Culinary Adventures Into Finnish Cuisine

Oysters, the high nutrition seafood

2011-01-14T23:27:00.000-08:00

Have you ever buy oysters and eat them? Oysters are among the exotic foods of many cultures, it is nonetheless an acquired taste food that requires some training before being appreciated. From a nutritional point of view is a food rich in zinc, one of the nutrients required for the production of testosterone.

It is said that the Irish satirist Jonathan Swift who said of himself that "it was the first brave man who dared to eat an oyster ', but it is possible that consumption of oysters by humans could get to the prehistory, perhaps hunting for evidence of oysters found in all cultures near the sea. Think that the oysters may have been a form of food in coastal areas, and along with the fishing industry may have been an important source of income. It is quite possible that over fishing and pollution pressures have made their production has declined almost ridiculous amounts for use in some areas, however is still popular in some coastal cities where they live to celebrate festivals including oysters and red lobster.

More interesting thing, that red lobster is a famous restaurant where you can get the satisfaction of seafood culinary.

Oysters may be taken at the bottom of the seas taking them from their beds. In the shallow waters are caught by hand or with small rakes. In deeper water rakes are used more elongated arms to get to the bottom. In some areas is done mechanically with a kind collection of dredging, the operation although it requires little labor and can make as many oysters in a shorter time interval, it is true that significantly damaged the seabed. It is for this reason that since 1965 has been regulating the catch of oysters by dredging the seabed. In Chile in general the oyster is harvested by hand from the seabed. However, there are farms where oysters have grown and achieved throughout the year, even during times of closure. In areas of specially selected marine waters protected from strong currents and pollution away from nearby villages, are located the oyster beds, anchored rafts which hang large bunch oyster mussel shells or other major. These shells are attached seed oysters, which after 3 years to reach the right size to be harvested and marketed. Nowadays you could even find frozen seafood online.

Red Cabbage Salad ‒ Punakaalisalaatti

2010-12-11T03:01:00.000-08:00

Tonight we'll be having our own traditional pikkujoulu party with a group of friends, just like we did last year. The idea of trying weird glögis turned out so well last time we thought we'd repeat it with some fresh recipes. I've also baked a chocolate cake for the occasion but I haven't tasted yet in which way is it to die for.

While waiting for the dessert, here's an extremely simple sidekick salad. It takes practically no time to prepare so it's just what you need when noticing your Joulu table is still missing something fresh. Cabbage and lingonberry are quite a regular combination in Finnish kitchen but somehow the nuts give it that special festive feeling.

- 500 g red cabbage
- 3 dl walnuts
- 2 dl lingonberry cram (with only a hint of sugar)

Shred the cabbage. Combine everything. Say: "Hyvää ruokahalua!"

For hi-fi version, toast the nuts. Depending on what else you're having on the plate you could also add couple of tablespoons of (nut) oil and some fennel seeds.

Nutritional values / 815 g:
energy 1401 kcal
fat 119 g
protein 35 g
carbohydrates 47 g
fiber 41 g

Pea and Beetroot Sauce ‒ Herne-punajuurikastike

2010-12-04T00:15:00.000-08:00

Continuing with simple and humble comfort foods. Peas and beetroot make a really nice combination. I was making pea soup anyway, so I put some of the cooked peas aside for a fast dinner couple of day later. If you happen to have some canned pea soup in the closet it would also work as the basis. I think the cook book Härkäpapua sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007) has a similar pasta sauce but I didn't even look at the recipe while cooking so don't blame them.

- 5 beetroots (mine were rather small)
- 2 dl dry peas
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar (or a dollop of the sour broth used for preserving beetroots)
- 1 chili pepper
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 dose of stock
- fennel seeds
- basil
- salt
- water

Soak the peas overnight. Cook them in plenty of water. Peel and slice the beetroots. Fry them on a hot pan with oil, chili and garlic. When they have softened up but still feel firm, add them to the pea pot, as well as the rest of the ingredients. Let the sauce simmer for a few minutes more.

Enjoy the sauce for example with pasta. If you add some dark syrup, it gets a rather christmassy clang to it.

Nutritional values / 772 g:
energy 744 kcal
fat 16 g
protein 35 g
carbohydrates 111 g
fiber 27 g

Chocolate Waffles with Talkkuna and Berry Sauce ‒ Suklaavohlut talkkuna-marjakastikkeella

2010-12-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

This isn't really a recipe but just a quick post about my evening snack on the other day. Funny how you get this squirrel mode on when it gets all dark and cold (I think -21°C on Monday was the record so far). I'm currently addicted into all things hot and filling, even overly sweet things which I don't care so much during summer.

The waffles in the photo are made with my basic rye waffle recipe, except that this time I added a few spoonfuls of cocoa powder and extra sugar. The real star was the sauce however. It consists of berries, sugar, some runny yogurt and about 1 dl of talkkuna, all blended together. As always, the berries are what ever I happened to grab from the freezer: sea buckthorn berries, lingonberries, bilberries and strawberries.

These paired rather nicely with the Swedish policeman Kurt Wallander (who has by the way taught me such wonderful expressions as "Finnish suicide").

Cabbage Casserole ‒ Kaalilaatikko

2010-11-25T04:39:00.000-08:00

There's something very soothing in these numerous rustic casseroles. They're just the kind of thing I need when days grow shorter and colder and I wouldn't want to leave my bed at all. Unfortunately, this particular casserole is also one of those dishes that many Finns have learned to hate at school. All classics like that are something that I feel everyone should really try to cook themselves just once before judging. After all, if this isn't a comfort food I don't know what is.

This time I was out of barley so I used the rice that has been standing in my food closet for years. Funnily, the casserole seemed dried and more crumbling than with barley. If I'll repeat the rice version I think I'll add some oat cream to the recipe or at least use porridge rice.

- 1 kg white cabbage
- 2 dl barley
- 2 dl soy crumble (TVP)
- 1 onion
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 1 tablespoon dark syrup (at least)
- garlic salt
- white pepper
- marjoram
- 2 tablespoons margarine

Cook the barley. Chop and sauté the cabbage to soften it up. Chop the onion and fry together with moistured soy crumble and spices. In an oven proof casserole, mix everything together and spread evenly. Top with margarine pieces. Stick into a 200°C oven until the surface has acquired some colour (at least half an hour). Avoid overcooking since that may also result a dry casserole.

Cabbage casserol is best enjoyed with lingonberry jam.

Nutritional values / 1415 g:
energy 1391 kcal
fat 51 g
protein 54 g
carbohydrates 177 g
fiber 51 g

Apple Gravy ‒ Omenakastike

2010-11-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hello! I've been busy with my thesis lately but haven't forgot you. I just haven't cooked much. Think the last new dish I made was a mushroom pie for this autumn's kekri feast (more about here or here). The baking took place during the previous night, after a long workday and even longer drive back home so I just quickly put together something I could find from the closet. The result wasn't all bad but needs some more development before there's anything I want to remember about it. (Now that I think of it, I shoul've just followed the working recipe I already have.)

On the other hand, this apple gravy I made yesterday from the last remaining apples I had in the fridge turned out just the thing my millet and fried veggies needed.

- 3 zesty apples (or 2 large ones)
- 1 onion
- 2 tablespoons apple sauce
- 2 tablespoons apple wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons brandy
- 2 tablespoons wheat flour (or other thickener)
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 4 dl vegetable broth
- 1 teaspoon curry
- white pepper

Chop the onion and one of the apples. Sauté with oil. After they've acquires some nice colour, add the broth and the spices. Chop the remaining apples and add them as well. Shift in the flour, carefully. Let the gravy thicken up a bit. Serve hot.

