Now that we are in May we are nearing the end of the wild garlic season. The leaves are still looking good but as more an more flowers appear the leaf quality and growth rate will go down.

I have tried a few wild garlic soup variants and our family likes the vibrant, "in your face", simple watery soup with no cream. This is what it is:

Serves 4-8 (4 if as a main course with bread and cheese, 8 if served as a starter)

Ingredients
100 g wild garlic (rule of thumb is that if I have a 20 cm diameter colander and if I fill it with leaves it works out at very close to 100 grams)
two medium onions
a roughly 2 cm cube of ginger
1 litre vegetable stock
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method
1. Finely chop the ginger and onions (coarse chopping is fine if you use a large food processor rather than a hand blender) and sweat in the oil at a medium heat for 10 minutes
2. Wash the wild garlic leaves and rougly chop them (set a few smaller leaves aside if you want to use them for garnish)
3. Add the wild garlic, then the vegetable stock to the onions
4. Leave on the heat for about 2 minutes
5. Blend the soup until the wild garlic pieces are fairly fine. The soup will have a vibrant green colour.
6. Heat for a few more minutes then serve
7. Optionally add small leaves or wild garlic flowers as a garnish

NOTE:

While wild garlic leaves are mild if wilted or cooked, the raw flower may have a strong garlic "kick"!

I have been in Finland again recently, this time to Helsinki. I recall about 7 years ago going to the Lappi restaurant in Annankatu and recall a very good starter of fish and roe. As its name suggests the restaurant focuses on a N. Finnish or Lapp theme. I got instructions on how to find it from the hotel reception but had difficulty locating it.

It is pretty unobtrusive with no obviously lit signs. Inside there is a bar with staff wearing Lapp-style costumes.

The interior is mainly wood and stone clad with solid wooden tables and benches. Generally there is quite a rustic appearance. Staff were friendly and there are menus in many languages. Prices were fairly high with starters averaging about €20 and maincourses €30. Staff were friendly and helpful and the place seemed pretty full.

As a game fan I focused on one course which was described as Grilled elk (North American readers would recognise this as moose) fillet, fried deer sausage, reindeer roast, oven baked winter vegetables and thyme potatoes with creamy game sauce.

The dish was served with cowberries (lingonberries according to the menu) which are in the cranberry family but smaller (in the UK, Lidl describes them as "wild cranberries" but they are a different and native European berry). The tartness of the berries complements the venison and elk's gamey taste very well. The elk fillet was tasty and certainly not dry (a fear I have with that sort of gamey meat). The venison sausage was fine - though no better than what I have recently bought in the UK.

The vegetables include a large slice of thyme potato, roast carrots and roast beetroot. (all tasty but not that different from what we do at home in winter) though  I liked the presentation in a sizzle pan. One course was certainly enough to eat  - I am sure the starters and desserts were good though. Although well known the restaurant did not seem to compromise on ingredients.

If you like Nordic-style fish and game then this is a good place to go providing you are happy with the 30 € price level for a single course. It is reasonably centrally located in Helsinki though not on one of the major streets.

I got Jamie Oliver's "My Guide to Making you a Better Cook" as a present a year ago. There are certainly some nice ideas there and I have learned some things that I have not previously known. I was interested in the idea of getting fennel curly as a salad to go with a fish dish. Specifically he states

 Using a speed peeler, a mandolin slicer or pretty good knife skills, slice the fenner bulbs lengthways very, very finely and put in a bowl of iced water for 10 minutes or so until the slices go crispy and curly.

 Mrs O and I like fennel salad with smoked salmon or trout but I normally slice the fennel horizontally across the bulb (on my Siemens slicing machine) as 1 mm slices. I normally do a dressing with 2 parts vegetable oil to one of white wine vinegar or 3 parts walnut oil to 1 part of cider vineger.

I tried Jamie's idea a few times with water and a load of ice cubes and the fennel refused to curl. I ended up trying a bowl of water in the freezer with vertically sliced fennel. However it seemed to take a good 30 minutes to curl.

