Recipe: Sara La Fountain's Finnish Forest

Sara La Fountain made us this delectable goat's cheese salad with beetroot, dark sweet bread croutons, marinated red onions and blueberry-balsamic vinaigrette during her cooking demo in KL, Malaysia.  

A light, healthy and colorful salad - love the sweet-tangy blueberry-balsamic dressing, creamy goat's cheese and the special dark rye bread all the way from Finland. Best of all, it's something that you can put together in a jiffy. 

Goat's cheese salad with beetroot, dark sweet bread croutons, marinated red onions and blueberry vinaigrette
Serves 5 - 6

Ingredients
Goat's cheese salad
1 bunch of Romano salad
1 bunch of Frisee salad
4 pieces of dark rye bread
200g of goat's cheese, crumbled

Marinated red onion
1 3/4 cup of water
2/5 cup of sugar
3 1/2 cups of olive oil
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
Salt, to taste
A pinch of all spice
2 red onions, cut into rounds

Marinated beets
5 preboiled beets
4 tsp of white wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
Salt, to taste

Blueberry vinaigrette
3/5 cup of blueberries
Juice of 1 lemon
1/3cup of oil
4 tbsp finely grated Parmesan
Salt and pepper, to taste
Sugar, to taste


1. To make the croutons, cut the dark bread into 1 x 5cm sized cubes. Put them into a 200°C oven for 5 to 7 minutes so that they are brown and crispy.

2. For the marinated red onion, combine the water and vinegar together. Add in sugar, all spice and onions and mix until combined. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until well combinaed. Add salt to taste. You can make this one day in advance.

3. For the marinated beets, preboil the beets for 35 minutes until they can be poked through with a fork. Do not peel the beets or remove the stem or root before boiling as it will lose its colour and taste. Put the beets into cold water once boiled so that it will be easier to remove the skin. Quarter the pre-boiled beets. In a bowl, whisk the white wine vinegar, honey and salt together. Add the beets into the marinade and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

4. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients for the blueberry vinaigrette until they are combined.

To assemble:
5. On a plate, add some salad mix, marinated beet, crumbled goat's cheese and bread croutons. Top with the marinated red onions and drizzle on the blueberry vinaigrette.

*The fourth edition of the Celebrity Chef series, jointly presented by American Express and the Asian Food Channel (AFC) features American-Finnish chef Sara La Fountain. Read more about the cooking demo here. 

Back again @ DISH, Dua Residency, KL

A set lunch that ticks all the right boxes..

We've been coming to DISH without fail for the set lunch, since Chef Steve Allen took over in the kitchen. We love it - delicious food, beautifully presented at an affordable price! Ticks all the right boxes for me. This time, we're not celebrating anything in particular, instead it's a little treat after a busy week ;P (hehe, any excuse to come dine here)

We were immediately ushered to our table in the corner (hehe the waiting staff knows my favorite table since it has the best natural lighting ;P). The current menu, which is available til 7 June 2012, is the best one we've had here so far. Don't get me wrong, I loved all the other set lunches we've had here, but this was lip-smacking good. 

Even the bread was extra yummy this time - crusty and soft at the same time.. :)

Eggplant fritters.. not bored of it yet

To start, we had the complimentary leek soup served with a mini croque monsieur. The soup was smooth and rich, Hubby likes how it's presented with the olive oil dotted on top (looks arty). The croque monsieur was a delicious little bite of pastrami and cheese.

Another complimentary starter we received was the crispy oysters with confit salmon, pickled lemon and fennel - this is new on the a la carte menu. As mentioned previously, I am not a big fan of raw oysters but give them to me in a light batter like this, and I don't mind them at all! In fact, I think I could have eaten more of this.. crisp, juicy oysters. The confit salmon at the bottom of the oysters have been slow poached in olive oil.

By the way, some parts of the a la carte menu has been revised - for example, the ceviche uses kingfish instead of barramundi now. Instead of cod, they are serving salt baked king cobia. Mangosteen has also been put on the dessert menu permanently. The revised menu can be viewed in my Facebook album here.

To start, I had the carpaccio of beef with a Caesar salad garnish. Compared to the first set  lunch, the beef carpaccio is sliced slightly thicker, giving it a nicer bite and texture and it has also been lightly seared hence it tastes much more flavourful. I ended up sharing half of this with Hubby since he liked it too. I really like that they use quail's egg here (a treat I used to get as a child) in lots of their dishes instead of regular hen's eggs.

Pretty colours

Hubby had the citrus cured salmon with cucumber, green guava and thyme salad. This was supposed to be served with pink guava (jambu air) but due to some unforeseen circumstances had to be replaced with green guava at the last minute. I almost didn't notice cos it tasted good as it was! Plus, it looked so pretty on the plate, all is forgiven. ;) I like the clean flavours of this dish and the addition of cucumber and guava makes it taste very fresh. A lovely summer dish.

During our first set lunch encounter, I gave the lamb shank a miss in favour of the steak. Since I've eaten steaks several times already and lamb shank made another appearance on the menu, I knew I had to try it! And I was so glad I did. The lamb shank here was fall-off-the-bone tender and marvellously paired with the tomato risotto. I thought the portion would be too big for me to finish, but I managed to wipe the plate clean :)

Braised lamb shank, tomato risotto

Hubby also gave the steak a miss and went for the pan fried fillet of red mullet served with crab linguine with zucchini. He also enjoyed this tremendously, the fish was moist and the crab linguine was slightly tangy so it made it very appetizing to eat. It's true that you don't always have to order a steak at DISH to have a great meal.

Another complimentary treat, Bakewell tart (freshly baked) with raspberry ice cream - YUM

Both desserts were delicious. I finished mine within minutes of it being served - I just couldn't put my spoon down after the first mouthful. The slightly tart strawberries was complemented well with the soft, chewy meringue and sweet strawberry sorbet. I've got a complain- I WANT MORE!

Grilled strawberries, meringue, strawberry sorbet

Hubby had the almond panna cotta with poached rambutans. They really do know how to make a good panna cotta - it was smooth and wobbly. And it's nice that they always use local fruits here, this time poached rambutans. :) Since I finished my dessert so quick, I rewarded myself with some of Hubby's dessert. LOL.

Petit fours

Set Lunch Menu, available til 7 June

So, if like us, you're looking to give yourself a little treat, this week's set lunch at DISH might just do the  trick :) Now, what should we celebrate on the 8th?


To read my previous review on DISH, please click here, here and here.  Full set of photos can be viewed here. 

Pork-free.

Opening times: Lunch 12.00 - 2.30pm, Dinner 6.00 - 11.00pm.

Service: Good.

Parking: RM5 flat rate.

Price: RM65++ for 2-courses, RM75++ for 3-courses. Set lunch changes every 2 weeks.

Location: Dish, Dua Residency, Lot 1.1, Ground Floor, Dua Annexe, No. 211 Jalan Tun Razak, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-2164 1286

GPS Coordinates: 3.156971, 101.720803

Website: http://dishfinedining.com/