Nutritional values / 843 g:
energy 408 kcal
fat 14 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 43 g
fiber 6 g

Beetroot Soup with Potato Dumplings ‒ Punajuuri-perunamykykeitto

2010-10-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

All beetroot soups aren't borschtes, just like all cold tomato soups aren't gazpachos. According to Jaakko Rahola's excellent food glossary, borsch is a hot or cold Eastern European soup consisting of different vegetables. In Russia, these veggies always include beet and fermented broth used for pickling the beets, giving its distinctive taste which for most Finns is way too sour. One ingredient it never ever includes is vinegar, which by comparison is nearly always found from Finnish beetroot soups. So I wouldn't call this pink treat with the name of the famous Russian stuff but there is nevertheless a lot of resemblance with the neighbor. Shall we say it has a rather Eastern Finnish cling to it.

Then again, I topped my soup with dumplings which are more of a Western Finnish thing. Myky or more often klimppi is basically the same stuff as Russian pelmeni, German knödel, Italian gnocchi and numerous other dishes found around the world. But for some reason mykys aren't nearly as popular. In fact, many modern day Finns seem to find the whole idea of them repulsive. This shall definitely change if I can do anything about it!

- 5 beetroots (plus their leaves if you manage to acquire them intact)
- 300 g cabbage
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 1 apple
- 1 sausage
- 1 dose of stock
- 2 tablespoons rape oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 1 small bunch of thyme
- 1 dried chili pepper
- salt
- 2 l water

For the mykys:
- 5 cooked potatoes
- 1 dl semolina
- soup broth for boiling

Peel the root vegetables and shred them. Cook them together with the water and the spices. In the meanwhile, shred the cabbage and cook it on a frying pan with oil until it has softened up. Add the cabbage into the soup pot. Chop the sausage, the apple and the onion and roast them a bit on the pan as well. Add into the pot with the rest. The soup is ready when the beetroot pieces have turned soft.

If you wish to have mykys as well, simply mash the potatoes and mix the semolina thoroughly with them. Shape small balls out of the mass, a dessert spoonful at a time. Take enough broth from the soup to fill a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Drop the balls into the boiling broth carefully one at a time. Let them simmer for about ten minutes. Serve with the soup.

Nutritional values / 3773 g:
energy 1420 kcal
fat 36 g
protein 62 g
carbohydrates 198 g
fiber 40 g

Rowan Fudge ‒ Pihlajatoffee

2010-10-06T01:37:00.000-07:00

This time of the year you really notice how many rowan trees there are in the city center as they all bear loads of delicious-looking (and very bitter) red berries. Too bad there are almost as many cars so we can only use the berries for throwing them at friends or admire them with dignity. Luckily this pet of the Finnish thunder god grows in some more peaceful places as well. After all, it is the first tree you should plant on the yard of a new house.

The recipe is an adaptation from the lingonberry fudge in the cook book Härkäpapua Sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007). The amount of brandy I added is so small you can't really taste it but this is easy to fix if you wish. And with the same basic method you could prepare salmiakki fudge or even garlic fudge which was also suggested by the book.

- 2 dl oat cream
- 3 dl dark sugar
- 2 tablespoons margarine (or coconut oil)
- 1 dl rowan berries
- 1 tablespoon brandy

In a saucepan, heat up the cream, the sugar and the margarine, stirring often until the basic fudge mass is ready. It may take some experienting to figure out the right time between caramel sauceness and lollipop hardness. After about 40 minutes it should have turned into a dark brown pile of thick bubbles. If you drop a bit into a glass of cold water, it should form a firm bullet but not become rock solid yet.

See all your berries are clean. Crush them a bit and add into the mass in small batches. Add the brandy as well and let the mass come to a boil once more.

Spread as a thick layer into a casserole covered with parchment paper. Let it cool down and refrigerate for a few hours. Cut in pieces.

Nutritional values / 547 g:
energy 1381 kcal
fat 41 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 244 g
fiber 5 g

Oven Baked Apples ‒ Uuniomenat

2010-10-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

Have apple trees always made this many fruits? Seems that everywhere I look there are delicious looking red dots to test my moral. Quite a large percentage of them are newcomers since during the exceptionally cold winter of 1709 most apple trees in Scandinavia and even in northern Germany froze to death. And yet, the only good apples I've ever tasted have all been domestic (no, not even necessarily stolen).

I snatched the recipe for these oven apples from here but changed it for whole apples. The problem in cooking them like that is they tend to fall apart easily if you won't keep an eye on them. Oh well, at least that doesn't affect the taste.

- 5 apples
- 2 rkl margarine
- 1.5 dl oatmeal
- 1 dl lingonberries (or red currants)
- 1 dl sugar
- cinnamon

Wash the apples and remove the core. Melt the margarine and mix together with the rest of the ingredients. Fill the apple holes and top with one more spoonful. Bake in a 200°C oven until the crust has acquired some colour (about 20 minutes).

Enjoy with vanilla sauce or ice cream.

Nutritional values / 1 apple / 137 g:
energy 181 kcal
fat 5 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 30 g
fiber 3 g

Körpäkkä

2010-09-30T00:37:00.000-07:00

This should be no big surprise to anyone who's talked five minutes with me but I'm a rather careless person when it comes to smaller-than-life scale things. When camping for example, I grap along a bit of this and that and only figure out what I'm able to cook out of them when I'm at it.

Körpäkkä is a perfect dish for meals like that as the very idea is making use of things available, usually the remains of the previous meal (much like in pyttipannu). The name just couldn't sound any more traditional but actually it's only about twenty years old, invented by Jaakko Juvonen for his pike dish. Since then it has started to live a life of its own. Sometimes I've seen it explained as something to combine both pork and fish but then again there are quite many versions without either one. This time I wanted to cook something out of golden chanterelles since the forests of Eura were all yellow of them (false chantarelles actually, but I can't really see or taste the difference). Too bad they loose their colour on the pan! I forgot to bring oil or spices so I used the marinade I had made for my seitan cutlets instead.

Maybe it's the outdoors but the sweet combination of chanterelles and turnip spiced up with lemon pepper turned out the most delicious thing I have come up with for a while. My friends noticed it as well and kept stealing yummies right under my nose!

- 5 dl golden chanterelles
- 1 turnip
- 1 onion
- 2 dl soy strips (TSP)
- 100 g Brussels sprout
- 1 dl oat cream
- 1 tablespoon spruce syrup
- 0.5 dl oily seitan marinade (consisting of rape oil, lime juice, ketchup, peanut butter, salt and lemon pepper)

Chop the onion and the turnip and sauté in the marinade. Add the soy strips (no need to moisture beforehand) and the sprouts (halved if they seem large). Let them cook while you was the mushrooms. Add them on the pan as well. When things have aquired some colour, complement with cream and syrup.

For perfection, use large cabbage leaves as plates, enjoy together with unleavened pea bread and finish off with unfiltered coffee.

Nutritional values / 770 g:
energy 609 kcal
fat 31 g
protein 31 g
carbohydrates 50 g
fiber 21 g

Bilberry Möllö ‒ Mustikkamöllö

2010-09-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

There's something extremely Finnish about these simple berry desserts. You can tell your kids to go picking berries and when they came back with a full bucket, reward them with a sweet "recovery snack" made out of the berries. The smashing part which these always involve is especially fun. Naturally, the preferred recipes used to differ quite a lot amongst different Finnish peoples but nowadays with the integrated culture we get to enjoy them all. This one is decisively Karelian. Modern versions often use rye bread pieces and cream but somehow, those seem to miss the whole point.

