Cloudy Brussels Sprouts ‒ Lakatut ruusukaalit

It's usually the protein on the plate that gets the most attention, while the sidekick is some quickly tossed salad or potatoes. Thought I'd turn this upside down for a change and learn to use my imagination on sidekicks as well. So I took some store-bought tofu steaks, smeared them with smoky chili sauce and fried on the pan. Then I turned my attention towards the sidekick, which today was all about those small but sweet cabbages that so many people seem to mistake as bitter and bland after they've met badly cooked individuals one or two times too many.

Brussels sprouts are often combined with smoky flavours and nuts but orange and sweet things also seem like common pairings. I thought I'd replace orange with something more appropriate for autumn, and so cloudberries happened to match the colour. These came out really quickly but seem fancier than you'd expect for a regular Thursday meal.

- 400 g Brussels sprouts
- 0.5 dl cloudberry jam
- 50 g margarine
- 2 tsp apple wine vinegar
- mint

Set the sprouts to steam for about ten minutes. In the meanwhile, whisk all the other ingredients together. If your sprouts are really big you can half them after they've softened up. Otherwise, just mix them with the sauce. Spoon on your plate. Try not to lick your plate like I did.

Nutritional values / 518 g:
energy 505 kcal
fat 37 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 34 g
fiber 17 g

Körpäkkä

This should be no big surprise to anyone who's talked five minutes with me but I'm a rather careless person when it comes to smaller-than-life scale things. When camping for example, I grap along a bit of this and that and only figure out what I'm able to cook out of them when I'm at it.

Körpäkkä is a perfect dish for meals like that as the very idea is making use of things available, usually the remains of the previous meal (much like in pyttipannu). The name just couldn't sound any more traditional but actually it's only about twenty years old, invented by Jaakko Juvonen for his pike dish. Since then it has started to live a life of its own. Sometimes I've seen it explained as something to combine both pork and fish but then again there are quite many versions without either one. This time I wanted to cook something out of golden chanterelles since the forests of Eura were all yellow of them (false chantarelles actually, but I can't really see or taste the difference). Too bad they loose their colour on the pan! I forgot to bring oil or spices so I used the marinade I had made for my seitan cutlets instead.

Maybe it's the outdoors but the sweet combination of chanterelles and turnip spiced up with lemon pepper turned out the most delicious thing I have come up with for a while. My friends noticed it as well and kept stealing yummies right under my nose!

- 5 dl golden chanterelles
- 1 turnip
- 1 onion
- 2 dl soy strips (TSP)
- 100 g Brussels sprout
- 1 dl oat cream
- 1 tablespoon spruce syrup
- 0.5 dl oily seitan marinade (consisting of rape oil, lime juice, ketchup, peanut butter, salt and lemon pepper)

Chop the onion and the turnip and sauté in the marinade. Add the soy strips (no need to moisture beforehand) and the sprouts (halved if they seem large). Let them cook while you was the mushrooms. Add them on the pan as well. When things have aquired some colour, complement with cream and syrup.

For perfection, use large cabbage leaves as plates, enjoy together with unleavened pea bread and finish off with unfiltered coffee.

Nutritional values / 770 g:
energy 609 kcal
fat 31 g
protein 31 g
carbohydrates 50 g
fiber 21 g