

Flat bread
Pack (about 100g) cold-smoked reindeer
100g soft chevre
2-3 tbsp sour cream (or yoghurt)
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
Rocket
Black pepper

For the flatbread try to find stonebaked flatbread, the small ethnic shops usually do it. But if you can't find any then any other kind of flat bread will do. Even a tortilla, although ideally I would use something a bit thicker.

Chop the fresh herbs. Crumble the chevre and mix in a couple of tablespoons of sour cream or yoghurt to thin it a little and mix well until smooth. Mix in the chopped herbs and black pepper to taste.

Spread the chevre mixture on the flat bread. Cut the reindeer slices into thin strips and spread evenly. Sprinkle over a good helping of rocket. Roll the flatbread and wrap the roll in a tinfoil and rest in the fridge for a couple of hours. Slice into about 1-1.5 cm slices and serve on a bed of rocket.

Smoked reindeer mozzarella and rocket salad

Smoked reindeer, rocket and mozzarella salad

Pack of rocket (about 90g)
Pack (100g) cold-smoked reindeer or other smoked meat
150g good quality mozzarella
Extra virgin olive oil
Fresh thyme or rosemary
Salt
Black pepper

Spread the rocket on a serving platter or individual plates. Fold the reindeer slices into nice shapes and place over the rocket. If using small mozzarella balls add them onto the plate, or slice your mozzarella and spread the slices on the platter/plates. Sprinkle with salt, fresh chopped herbs, freshly ground black pepper and olive oil.

baking

Finnish potato flatbreads - Perunarieska

23:16

Traditional Finnish unleavened potato flatbreads

These unleavened soft little flatbreads are made with mashed potato and are best eaten warm smeared with butter. I made a batch of fresh mash for these, but the recipe is perfect for using up any leftover boiled potatoes or mash. That's how the recipe probably originally was born. Finns used to eat potatoes pretty much at every meal in some shape or form, usually just boiled. Nowadays many are venturing into the realms of rice and pasta as our world has become more global, as they say, which I think is a bit stupid, but it just means people know more about other countries and cultures and are less stuck in their ways.

My parents generation is still very much unglobal, stuck in their ways and having a love affair with their potatoes. My Mum ever the adventurer sometimes makes pasta. Dad's not a fan and last time I spoke to them he was tangibly traumatized by having had to eat pasta three days in a row. Mum still sometimes cooks the same amounts as when there were 7 of us there instead of just the two of them. Even when I'd finished my chat with Dad and was speaking to mum I heard him muttering to himself in the background about the neverending pastathlon whilst watching Midsomer Murders. They watch more British TV in Finland than we do here.

We took them to Oxford once when they were visiting. We walked around the pretty town centre and they kept pointing buildings to each other saying oh we've seen this and look at that one, remember that? We were a bit surprised because we didn't think they'd been there before. They explained that they know the place because Inspectors Morse and Lewis live there. Obviously.

I made these potato flatbreads for our Saturday brunch and served them with an omelette and a salad. Husband was a bit suspicious pinching the bottoms of the breads asking if they were actually done. The consistency is soft and moist and unlike normal bread because of the mash. But after I explained this and confirmed that indeed they are supposed to be like that (a sentence I used to have to use a lot in my early days of domestic goddessness) he seemed happy and in the end gave me his Del Monte man approval announcing "This bread is very good".

Finnish potato flatbreads - Perunarieska

I baked them on a wire rack and after patting them nice and round I turned them around to get the rack pattern on top before pricking with a fork and baking. Fiddly but pretty.

Baked Finnish unleavened no-knead flatbread

Recipe: Traditional Finnish Potato Flatbread - Perunarieska

2 cups of potato mash (mashed potatoes, 50g butter, a splash of milk, salt)
2 cups of barley flour (I had no barley flour so I used wholemeal and plain half and half)
2 eggs
salt

Heat oven to 250C (my oven only goes to 225C so I turned the broiler on a bit to give the breads nice colour on the surface).

The original recipe calls for barley flour, but don't be too hung up on that. You can use plain flour if you want, or a mix of plain and wholemeal for a healthier option. You could chuck in some oats or rye bran.

Mix all ingredients together until well incorporated, but don't overmix to avoid the dough becoming tough. Definitely don't knead. Taste to check you have added enough salt.

Flour the work surface lightly and divide the dough into 4 balls. Flatten each ball into a half an inch or slightly thinner circle. Place on a baking sheet covered with non-stick baking paper and prick with a fork.

Place in a preheated oven and bake for about 15 minutes (or a bit longer if your breads are not very thin) until the breads have got some nice colour. Originally these would have been baked in a masonry oven so you can just imagine how delicious they would have been. Wrap in a clean tea towel and serve immediately with butter.

They stay fresh for a few days or you can also freeze them. Just warm up before serving.