- 2 dl bilberries
- 0.75 dl rye flour
- 1 tablespoon (preferably dark) sugar

Grab a spoon. Mash it all together. Make it disappear.

Nutritional values / 188 g:
energy 260 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 55 g
fiber 12 g

Kääpäpihvit ‒ Wood Hedgehog Steaks

2010-09-23T02:14:00.000-07:00

Happy Equinox! The time of death is obliviously amongst us. Nights are getting so dark that all my dinner photos look awful plus I've been having a rather dizzying flu for the past few days. No, I'm not exactly an autumn person. Autumns might be nice in their own right but they suffer from the same problem as Sundays which might be idle and comfy if they weren't followed by Mondays. Oh well, a cup of hot chocolate, candles, some classical Russian music and a good book might do the trick.

Albatrellus ovinus (lampaankääpä) and wood hedgehog (rusko-orakas) grow large and fleshy sporocarps perfect for simple mushrooms steaks. You could just put them on the pan with some oil, but I also battered them to keep their inside soft and juicy.

- 4 well-sized mushrooms (about 400 g)
- 1 dl bread crumbs
- 1 dl soy yogurt
- dragon wort
- garlic powder
- white pepper
- salt
- 1 tablespoon rape oil

Wash the mushrooms and remove the bad parts. Trim them so that you end up with flat pieces. Mix the spices with the bread crumbs. Moisture the mushrooms with the soy yogurt and then roll in the bread crumbs. Fry on a medium-temperature pan with the oil until they look golden.

Nutritional values / 579 g:
energy 668 kcal
fat 20 g
protein 22 g
carbohydrates 62 g
fiber 11 g

Pumpkin Soup ‒ Kurpitsakeitto

2010-09-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

Couple of weeks ago I accidentally got a huge, home-grown pumpkin. Some of it I stuck into a rye lasagna, some of it I used as an extra spice in my signature tar turnips but most of it was still left. People often make a soup out of it so I decided to try one as well. Now pumpkin is an odd vegetable to me and its taste seems rather faint so I spiced it with exotic spices which I rarely use otherwise, in the same manner as I've previously done to a carrot soup.

- 1 kg pumpkin (or carrots)
- 1 leek
- 1 l water
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 dl coconut milk (or oat cream)
- 200 g red lentils (or horse beans)
- 1 lime
- 1 tablespoon dark syrup
- 1 dose of stock
- 1 chili
- ginger
- salt

Peel and chop the pumpkin. Don't remove the seeds. Cut the leek into circles. Soften the veggies on a frying pan with the oil. Put them into a pot with the water, the lime and the spices. Cook for about ten minutes. Blend smooth. Add the lentils. The soup is ready when the lentils are done.

Nutritional values / l:
energy 1429 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 67 g
carbohydrates 173 g
fiber 48 g

Creamy Chanterelle Soup ‒ Kermainen vahverokeitto

2010-09-11T01:57:00.000-07:00

I've posted a mushroom soup before but this version is from the more classic edge. A chanterelle soup like this is a very common starter, especially this time of the year when the season is on. I used both funnel chanterelles and golden chanterelles but the period when it's possible to find both of them is very short.

- 1 l fresh chanterelles (or 2-3 dl dried ones)
- 8 dl water
- 2 dl oat cream (or soy)
- 1 onion (or half a leek)
- 3 tablespoons wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 1 dose of stock
- 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
- 2 teaspoons dark syrup (or tar syrup)
- rosemary
- white pepper
- salt

Clean the chanterelles and remove the bad parts. If they're really big you can also cut them into smaller pieces. Chop the onion. Sauté the chantarelles and the onion with the oil in your soup pot.

Sprinkle the flour on the mushrooms and stir. Add the water and other ingredients. Cook until the soup thickens. Garnish with herbs or dried slices of smoked tofu. Serve with rye bread.

Nutritional values / 1 l:
energy 625 kcal
fat 34 g
protein 17 g
carbohydrates 59 g
fiber 10 g

Bolete Pasta ‒ Tattipasta

2010-09-07T02:41:00.000-07:00

Looks like this is going to be a terrific mushroom year so I'll be probably posting a lot of mushroom recipes. Boletes (tatit in Finnish) are among my favourites: easy to identify and always tasty. They're pretty safe even for a beginner like me since there's only one common bolete you shouldn't pick (Tylopilus felleus) and even that one isn't poisonous, just bad tasting. The only problem is all kinds of maggots love them too. You have to pick them very young if wanting to keep the meal vegan. I had to throw away my first catch since I picked individuals too big and didn't remove all holey parts on the spot. The next day they were all swarming. This time I was wiser.

A creamy pasta dish is definitely something that makes justice to their delicate taste. I used punikkitatti (Leccinum) and kangastatti (Suillus variegatus) the flesh of which turns strikingly blue in contact with air.

- 2 dl fresh boletes or 1 dl dried ones (clean and sliced)
- 250 g dark pasta
- 1 onion
- 1 apple
- 2 dl soy yogurt
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise (I use a market brand, X-tra)
- 1 tablespoon margarine (I use Keiju 70%)
- 1 small bunch of parsley
- 2 cloves of garlic
- black pepper
- salt

Cook the pasta in salty water. Mince the onion and fry it in margarine. When the edges start to acquire colour, add the mushrooms and the apple, also chopped. Sauté them lightly. When the apple starts to be mushy, combine with the pasta. Add everything else and stir couple of times.

Enjoy with white wine.

Nutritional values / 982 g:
energy 1701 kcal
fat 31 g
protein 59 g
carbohydrates 192 g
fiber 24 g

Lempo's Jam ‒ Lemmon hillo

2010-08-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

I'm often told I'm a weird Finn for loving chili peppers. But though Finnish food culture is generally rather discreet with spices and my parents' generation rarely uses any other than salt and black pepper, younger folk tends to be more adventurous and a growing part shares the passionate chili relationship with the largest Finno-Ugric people, the Hungarians. There's even an organization for home growers and other enthusiasts and this event was just held here in Tampere with a broken world championship in Naga Morich eating (ah, Finns and extremes).

Well, I wouldn't take part in that but I do find chilis an excellent way to deepen the aroma of many dishes. This time I made some chili jam that is widely served in Finnish restaurants with the name paholaisenhillo, meaning "Devil's jam". I wasn't able to find any source about its origins and the English translation didn't give me any relevant search results either, so if anyone has any further information to offer I'd be happy to hear.

Based on several other recipes and especially their commentaries (typically "too sweet" or "not hot enough") I composed one to my own liking. Notice that I used the kind of sugar that contains pectin (hillosokeri) to make this a bit jellier. Since I added some lingonberries (in the footsteps of Flikka) as well and don't really believe in evil I gave my version a bit more Finnish name. Lempo or Lemminkäinen is the old god of fertility, sacred fire and passion who of course was later turned into the Adversary.

- 500 g red bell peppers
- 500 g crushed tomatoes
- 4-6 chili peppers of different types
- 1 red onion
- 2 dl lingonberries
- 1.5 dl sugar
- 1 dl red wine
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1 small bunch of oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
- black pepper

Chop the peppers and the onion. Press the garlic and crush the lingonberries a bit. Put everything but the sugar into a pot and cook for half an hour. Add the sugar, let the mixture come to a boil again and remove from the stove.

The jam is terrific in unhealthy dishes like pizzas, hamburgers and pastas but also works in many salads.

