Lovely Autumn!

Last of rose & rhubarb syrup and preserved lemons moroccan style

What a lovely and busy Autumn we've had so far! We've been meeting our old and new Finnish customers, and now we've sent the collection for a world tour! We've also moved our showroom to a place a bit closer to Helsinki centre.

Now there is a little more time to focus on the essentials, a.k.a food. You might think we mostly live on a diet of mushrooms during the Autums, and you probably would not be far off. My favorite chantarel dish probably would be risotto, with folded prosciutto on top.

For this mushroom risotto you'll need:

vegetable or chicken stock
risotto rice
chantarells
onion
white wine
cream
parmesan
prosciutto
salt and black pepper

Chop the mushroom. Fry the chantarells with chopped onion (medium temperature) in butter and olive oil, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Then add risotto rice, and fry for couple of minutes more. Add wine and let alcohol evaporate. After that you can start adding the boiling hot stock, a ladle by ladle, until the rice is cooked and is the consistency of soft porridge. Towards the end you can add some cream. Then some grated parmesan cheese, salt and black pepper to taste and fold prosciutto on top before serving.

As recommended by Miss Marple, I wanted to try making damson gin. My dad has been making liqueur for years, but when I learned Miss Marple made hers with gin, that's what I wanted to try. It's only a jar full of damson fruit, sugar and gin, let it sit there until Christmas, sieve out the fruit and it should be ready to enjoy.