Mary and I salute a friend of more than 20 years who is returning home on May 6th. to Vouni, the Cyprus hill village where we also had our home for many years. Kari Seilo has come through many weeks of surgery and post-operative therapy and has been judged well enough to go home for three weeks before returning to Finland for further treatment. To mark the importance of this day to Kari and his partner Per, I offer a little story and one of Kari’s favourite recipes.
To do this I must roll back our personal clock to around 1974 when Mary and I were in the midst of our careers running our London public relations company, with, among its clients, several hotels/restaurants, wine producers and food manufacturers. This required entertaining of clients, media people, business contacts and others. Despite the wealth of good eating places around us, we felt it more homely and slightly different to offer such guests lunch at our offices from time to time. We created and equipped a small kitchen, part-prepared the lunch at home, took it by car to our office and added the finishing touches there.
Because soup was always popular – a good hot fish or vegetable soup in winter or a chilled Gazpacho or Vichysoisse in summer – a suitable serving vessel was necessary. So, one lunch time Mary walked down to the kitchen department in the old Bourne & Hollingsworth department store, now the Plaza shopping centre, on Oxford Street and staggered back with a large Portuguese soup tureen with lid and ladle. A handsome white china set of a pretty and slightly artisanal design, for several years it graced the table at lunch.
Times change, and so did our business. Even during non-recession times, the going was tough and social lunches much less frequent. The big tureen left office work and went home. And when we moved to Cyprus in 1991 it want along too. It was in its element there and many friends and visitors, Kari and Per among them, enjoyed the concoctions we prepared and served in it.
In 2011, when down-sizing seemed sensible and we moved back to England to our little Mill in Suffolk, there would not be room for the tureen. Our offer of it to Kari was readily accepted and as we saw from the photographs taken last year, it is in good hands and on a good table. On one such occasion, Kari made his favourite “Lohikeitto”, the traditional salmon soup made in Finland. We hope Kari will soon be able to make it and serve it forth once more.
“Lohikeitto” – Finnish Salmon Soup
This is a lovely creamy soup which looks marvellous with its pink chunks of salmon, topped with the delicate tracery of fresh dill.
Ingredients for six portions
750 – 800 g of salmon fillet
2 litres of fish stock or water
1.3 kg potatoes
3 medium onions
30 cl cream
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp dill, shredded10 white / black peppers
3 tbs shredded dill + a little more for decoration
70 g butter
Method
1. Peel and cube the potatoes.
2. Peel and cut each onion into 4 pieces.
3. Put the water into a large saucepan and add the salt, peppers, onions and the potatoes.
4. Bring to the boil and simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes.
5. Slice the salmon fillets into about 8 pieces.
6. Add the cream and shredded dill to the saucepan.
7. Put the salmon fillet slices in the soup and simmer for five minutes.
8. Add the butter and decorate the soup with some shredded dill.
9. Serve with Rye Bread and butter and a green salad