Nutritional values / 1720 g:
energy 1029 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 16 g
carbohydrates 215 g
fiber 25 g

Pickles ‒ Suolakurkut

2010-08-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Hey who took the summer away? Didn't August used to be the most summery month or is my memory playing tricks on me?

Though I already opened the mushroom season yesterday I thought that before mushroom recipes I ought to post you something I got started two weeks ago: pickles. Finns love them on rye bread, as a sidekick and especially with fast food. There are basically four common variations that can of course be seasoned creatively.

1. Suolakurkku is pickled in salty brine. This is what I prepared after I got to watch some example from a certain lady from Eastern Karelia and realized how simple it really is.
2. Etikkakurkku is preserved in sweet vinegar brine. A common mistake is using way too much vinegar. Think this is the most common variation in the rest of Scandinavia.
3. Maustekurkku or herkkukurkku may contain both salt and vinegar but instead of them the taste should be ruled by spices. These tend to be on the sweet side as well.
4. Hapankurkku aka Russian suolakurkku is also pickled in salty brine but the pickles are turned sour, for example with a sour bread piece or some yogurt as a starter. I've never seen these sold in your average supermarket.

- garden cucumbers (as many as you can cram into your largest glass jar)
- enough water to fill the jar
- 25 g salt for every water litre
- for seasoning black currant leaves, mustard seeds, whole black peppers, garlic cloves, dill flowers and/or horseradish

Wash the cucumbers and let them soak in water overnight. In the morning, arrange the cucumbers into your jar together with the spices ‒ whole or sliced. If you're using black currant leaves wrap them around the cucumbers. Boil up the water and dissolve the salt. Pour the hot water on the cucumbers. Make sure that all the cucumbers are fully covered underneath the water since contact with air makes them rotten. Close the lid and move into a cool place. The pickles should be ready in about two weeks.

If you replace about ten percent of the water with vodka the pickles should better hold on to their beautiful green colour. For less traditional versions ginger and cinnamon also make nice spices. After you've eaten the pickles, the brine itself is an excellent basis for many soups.

The Drink of Louhisaari ‒ Louhisaaren juoma

2010-08-06T04:15:00.000-07:00

Louhisaari is a manor in Masku, built by the dreaded noble family of Fleming and best known as the birth home of C.G.E. Mannerheim. It's signature drink is Louhisaaren Juoma aka Marskin Shampanja ('Mannerheim's Champagne'). Unfortunately, I have seen all kinds of beverages made out of those oh-so-aromatic black currant leaves claiming the name and frankly, I have no clue which one is the original. Most of them are different types of simas (an American friend of mine told me to stop calling them mead so I better listen) but I decided to go for the citric acid variety this time since I've never tried one before.

I do have a powerful backup: the drink recipe page I found contains separate instructions for the Sima of Louhisaari and the Drink of Louhisaari, both of them containing black currant leaves. The site is held by Marttaliitto, an organization for advising in home economics. Interesting group, by the way. It was founded in 1899 for house wives and long known as a socks knitting circle of conservative grannies but lately they have managed to modernize quite a bit. Nowadays they accept men as members and even promote some environmental values, even if not perfectly openly.

But back to the business! This is the latter recipe, only cut in half.

- 2.5 l water
- 2 l black currant leaves
- 12.5 g citric acid
- 250 g sugar

Wash the leaves. Boil up the water and pour it over the leaves. Add the citric acid and stir well. Cover with a lid and leave in room temperature for 12 hours. Fish out the leaves. Sweeten with sugar.

The drink can be enjoyed as such, mixed with sparkling water or as a part of different cocktails. If you're not going to slurp it all right away you better freeze it or boil and seal carefully into air-tight, sterilized glass bottles.

Nutritional values / 2.5 l :
energy 1000 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 0 g
carbohydrates 250 g
fiber 0 g

Tomato Morsels ‒ Suupalatomaatit

2010-08-05T00:04:00.000-07:00

These are very simple cocktail bites to emphasize the pour goodness known as cherry tomatoes. I was pondering what to use as the filling when I came across this blog post. I guess you could grill them while you're at it but why bother?

- 250 g cherry tomatoes
- 2 dl thick nut yogurt (I used macademias)
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (or herb of your choice)

Mince the thyme and mix with the nut paste. Hollow out the tomatoes. (Use the insides later in a soup or a sauce.) Refill with the nutty sourness.

Enjoy with black currant jam.

Nutritional values / 310 g:
energy 461 kcal
fat 44 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 17 g
fiber 9 g

Gratin for Four Brassicas ‒ Neljän kaalin gratiini

2010-08-04T00:09:00.000-07:00

Once again I had some problem with translating the title. Technically, the Brassica genus covers a rather wide sounding range of plants from mustard to turnips. To my understanding you can't just use 'cabbage' as an umbrella term for the varieties of the species Brassica oleracea as with the Finnish equivalent kaali, so I thought it better to label the dish with the whole genus' name. Maybe mustard would work as a nice spice here.

If you ever have the misfortune of attending to a Finnish funeral you'll almost certainly find some form of this gratin in the menu. And yet, these are all veggies that seem to divide opinions among Finns. My theory is that haters have only eaten them poorly prepared and covered with cheese so no one would taste the bland stuff underneath. (Cheese is an almost certain sign that there's something severely wrong with any given gratin. And I'm not alone with this opinion.) Most recipes tell to precook the kraut but I prefer to save some of the crunchiness.

- 1 cauliflower
- 1 broccoli
- half a white cabbage head
- half a red cabbage head
- 1 portion of white sauce
- yarrow
- white pepper
- rape oil for buttering
(- bread crumbles on top)

Prepare the sauce. Chop the veggies and mix them with the spices. Butter an oven casserole and lay the brassicas into it. Pour the sauce evenly on them. Cook in a 225°C for 25 minutes. Turn them a bit in the middle of the cooking.

Brussels sprouts and German turnips would also fit here perfectly. With some fried soy flakes it turns into a main course.

Nutritional values / 2780 g:
energy 1165 kcal
fat 51 g
protein 69 g
carbohydrates 95 g
fiber 50 g

Clover Balls ‒ Apilapyörykät

2010-08-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

I could swear I've seen a recipe for red clover balls somewhere but can't find it anymore. Now I just had to guess what would make a fitting base. Instead of just adding the flowers to my classic soy balls I decided to use raw nuts and prepare the balls like raw foodies do. With spices I thought it best to be careful and only use couple of my favourites. Oh well, I'm assuming the original recipe was published in the beginning of the last century so it wouldn't have helped me in deciding the spices anyway.

This small test batch of mine turned out nice (especially with a spicy dip sauce) but not good enough yet for me not feeling the urge to fry them on a pan. Feel free to add all kinds of stuff you need to get rid of. Carrots, leek, champignons or rye bread should fit to suggest a few, and of course your favourite spices.

- 2 dl red clover flowers
- 2 dl hazelnuts
- 2 garlic cloves
- smoked paprika
- salt

Soak the hazelnuts in water overnight if you have time. Wash the clovers. Make a paste out of all the ingredients. Add water if you need to. Check the taste.

Roll into balls and dry them up. In most kitchens this is easiest done by turning your oven to a low temperature (I use 50°C), possibly keeping the door just a little bit ajar and turning them around couple of times. The problem with this method is that it takes some time, about 2 hours depending on the moisture of the paste.

(This time I'm leaving out the nutritional values since I wasn't able to find any source for the flowers and it doesn't make sense to count the nuts only.)

Strawberry Cake ‒ Mansikkatäytekakku

2010-07-26T11:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged a total failure for a while so perhaps this was bound to happen. I've been watching how to make basic layered birthday cakes all my life but I've never tried one myself. It turned out much harder than I had thought. Needless to say, I'm no confectioner but perhaps I should just stick to salty dishes altogether.

