Tag: shellfish

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Rante Restaurant, Radisson SAS Hotel, Espoo, Finland

Last July I was in Finland and I went to the Rante Restaurant in the Radisson SAS Hotel in Espoo in Finland is an Italian restaurant which also serves some Finnish dishes.

I had originally walked into Haguland (Tapiola) to see if I could get a meal there (as I am generally not a great fan of hotel restaurants) and couldn’t find anything open or the only other choice was McDonalds.

So after quite a nice walk, I went back to the hotel and went into the restaurant. I sat down at a table and looked over the menu.

I decided that an antipasto would be nice, followed by carpaccio and then the reindeer.

For the antipasto I asked for prawns in pesto, and thought this would arrive quickly.

Fifty minutes later it did!

A small bowl of small prawns in pesto arrived, I don’t know why I thought they would be grilled prawns, but they were not.

I did not have to wait as long for my next course, beef carpaccio.

This was superb, coming with some weird leaves (more like grass) and some what I think were very large pickled capers!

I then thought ah not too long to my main course, couldn’t have been more wrong, forty minutes later it eventually arrived.

Well the reindeer was certainly worth the wait and certainly not what I expected. On the way to the Hotel from the airport I used a Yellow Line taxi, these are communal shared taxis, one of the occupants, a shipping consultant for the Silja Line, had mentioned in passing conversation that when he had reindeer he had found it very strongly flavoured akin to venison. So I was expecting the reindeer fillet to be very strongly flavoured, but it wasn’t it was very delicate, tender, almost melt in the mouth. It came with a fantastic sauce, a few vegtables. I had asked for the chive mash to be replaced with french fries (as that was what I fancied.

I decided against a desert as the neighbouring table had to wait an age for theirs and it was getting late.

Overall I was pleased with the quality of the food, the only real disappointment was the prawns.

The carpaccio and the reindeer were excellent.

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Langoustine

I am a great fan of Langoustine.

Langoustine

When they are just right there is something about the freshness and sweetness that makes them delicious.

It can be hard to find fresh ones, usually they are available either frozen or defrosted. In terms of taste, fresh is always best.

I like mine simple with a bit of mayonaise or aioli, but they are also nice split and grilled with butter and garlic.

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Oriential Monkfish and Prawn Soup

This dish was inspired by regular visits to a fantastic Vietnamese restaurant for lunch. Don’t recall the name or the address, but it was in the vicinity of Liverpool Street Station and you could see the Gherkin… anyway onto the recipe.

I did this for two people, but by increasing the quantities you could do it for more.

In a large pan heat some sunflower oil. Once hot, add some oriental spices, I used Thai Seven Spice, but you could use Chinese Five Spice or what ever spices you like.

Add some sliced onion and some red pepper cut into strips, stir fry for a few minutes. If you like your oriential food hot and spicy add some chilli at this point as well.

Whilst this is cooking fry the monkfish in a little oil, keep the fillets whole. You could use other fish and this could be fried or steamed depending on the fish.

Add some courgette (zucchini) cut into strips and sliced mushroom to the stir fry.

After this has cooked (after a minute or two) add some sliced spinach (I would have used pak choi, but I only had spinach in the fridge).

Then add some stock, plain water will be fine or chicken or fish stock, don’t add too much as you don’t want your soup too watery.

Add the noodles, if you are using dried noodles they will need some cooking, I used prepared wok noodles for speed. If you are using raw prawns add these now (also if using other shellfish such as mussels or scallops and using squid, add these now as well.

Once the raw shellfish and noodles are cooked serve into bowls, ensuring that there is sufficient broth in each bowl.

Take the cooked monkfish, slice into thick slices and arrange on top of the soup bowls, there should be sufficient vegetables and noodles to ensure that the monkfish doesn’t sink!