The result was more visually pleasing than normal, but seemed a real palava. Mrs O said it was a total waste of time and that the crisp chilled fennel had a much weaker taste than normal. However perhaps I made the mistake of using olive oil which tends to overpower more tastes than normal vegetable oil.

This weekend I finished the last of last season's wild garlic oil from my fridge. We had smoked salmon and wild garlic and mustard sauce can provide a good alternative to a dill and mustard sauce. The sauce obviously can be made from fresh leaves but in the following description I use wild garlic oil as the starting point.

Ingredients

4 tbsp mild mustard (French or German)
3 tbsp wild garlic oil
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
100 ml vegetable oil
pinch salt
pinch pepper

Method

1. Put all ingredients into a jug or container suitable for use with a hand blender
2. Blend the ingredients until the sauce has an even consistency
3. Serve with smoked salmon or gravad lax (note wild garlic flowers like the one on the plate are edible).

Note

The sauce can be served neat or in more dilute form by mixing with either mayonaise, yogurt or cream.

This evening I had the pleasure of visiting Tilliholvi again; my last visit was four years ago. Jacques Chirac has been very disparaging about Finnish food but in my experience - like in the UK - there are good and bad eateries. In 2006 Tilliholvi was rated the 25th best restaurant in Finland - and while I am not familiar with the best 24  - I do not doubt that it deserves the accolade.

The restaurant is in a basement of what used to be the headquarters of the Union Bank of Finland. The restaurant has arched brickwork which gives it a real character, much as I have seen for example in Vienna or Montpellier.

It was also the scene of Finland's largest embezzlement as described above. With my youngest son having a similar name I'd better check my piggy bank when I get home!

Coming into the restaurant with its neatly laid tables with lovely large wineglasses and black-dressed waitresses you immediately think that this is a posh joint. Having said that it is quite informal - nobody complained when I arrived with my Finnish colleagues wearing jeans and without ties! It is certainly not stuck up in any way.

There are a couple of smaller siderooms which can be booked for groups. Service was consistently friendly.

The menu is very simple. As I recalled from previous visits there were two set menus (one vegetarian and one non-vegetarian) and a limited choice on the a la carte menu - four starters, four main courses and four desserts. However what the menu lacked in variety it did not lack in quality.

I went for a starter (12€) that was described as "caviar of lavaret, lavaret tatare and cold smoked lavaret". I have never heard of "lavaret" and indeed sometimes question translations into English of Nordic fish and fruit in restaurants. The Finnish word was siika and it was a freshwater fish in the salmon family. According to Wikipedia it is a common whitefish which is not found in the UK but is similar to the powan (a protected species found in Loch Lomond and Loch Eck in Scotland). In Nordic countries there are often wonderful combinations of cold fish and distilled spirits (served from the freezer). This was no exception and the option of 3 schnapps to go with the "lavaret" was quite appropriate. The waitress who explained everything meticulously in both Finnish and English said that we should have the Russian vodka with the smoked lavaret (top left), the Danish aquavit with the roe (bottom right) and a Finnish blended concoction with the tatare (top right). This was a great starter!

For the main course my four Finnish colleagues all went for the filet steak - which looked marvellous. However since I have never seen reindeer (29€) on offer at shops at home I could not resist going for the "tourist choice". Like venison, reindeer can be very dry or tough if mishandled but my medium steak was expertly prepared being black on the outside and tender and red on the inside. The steak was accompanied with a good Australian cabernet shiraz (I do not recall the name).

By this time I had eaten enough so did not attempt the dessert menu. Just rounded it off with an espresso and calvados.

I thoroughly recommend Tiiliholvi!

This is one of the best times of the year for the "green herbs" in my garden. Chives have been good for the last six weeks and are already budding. Wild garlic and welsh onions are growing well and the lovage is just putting up its first stalks. Although not in my herb garden, stinging nettles are also shooting up; they should be eaten before they flower. Yesterday I thought it was time for a simple spring green soup using about half of the herb garden plus some nettles.