I took the crust recipe from a forum post. It gave 75 minutes for the oven time but after 50 minutes I started to smell something burning. The cake had got scorched only a little but simple moistening didn't really return the softness I had hoped for. After the first bite I also had to check if I had read right the amount of sugar which it seemed to drown all the other tastes, including pineapple weed (pihasaunio) which I have just come to like on its own right and not just as a poor man's camomile.

As if this wasn't enough I couldn't just frost the cake with the standard oat cream you can by from food stores. I tried this topping recipe but apparently wasn't patient enough since it remained all runny and kept bringing down the strawberries on top. At the end I tried fixing the edges with a store-bought soy cream spray I don't really like but didn't have much better luck with it either.

If possible, the whole thing became even more crooked looking as I carried it across the town for a picnic meeting. Miraculously it was edible although not exactly the best cake I have ever tried. Here are the measurements I used. Be careful with them.

The cake:
- 190 g margarine
- 9 dl wheat flour (I mixed graham and white flour)
- 5.25 teaspoons baking powder
- 3.4 dl sugar
- 4.5 dl oat milk (or mineral water)
- 1 tablespoon flowers and leaves of pineapple weeds
- apple juice for moistening (approximately 1 dl)

The frosting:
- 2 dl soy milk
- 75 g margarine (or 50 g coconut butter)
- 2.5 tablespoons potato flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- piece of a vanilla pod
- salt (just a pinch)

The filling:
- 500 g strawberries
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon flowers and leaves of pineapple weeds

Mince the pineapple weed. Mix the dry ingredients together and shrub together with the margarine. Add the milk, carefully. Pour into a buttered cake mold and put into a 200°C oven for as long as needed (45 minutes?). Let the cake cool down a bit and flip over to a sugared parchment paper.

When the cake has fully cooled down cut it in layers (I only used two layers but if you want three or more you might want to find some other filling to the second layer. Some jam for example.) Moist with apple juice. Mash the filling ingredients together with a fork. Spread between the cake layers and let it rest in the fridge.

For the frosting, heat up most of the milk, the margarine, the sugar and the salt in a saucepan. Let the mixture come to a boil and remove from the stove. Mix the potato flour with the rest of the milk. Blend the two together. Refrigerate. When the frosting has cooled down completely (think this was the part where I lost my patience), continue by whipping it into a fluffy cream. It should be thick enough for spreading on the cake as such and possible to pipe if you cool it down again.

Let the cake juice up in cold before serving. Decorate with strawberries or pineapple weeds.

Nutritional values / 2445 g:
energy 5468 kcal
fat 209 g
protein 92 g
carbohydrates 793 g
fiber 37 g

Salmiakki Milk ‒ Salmiakkimaito

2010-07-22T13:08:00.000-07:00

From all my weird heat drink mixtures usually involving either tea or coffee, this one goes perhaps best together with 600-page academic books. It's very simple but unless you're using liquid or powdered salmiakki you'll need some patience.

- 26 g salmiakki sweets (I used Lakrisal)
- 3 dl soy milk
- 1 dl cold coffee
- ice cubes

Crush the salmiakki a bit and with the milk. Leave it in the fridge until the next day. Mix with the coffee. Enjoy with a lemon slice.

For a quicker and alcoholic version use 1 dl of Salmiakkikossu instead of the sweets.

Nutritional values / 4 dl:
energy 192 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 12 g
carbohydrates 25 g
fiber 0 g

Sandwich Cake ‒ Voileipäkakku

2010-07-20T00:20:00.000-07:00

Sandwich cakes are a very Scandinavian thing. They're just like normal cakes except salty and usually the dish in formal occasions that disappears the quickest. In Finland they typically contain many layers but especially Swedish-speakers seem to prefer them resembling one large sandwich with a single layer and a pile of toppings.

You can use any soft bread together with bread spreads you like, for example hummus, guacamole or thick mayonnaise. It's not even rare to see several flavour options in the same coffee table if there are a lot of guests (and coffee table culture is a serious business for Finns - something you shouldn't play around with). Here's one model to tweak.

- 1 loaf that fits into a loaf tin (white, dark or slices from both)
- 200 g cherry tomatoes
- 125 g radish
- 1 bunch of fresh parsley
- vegetable broth for moistening (or oat milk)

1. filling:
- 2 dl cooked horse beans
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 onion
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- basil

2. filling (and frosting):
- 1 portion of cold cucumber soup, only with the yogurt drained first and the cider replaced with two tablespoons of white wine to make it thicker.

3. filling:
- 100 g soft tofu
- 1 dl hazelnuts
- 1 artichoke (or a young cabbage head)
- 2 tablespoons of mustard

Cut the bread lengthwise in four pieces (and remove the crust if it feels hard). Moisten the pieces by sprinkling vegetable broth on them.

Chop the bell pepper, the onion and the artichoke. Oil them and roast in a 200C oven for about half an hour. Remember to turn them around every now and then. Prepare the fillings by mashing together the ingredients. It's ok to leave clumps.

Slice the radishes and half the cherry tomatoes. Now you're ready to put the whole beauty together. Place the top bread slice into your loaf. Spread with the first filling and add some radish slices. Place the second and the bottom layer in the same manner. Flip the whole thing over onto your serving plate and remove the loaf. Cover with the middle filling. Decorate with cherry tomatoes and parsley.

Nutritional values / 3574 g:
energy 5516 kcal
fat 126 g
protein 219 g
carbohydrates 806 g
fiber 168 g

Fermented Rowan Tee ‒ Hiostettu pihlajatee

2010-07-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

The easiest way to get herb teas is just drying up the leaves and flowers you plan to use. This summer I thought I'd learn a new method of finding some new tastes from familiar plants by fermenting. This is how green tea turns into black tea.

The leaves in the photo are from a rowan tree. I also mixed some bilberry and fireweed (which is by the way an excellent basis for any tee mixture) leaves with it. Other plants more than appropriate here include for example raspberry, black currant and birch.

When the leaves you plan to use are still fresh, crush them (between your hands or using a rolling pin for example) so they juice up evenly. Lay them fluffily in a large glass jar and cover. The process needs some oxygen so see the lid isn't too tight.

Place the jar in a hot place (40-50°C) for as long as the leaves have turned brown. You can for example cover the jar with a black t-shirt and leave it on a window sill on a hot summer day or put it in a polystyrene box with hot water bottles. Depending on the plant this may take only an hour (as in the case of rowan) or several days. Last, make sure the leaves have dried up as well so they won't mildew. (I spread them on a newspaper for a night.)

The aroma lasts longer if you store the leaves intact and crush them only a moment before usage.

Tomato Soup for a Heat Wave ‒ Hellepäivän tomaattikeitto

2010-07-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

When mother nature decides to break some heat records you don't feel like eating but you know you ought to grub something in order not to feel even worse. In a situation like that cold liquids are super. This drinkable salad should take almost no effort to prepare. And no, it's neither gazpacho nor bloody Mary. Actually, gazpacho doesn't even have to be cold nor contain tomato.

- 700 g ripe tomatoes
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 celery rib
- 0.5 roasted garlic (or 3 garlic cloves)
- 1 punch of fresh basil
- 0.5 red chili pepper
- 3 tablespoons ketchup
- 1 tablespoon grapefruit juice
- 1 teaspoon dark syrup
- black pepper
- salt

Chop the tomatoes and smooth them down in a blender. Chop the other veggies as well and smooth down again. Add the spices and - you guessed it - smooth down. Check the taste. Move into a refrigerator for couple of hours so it has time to juice up and get chilled.

