Fresh Farmer's Market Salad

"What were you going to do with those?", a lady asked me when I picked up a bunch of beautiful radishes at the farmer's markets on the weekend. "Not sure. Throw them in a salad, maybe?", I replied. And as it happened I also picked up tiny beets, parsnips, broccoli, carrots, and some other seasonal veggies - purely because I just couldn't resist their freshness and gorgeous colours. I didn't have a recipe in mind, I just stashed the veggies in my shopping bag feeling quite content about my purchases.

Some things really are just best eaten raw, don't you think? I was playing with the idea of roasting the radishes, but when I peeled and sliced them, I realised their beautiful colour and flavour would be wasted if I was going to roast the living daylights out of them. Instead I went about marinating them in verjuice and lime juice and they needn't any other seasoning. Pared with other finely sliced veggies they made a beautifully sharp and fresh salad. 

Fresh Farmer's Market Salad

(serves 2-4)

bunch of radishes

1 apple

1/2 parsnip

1 carrot

1/2 red onion

1/4 cup natural raisins*

small piece of fresh ginger

1/4 cup verjuice

1 lime

* look for the ones that have no added sunflower oil.

1. Thinly slice the radishes, apple, parsnip and carrot and place in a bowl. Pour half of the verjuice and the juice of half a lime on top and mix to coat. Leave to marinade for half an hour.

2. Soak the raisins and the finely chopped ginger in the remaining verjuice and lime juice for 15 minutes. 

3. Squeeze out the liquid and add the raisins and the ginger with the other ingredients. Save the soaking liquid.

4. Finely slice the onion and soak it in the left-over juice for 10 minutes. Squeeze out the liquid and add the onion in to the salad. Discard the juice. (Soaking the onion will get rid of the extra acidity.) Serve the salad immediately or leave in the fridge for another half an hour for the flavours to develop.

Sweet roasted vegetables with dried fruit

Roasted vegetables must be one of the the most reliable crowd-pleasers during autumn and winter months. Because they are so easy to adapt, I think they make an ideal meal for a family of picky eaters, or a couple like us where the other one prefers all veggies and the other one more meat on the dinner plate. Nonetheless, roasted veggies on their own, or served with creamy feta, grated hard-boiled egg or toasted nuts, is certainly a wholesome meal for a vegetarian, but also makes a lovely side dish for fish or meat.

This particular recipe has a little twist to the original favourite. The seasonal veggies get an added boost from some dried fruit and a killer dressing that combines orange and lemon juice with raw honey, fresh ginger and verjuice. Speaking of which, I've been totally addicted to verjuice since our trip to Barossa Valley in South Australia, and it certainly makes wonders to this dish as well!

 Sweet roasted vegetables with dried fruit

(Recipe inspired by Terry Walters' Clean Start)

1 medium sized sweet potato, peeled

1 large parsnip, peeled

2 carrots, peeled

2 onions, peeled

small handful (5-6) prunes, pitted

small handful dried wild Persian figs

juice of 1 orange

juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons verjuice

1 heaped tablespoon raw honey

knob of fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped

1 teaspoon sea salt

small pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

1 teaspoon potato starch

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. 

2. Cut the sweet potato, parsnip and carrots into 2 centimetre chunks. Cut the onion into wedges and place all vegetables into a large oven dish.

3. Toss in the prunes and the figs. 

4. For the dressing, whisk the orange juice, lemon juice and peel, verjuice, honey and finely chopped ginger in jug. Season the dressing with sea salt and nutmeg and whisk in the potato starch. Pour the smooth dressing evenly on to the vegetables.

5. Roast the vegetables in the oven for about 40-45 minutes tossing them in between to coat with dressing. Cover the dish with a lid (or foil) for the first 20 minutes to avoid burning. Serve with creamy feta, toasted nuts or grated hard-boiled egg as a main meal or on its own as a side dish.

All things citrus

So we finally had to succumb to the first cold of the season. Catching a cold seems to be quite inevitable when people everywhere around you are coughing and sneezing, and we spend more time indoors than during the warmer months of the year. All you can do is hope that in some miraculous way you won't get what everyone else is having. Unfortunately we weren't saved from it this time and so we've spent a good few days getting better. Coughing and sneezing, just like everyone else.

If there is any benefit of having a cold during this time of the year, however, it is that you certainly have the abundance of winter citrus fruit to give you that extra kick of vitamin C when you most need it. With a woollen blanket wrapped around me, I've been cradling a cup of hot lemon drink with a healthy dollop of raw honey and some grated fresh ginger and it has been as good as gold. This simple citrus salad is the second best thing to have when winter citrus fruit is at its best. It is beautifully sour, just the way I like it, and had I had some fresh yuzu, I would have thrown that in too.

Winter Citrus Salad

(Serves 2)

1 poorman's orange or grapefruit

1 Navel orange

1 Meyer lemon

1 lime

2 mandarins

1 tablespoon good extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon raw honey

small knob fresh ginger

1. Finely grate the zest of the lime and the orange and set aside. 

2. With a sharp knife, peel the rind and the white pit of the poorman's orange, orange, lemon and the mandarins. Discard the pips and cut the fruit into thin slices. Arrange the slices on a platter. 

3. For the dressing, whisk the lime and orange zest, along with the juice of the lime, one tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil, honey and grated ginger in small bowl. Drizzle the dressing on the fruit and serve.

Last, but not least, here's a link to a special little interview I did recently with the Australian SBS Food. I am always happy to bring Finnish food on the culinary map and I it is such an honour to be featured on the SBS Food!