The herbs in the picture (from foreground to background) are wild garlic, welsh onions, garlic chives, chives & lovage (on the left in front of the box hedge).

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 medium onions
2 cm cube of ginger
1 tbsp vegetable oil
large handful of wild garlic
handful of welsh onion
handful of garlic chives
handful of chives
1 sprig of lovage (be careful not to use too much otherwise the celery-like lovage taste will totally dominate)
large (gloved) handful of stinging nettles
1 litre chicken stock
salt & pepper

Method

1. Roughly chop the onions and finely chop the ginger and fry gently in a pot for 10 minutes
2. Roughly chop the herbs and add to the pot
3. Add the vegetable stock and heat until the leaves have wilted
4. Put the soup in a food processor and blend until smooth
5. Return the soup to a pot, season and bring to the boil
6. Serve.

The soup comes out bright green which is how my family liked it. Alternatively cream could be added. It should be quite healthy - wild garlic is good for high blood pressure and high cholesterol, nettles are high in vitamins and minerals.

In previous years we made very little soup, however we have been more and more enjoying trying out different sorts of blended vegetable soup. Although we do not roast joints very often we have quite often roasted vegetables to go with meat or fish dishes. Apart from the obvious potato, parsnip or sweet potato we regularly roast roughly chopped aubergine, courgette, peppers and onion. A soup has provided a good way of using up excess roast vegetables if we have had guests round and have roasted too many, alternatively deliberately roasting more than needed for a meat or fish dish means that later in the week an easy soup and bread meal can be prepared. The vegetable quantities are an outline - in practice you take your left over roast vegetables whatever they are.

Serves 4

Ingredients (sufficient for soup only, more will be needed to accompany first day's dish)

One large parsnip
One medium sweet potato or potato
One aubergine
One medium courgette
One large onion
One red/yellow/green pepper
Vegetable oil
1 litre vegetable stock
salt & pepper
4 slices wholemeal bread

Method

First day - when serving roast vegetables to accompany another dish
1. Heat oven to 200 °C (180 °C fan oven)
2. Cut up potatoes for roasting, place in roasting tray with hot oil, baste and put in oven
3. Roughly chop the vegetable, season with salt and pepper and mix in a bowl with enough vegetable oil to coat every piece
4. Put vegetables in a roasting tray and put in oven 30 minutes after the potatoes
5. Roast everything for a further 30 minutes
6. Serve those vegetables needed for the first day. Set aside the rest, cool and refridgerate.

On later day - when wanting soup
1. Make 1 litre of vegetable stock in a pot
2. Add set aside vegetables and boil for 5 minutes
3. Blend soup mixture in food processor
4. Return blended mixture to pot and simmer for further 5 minutes
5. Serve with wholemeal bread or toast

Mrs Oregano and I have just returned from a long weekend in Inverness and the NE Highlands. We decided this time to go by train - one of the reasons being that we could dine at Diwani close to Euston Station before getting the Caledonian Sleeper train to Inverness.

When I worked in Wembley in the 1980s a colleague from Madras said that we should go to Drummond Street near Euston to get "real Southern Indian food" as opposed to the typical "curryhouse fare". At that time I was not disappointed and I wanted my wife to experience it.

We arrived at about seven o'clock which gave us almost two hours before boarding our train. Diwani is a mere five minutes walk away from Euston station.

Inside Diwani looks like a glorified cafe with wooden pine seating. Some of the seats with individual chairs look OK for comfort, such as those shown below.

However quite a large section is of wooden benches and tables that are very cramped indeed. We sat in one of these 4-seater tables, the waiters being very reasonable about the large amount of luggage we took with us for the train; in fact I do not think we were the only people eating before a late night train journey. The cramped conditions are my excuse too for rather poor food photos further on  . Service was helpful and friendly.