Nutritional values / 1108 g:
energy 336 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 62 g
fiber 15 g

A Food Meme

2010-07-13T23:03:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've seen many Finnish food bloggers I follow answering the same questionnaire, for example Kamomilla from Kamomillan konditoria. I've found it interesting to read what they have to say so thought I'd go for it as well.

How do you enjoy your coffee/tea?

First thing in the morning: two mugs of filter coffee with a drop of oat milk. If no vegetable milk or unprocessed cow milk is available I'd rather have it black please. I'm not a big fan of espresso-based coffees though I drink them sometimes (unlike those awful quick coffees) but love Japanese-style black ice coffee.

I also prepare a lot of different loose teas and herbal teas. Basic black tea is something I can't drink without a sweetener and I often throw in some spices as well. During summertime I always keep some self-made ice tea in the fridge.

What's your favourite breakfast?

Lately I've been eating porridge with some jam plus a carrot, but more often it's been toasted rye bread with changing toppings. And coffee is always what comes first, something I won't give up even when traveling.

Peanut butter?

Maybe once a year. Don't really know where to use it.

What kind of a dressing do you want with your salad?

Usually just oil and vinegar.

Coke or Pepsi?

Can't say I'd like either one but Pepsi Max passes.

You're feeling lazy, what will you make?

I'll wait for my spouse to come home and cook me something. Or if he's not around I just nibble things without cooking them.

You feel like cooking, what will you make?

Check my idea list (which I've ordered by month). Or just see what I have in the fridge and throw them on the frying pan.

Does some dish give you bad memories?

Those watery, tasteless mashes they serve in canteens. The one especially giving me creeps is the so-called ratatouille.

Does some dish remind you of someone?

Nearly all I've ever eaten. For example macaroni soup reminds me of my dad, cabbage rolls remind me of my mum, soy sausages remind me of spouse, sparkling wine jelly and vatruskas remind me of certain friends.

Is there a dish you would refuse to eat?

I try not to eat meat unless I'm about to die in starvation (Though when I have accidentally bought something that looked vegetarian but contained 'little surprises' in Eastern Europe I've forced myself to eat it anyway since I wouldn't want to throw it away.) but otherwise no, not really, provided it hasn't gone bad or anything.

I've got myself accustomed to nearly all the things I didn't originally like. Eggplant still makes me a bit suspicious though. And once I said no thank you to my spouse's habanero dish that made my whole body hurt after just one spoonful. (He on the other hand ate it crying and kept telling how sorry he was.) Also, it may take a moment before I want to try habanero absinthe the second time.

What was your childhood favourite food?

Potatoes with brown sauce, 'hamburgers' (toast, mustard, ketchup and pickles) with milk. Oh, and mealy sausage, cold, with mustard.

Is there a food you hated as a child but now love?

Just ask how many! But I think spinach soup wins this category easily.

Your favourite fruit and vegetable?

These keep changing all the time. At the moment I'd say strawberries and tomatoes.

Your favourite junk food?

Sadly, cheese. The smellier, the better.

Your favourite snack?

Rye bread with different toppings, fruits in many forms, nuts.

Do you have any weird food habits?

Does it count that I think french fries are at their best frozen? Some may also find it odd that every time we eat dinner we simultaneously watch a Simpsons episode from a computer. At the moment we're in the middle of the 14th season.

You're on a diet. What shall you eat?

I don't believe in diets but many soups make filling yet low-calorie meals. Although every time my weight really has gone down I've been living mainly on sandwiches.

You finished your diet. What would you like to have?

A pint of some chocolaty porter, please.

How hot do you order your Indian/Thai food?

Intermediate.

Something to drink?

With food, usually tab water.

Red or white?

In case this means wine and not for example taking sides in Finnish Civil War, red.

Your favourite dessert?

I don't usually eat desserts but ice cream with slightly frozen berries go down anytime.

The perfect nightcap?

A spicy and sweet cup of tea with a generous amount of brandy or whiskey.

What's your first baking or cooking memory?

Can't say what comes first but I was 'helping' all the time when my parents cooked. It probably has something to do with burning my fingers in a sauce or trying to silence the smoke detector.

Who has most affected your cooking?

My spouse. I didn't really cook anything but convenience food before he showed me that even zucchini can be made edible. Before that it was probably my home economics teacher who made me convinced I'm a no good person.

Do you have a photograph as an evidence from your early cooking?

Before I went to school my dad took photos of me nearly every day so I'm sure there is. But right now I can only remember photos where I play with toy cars.

Do you suffer from any sort of a cooking fear, does even a thought of cooking a certain dish make your hands sweat?

Not any specific dish but I'm dead nervous every time we need to feed guests.

What's your most used or valued kitchen utensil and/or your biggest disappointment when it comes to your kitchen utensils?

This is a hard one since I usually just cook with anything I have available. A campfire (or trangia) and a pocketknife at minimum. A freezer is quite nice to have. But my blender is crappy.

Name a funny or weird food combination that you really like.

Wonder what's funny or weird enough. Carcinogen and mustard?

Name three eatables or dishes you just can't live without.

Chili pepper, rye bread and tofu.

What's missing from your cooking?

A garden.

Flower Marmalade ‒ Kukkamarmeladi

2010-07-13T00:05:00.000-07:00

Smart people get their inspiration to make dandelion jelly when dandelions are at their full blossom and it takes ten minutes to pick them. Well not me. After seeing this article I got a desperate urge to try it out myself. So instead of the few withering dandelions I saw I picked some mouse-ear hawkweeds (that at least look like dandelions) and red clovers. What ever edible flowers you happen to have in hand, see that instead of a terribly intense flavour (like yarrow) they taste juicy and sweet.

- 4 dl flowers
- 4 dl water
- 2 dl sugar
- 2 tablespoons grapefruit juice
- 1.25 teaspoons pectin (or equivalent amount of other gelling agent)

First, the hard part. You don't want the green stuff into your marmalade so you have to pick out the yellow or red parts. This is most easily done by pulling them out with your fingers. (You can also use scissors but that way you'll only get the tips of the petals.) Put on your favourite record and sit down. This will take a while but can be quite meditative.

You should end up with about 2 dl petals. Boil them in the water with a lid on for about half an hour. After that you can either fish them out or leave in the jelly. Add the pectin, then the juice and last, sugar. Let it come to a boil and stir until it turns syrupy. In case a foam should emerge skim it out.

Pour into a glass jar and let it cool down a bit before refrigerating. Use like honey.

P.S. I have a really hard time trying to understand how the algorithm of that "Related" box works. A nice feature but most of the time rather, well, random.

Nutritional values / 570 g:
energy 680 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 0 g
carbohydrates 169 g
fiber 0 g

Cherry Sage Sausage ‒ Kirsikka-salviamakkara

2010-07-12T00:47:00.000-07:00

As a kid I used to climb in the two cherry trees of my family's front yard all the time. They have those famous white flowers that only last a moment and later during the summer, sour berries with a wonderful aroma. Cherries don't occur naturally in Finland but in my heart there will always be a certain place for them with rowans and poplars (after one of which I cried bitterly when my parents decided they have to cut it down before the roots take over the house). Finns are often called the people of trees so maybe this explains my fascination for Japanese culture as well.

The cherries sold in stores here are never like those I've come to love. They're sweet instead of sour and taste watery instead of, well, cherries. And yet, once again I bought Creek cherries when I saw them sold on a pedestrian street. After a few disappointing bites I decided to dry them in the oven and use in the recipe I had seen in the lovely cookbook Vegan Brunch (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Da Capo Press 2009). It sounded plain weird but then again, after initial disgust, I've come to love even a sausage brand that uses orange and melon as spices. These too came out pretty great, though next time I'd like to try them with sour cherries.

I followed Isa's instructions more than my usual sausage recipe and ended up doing it like this:

- 1 dl dried cherries
- 2 dl cooked white beans
- 4 dl gluten flour
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons tar liqueur (that is, all I had left)
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 small punch of fresh sage
- ginger
- allspice
- black pepper
- vegetable broth (approximately 2 dl)

Mash the beans with a fork. Throw all the ingredients together, adding just enough broth to make a dough. Divide the dough into four parts. Mold into phallic symbols (don't worry too much about the shaping part since they'll snap into shape) and wrap inside a tin foil. Steam for 40 minutes.

Enjoy right away or even better, grilled over a campfire.

Nutritional values / 1 sausage / 188 g :
energy 371 kcal
fat 5 g
protein 50 g
carbohydrates 28 g
fiber 10 g

Summer Soup ‒ Kesäkeitto

2010-07-10T00:24:00.000-07:00

Kesäkeitto, literally 'summer soup', is a dish that all Finns have strong childhood memories about. For me it reminds me of my mum and careless, sunny days. For others it brings in mind school canteen and sadistic teachers forcing them to eat the stuff with tears in their eyes. But if you've never even heard about this soup before, consider yourself lucky: you'll get to base your opinion purely on it's humble taste. Here's how I prepare it:

- 2 l water
- 500 g new potatoes
- 1/4 cauliflower
- 2 carrots
- 1 dl fresh peas
- 3 beanstalks
- 2 dl soy cream (oat cream is probably fine as well)
- salt
- whole black peppers

Wash the potatoes well and remove the bad parts but don't bother to peel. Let them simmer in salty water until soft. Chop the veggies and add everything into the pot. The soup is ready when the carrots are - in less than ten minutes.

Garnish with fresh herbs.

Nutritional values / 3080 g:
energy 831 kcal
fat 36 g
protein 20 g
carbohydrates 98 g
fiber 16 g

Cold Cucumber Soup ‒ Kylmä kurkkukeitto

2010-07-08T06:17:00.000-07:00

A heat wave has been on for several days now and weather forecasts don't promise a relief anytime soon. Although I love summer and being able to sleep outside without massive range of equipments, the situation right now doesn't affect me in too many positive ways. No matter how often I shower I feel sweaty and smell bad. I feel lazy and unable to concentrate on reading or writing.

During a weather like this, cold soups are the perfect replacement for a proper meal. This is one of my favourites. (Sorry about the blurry photo. I took this in a hurry and didn't check how it turned out.)

- 1 cucumber
- 5 dl soy yogurt (or runny nut yogurt)
- 5 garlic cloves
- 1 dl dry apple cider
- thyme
- chevril
- salt

Wash and grate the cucumber. Crush the garlic (with a press if you have one). Combine everything.

Enjoy as a soup or wrap inside a rieska. If you drain the yogurt first and replace the cider with couple of spoonfuls of white wine this also makes a nice dip sauce.

Nutritional values / 628 g:
energy 342 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 9 g
carbohydrates 13 g
fiber 4 g

Grilled Vegetable Sandwich ‒ Grillikasvisleipä

2010-07-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

This time of the year summer veggies are at their best and I keep going nuts in a food store. I just have to buy little bit of everything and then I have to hurry to put everything in use before they go bad. Since they tend to get even tastier when grilled, here's one solution.

- 10 cm piece of a zucchini
- 10 cm piece of an eggplant
- 1 tomato
- 0.5 bell pepper
- 0.5 red onion
- 0.5 dl marinated pea pods
- 4 rye bread slices
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 tablespoon ketchup (or your favourite chili sauce)
- basil
- black pepper

Dice or slice all the veggies but the pea pods. Put them in folio packages with the oil and the spices or spear with skewers and oil and spice. Grill until soft.

Mix the pea pods with the rest so they'll warm up but stay crunchy. Warm up the bread slices, spread with ketchup and portion the veggies between the slices. Notice they disappeared in a matter of minutes and you just got to have more.

Nutritional values / 1 sandwich:
energy 234 kcal
fat 8 g
protein 7 g
carbohydrates 33 g
fiber 9 g

Rhubarb Sandwiches ‒ Raparperileivät

2010-07-06T03:41:00.000-07:00

It's too hot to cook or stay inside. But when I come home I need something easy to prepare. This combination is one of the results of me trying to find new ways to utilize rhubarb. It's a surprisingly new species. It didn't become wide-spread before 19th century in Finland and wasn't even considered edible at first. Most Finns still don't like the overwhelming sourness as such but it's perfectly possible to prepare it in ways that don't ruin the characteristic taste and this doesn't always mean sweet dishes.

- 1 small rhubarb stalk or a piece from a bigger one
- 2 rye bread slices
- 2 slices blue-style soy cheese
- 0.5 tablespoons margarine
- 1 teaspoon dark syrup

Cut the rhubarb in pieces. Toast the bread slices and butter them. Arrange the rhubarb on the slices, pour the syrup on them and top with soy cheese. Heat just enough to warm the toppings.

Nutritional values / 132,5 g:
energy 253 kcal
fat 12 g
protein 7 g
carbohydrates 27 g
fiber 6 g

Marinated Pea Pods ‒ Marinoidut herneenpalot

2010-06-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

Keeping this blog has often made me wonder what really makes a given food Finnish. Sometimes I understand 'Finnish' meaning the ethnicity, sometimes the prevailing food culture in the state of Finland but perhaps most of the time it's really a matter of main ingredients produced near me. While I wouldn't want to make a big issue out of the question with artificial limitations I also try not to post any of my basic ice coffees and ice teas, no matter how much I love them, since there are so many better places for them.

Once again I did wonder whether this little marinade tastes too Asian for Mämmi but heck, all the market squares are teeming with whole pea pod sellers again and I already managed to constrain myself from eating them fresh on the spot. If you want to do something with them this is pretty much the simplest way. After all, only couple of centuries ago eating peas fresh was thought as a terrible waste and elitism that normal people couldn't afford so this is sort of circumventing the problem.

- 5 dl whole pea pods
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 0.25 dl rape oil
- 0.5 dl dry apple cider
- 1 teaspoon ginger

Rinse the pods with cold water. Remove the tips and cut them in half lengthwise (be careful not to shake off the peas). Whisk together the marinade and pour it over the peas. Let them juice up for at least half an hour in the refrigerator. Waiting overnight makes the taste stronger and turns the pods dark which looks cool together with the peas staying bright green.

Serve as a sidekick or use in salads or hot dishes.

Rectory's Makeshift ‒ Pappilan hätävara

2010-06-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

Pappilan Hätävara (literally Rectory's Makeshift, sometimes Finnish Trifle) is the traditional dessert you can put together in three minutes when surprise guests arrive or the movie you're watching goes for a commercial break. In the most simple form you just crush some dry bun pieces or biscuits on bottom, juice them up with apple juice, place lingonberry jam or fresh strawberry pieces in the middle plus whipped oat cream on top and stir with a spoon.

This time I thought I'd prepare a bit more time consuming version. Chocolate compliments both rhubarb and spruce tips so I decided to combine all three of them. After all, the period when you can get both rhubarb and spruce tips fresh is so short it has a rather luxurious cling to it. I also had an idea about oat and hemp biscuits but was out of rolled oats so I just used some hemp seeds I had in the closet.