For anybody wanting to drink alcohol with food a point to note is that Diwana is unlicensed. However nextdoor is a very good Indian licensed grocer so it is possible to bring your own beer, wine, etc to eat with your food. If - like I do - you live in a town without S. Asian shops, the grocer was a real treat offering rarer spices like asefetida and black cumin.

The Diwana menu is purely vegetarian and combines Gujurati and S Indian dishes; a waiter said that the guv was Gujurati. Unlike most Indian restaurants I have visited outside of Southall or Wembley, a significant proportion of the customers were S Asian which I take to be a positive sign. We were served complimentary popadoms and pickles. Unlike many curry houses near my town the mango chutney looked like it was served out of the jar with good-sized chunks of mango. (I have nothing against restaurants using a blender with pickles but too often water is added too!).

For our starter we ordered the Diwana platter.

This consisted of a "spring roll", a bhaji, a skewer, a potato tube, a hot tomato-based sauce and salad. The potato tube on the bottom left was deep fried. The skewer did not appear to have been used on a grill but merely as a means of displaying the food. About half the skewer items were deep fried potato discs covered with gram flour. The rest was grilled pepper. We shared and enjoyed this combination.

For the main course Mrs Oregano went for the Thali Annupurna Special.

This consisted of a variety of vegetable curries, dall and raita served with puris and rice. The curries were great but the puris seem rather hard.

I went for a paper dosa. I recall these from the trip I did many years ago as they look quite spectacular.

This was served with coconut chutney, a sort of  thin dal (sambar) and mashed potato with mustard and tumeric. It seemed a shame to disturb the dosa as it seemed a work of art. However I succumbed and enjoyed the accompanying dishes very much.

We ordered espressos - which were definitely not the best I have had - but perhaps this was not the smartest choice of drink in this type of restaurant. The bill came to about £27.92 for two of us which we thought was very good value for a central London location and very special food.

I should point out that by eight o'clock the place was completely packed with a queue outside. The waiters were certainly kind to give us benches capable of seating 4 (albeit in a cramped way) for two of us and our luggage.

Summary:

 starters & main course taste & presentation, service, price
 seating & coffee

Yesterday I did this vaguely Iberian fish stew. I love raw fennel in a salad with fish, but have often been disappointed when cooking fennel as the aniseed taste goes if cooked too long. A stew is a good place to combine white fish with oily fish. I had hoped to buy coley (more sustainable than cod) but did not find it at my local fish counter

Serves 4

Ingredients

200 g chorizo
mackerel fillets (about 350 g)
one cod fillet (about 150 g)
two medium onions
one fennel bulb
1 tsp fennel seed
1 large sprig thyme
2 tbsp wild garlic oil (alternatively 3 large cloves of garlic)
2 bay leaves
1 tsp paprika
500 g passata
olive oil
salt & pepper
100 ml water

Method

1. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with sufficient olive oil to just cover it and heat it
2. Finely chop the chorizo and fry gently in the pan
3. Add the fennel seed
4. Once the chorizo fat is released, chop the onions and sweat with the chorizo for 5 minutes
5. Add the passata, bay leaves, paprika, wild garlic oil, water, salt and pepper and simmer for 15 minutes
6. Chop the fennel bulb into thin slices and add to stew
7. Simmer for a further 15 minutes
8. Scale the mackerel and slice into bite size pieces, slice cod into bite size pieces and add both to stew
9. Serve after 5 minutes

The stew could be served with potatoes or couscous but we served it with boiled rice. I boiled 400 g in the rice cooker then just before serving mixed 50 ml white wine, 25 ml white wine vinegar and 1 tsp sugar and folded this through the rice.

Since returning to the UK I often think that we have lost winter. The weather seems to drift into a damp, cool state from October to March without getting very cold. Frosts are much rarer than 20 years ago and snow in S England is almost unknown.

As a result spring seems to come earlier. Chives have been growing again for the last month, welsh onions and wild garlic are above ground already. It seems unnatural for mid February.

Anyway with one clump of chives over 12 cm high, I managed to have my first harvest this afternoon. Made chive oil to go with our bifteki tonight.