- 300 g rhubarb
- 2 dl spruce tips
- 1 tablespoon water
- 2 tablespoons dark sugar
- 100 g white chocolate (I prefer soy based to rice based varieties)
- 2 dl soy yogurt (or nut yogurt)
- 1 dl roasted hemp seeds (or oat bisquits)

In a sauce pan, dissolve the sugar into the water and heat up. Chop the rhubarb and add most of it as well as the spruce tips into the pot. Keep cooking until you have a soft compote. Remove from the stove and throw in the fresh rhubarb pieces.

While the compote cools down, melt the chocolate carefully in bain-marie (I've managed to completely liquefy it several times when using a microwave). It doesn't matter at all if there are some little chocolate pieces left. Combine withe the yogurt and let it cool down as well.

Arrange the hemp seeds, the compote and the sauce into your serving bowls in layers. (I got three from this amount). Refrigerate if not eating on the spot.

Nutritional values / 720 g:
energy 1579 kcal
fat 58 g
protein 37 g
carbohydrates 131 g
fiber 21 g

Oven Omelet with Bilberry Leaves ‒ Mustikanlehtiomeletti uunissa

2010-06-18T03:04:00.000-07:00

It's summer time and cooking isn't exactly among my first priorities at the moment. Mostly I've been eating salads with the method "shred and mix everything you happen to find from the fridge" which rarely results in a disappointment. So compared to that this counts as a complicated dinner. The idea of using bilberry leaves (instead of berries) here came from a mention in Sillä sipuli and the basic omelet recipe I snigged from Kasvisruokaa. The amount seemed a bit small for two bottomless stomachs so we also had a sidekick - salad of course. Please notice that like so many other summer treats bilberry leaves contain oxalic acid which is why you shouldn't eat them on a regular basis.

- 3 dl water
- 2.5 dl (chick)pea flour
- salt
- black pepper
- 1 dl fresh bilberry leaves (or a herb of your liking during wintertime)
- oil for buttering

Whip the flour and the water into and even batter. Add the spices and the bilbeery leaves. Let the batter rest for about half an hour.

Pour the batter onto an oiled casserole and cook in a 250°C oven until the omelet has acquired some colour (about 15 minutes). Let it chill down and cut in triangles. Lightly roasted cherry tomatoes accompany them perfectly.

Nutritional values / 461 g:
energy 672 kcal
fat 23 g
protein 32 g
carbohydrates 83 g
fiber 15 g

Dandelion Soup ‒ Voikukkakeitto

2010-06-04T00:18:00.000-07:00

In case that supikas recipe yesterday sounded appetizing, here's a suggestion for the remaining broth. But if you want the soup only, dice a small rutabaga to cook with the potatoes.

Dandelion is among one of my favourite wild veggies because it's so multifunctional and grows just about everywhere. The leaves and buds for this soup I picked when returning along my jogging path, trying to find my breath that had got lost somewhere on the way.

- 20 unopened dandelion flower buds
- 2 dl young dandelion leaves
- 2 l rutabaga broth
- 5 dl new potatoes (or noodles)
- 0.5 dl seaweed
- 0.5 dl dried onion (or caramelized)
- 1 chili pepper
- whole black peppers or juniper berries

Wash the potatoes and remove the bad parts but don't bother to peel. Cook them in the rutabaga broth until soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and let the soup come to a boil. Eat right away.

In the present form the soup is more like a starter or an evening snack but if you want to turn it into a lunch you might want to add beans or such.

Nutritional values / 2 l:
energy 500 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 27 g
carbohydrates 96 g
fiber 11 g

Rutabaga Supikases ‒ Lanttusupikkaat

2010-06-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

Hela is the Finnish equivalent of German Wapurgisnacht or Celtic Beltane, the celebration of spring and rebirth of Lemminkäinen, the boisterous god of fertility and sacred fire. (By the way, here's a nice English introduction to traditional Finnish holidays.) The name comes from Swedish word meaning holy but I believe the original title is either Toukovalkeat ('May Fires') or Suviyöt, roughly translating as 'Summer Nights' and is also very closely connected to Ukonpäivä, celebrated for the honour of the thunder god Ukko. Judging by such relics as Ritvalan Helkajuhla, an occasion where even today young maidens wear white dresses and walk singing around a hill along a path that looks disturbingly like ukonkirves, Hela used to mark hieros gamos, the holy marriage of heaven and earth, where masculine heaven fertilizes the feminine earth with rain.

Since we don't know when exactly our ancestors celebrated Hela (with all likelyhood, there never was a fixed date) we've decided to set it for the weekend closest to the second full moon after Spring Equinox. This year it meant halfway of May. We lighted a bonfire, had a lot of sauna and sang a ton of old poems. I took my friends a double portion of these little pies.

The basic recipe is from here but I also added some fresh coriander into the filling. Even though I tried to make rather chubby pastries with much thinner crust than normally I had to stick so much of the filling into freezer for later purposes I think it would be safe to half the filling amount. This also means that the nutritional values at the end are rather overblown.

The filling:
- 1 kg rutabaga
- 50 g margarine (I used Keiju 70%)
- 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- white pepper
- 2 tablespoons wheat flour

The crust:
- 1.5 dl water
- 2 dl rye flour
- 1.5 dl wheat flour
- salt

For buttering:
- 1 dl broth from cooking the rutabagas
- 25 g margarine

Cook the rutabagas in salty water. (Don't throw away the tasty broth but use it in a soup for example.) Mash them like potatoes and add the other ingredients.

Mix the crust ingredients together. Divide the paste in 16 parts. Make little balls out of them between your hands. Roll the balls into thin circles. Place a spoonful or two of the filling onto each of them, then fold them into semicircles. Close them by pressing with your (moistured) thumbs.

Put your supikases into a 275°C oven for about 15 minutes. Brush with rutabaga broth and margarine mixture. Cover with a towel.

Nutritional values / 1 supikas / 107 g:
energy 138 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 16 g
fiber 3 g

Nettle Pesto ‒ Nokkoslevite

2010-05-14T01:20:00.000-07:00

They say young nettles won't sting. "They" couldn't be more wrong. It's starting to be the best time to pick those delicious and nutritious shoots and leaves but don't do it like I do. Wear gloves. Can't believe I forget it each and every year.

Another thing you might want to learn from my mistakes is to check what you're foraging exactly. Once again I fished out some grass, a few brown leaves and two dead larvae (that probably weren't dead to begin with) from my nettle pot. Nettles can be eaten raw as well but you do understand why I prefer to leach them.

- 2 dl young stinging nettle leaves
- 1 dl pine nuts (or sunflower seeds)
- 0.5 dl rape oil
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 2 garlic cloves
- fresh coriander (or herb of your choice)
- black pepper

See that all your nettle leaves look healthy and free from insects. Leach them for ten minutes or so. Puré with all the other ingredients. Use as a pasta sauce or spread on your bread.

Nutritional values / 205 g:
energy 852 kcal
fat 87 g
protein 18 g
carbohydrates 13 g
fiber 8 g

Rye Waffles ‒ Ruisvohlut

2010-05-13T00:52:00.000-07:00

It's hard to stay still. There are loads of stuff I should be doing but all I'd like to is wondering in the forest and traveling around like a tramp. It's bright and warm again, little green leaves have come out from all those brown piles, birds are trying to sing each other into swamp like Väinämöinen and Joukahainen. Nowadays I just can't wait getting to pick the first wild salad or harvest the little herbs on my window sill. The crispy waffles I made today were already accompanied by freshly picked dandelion, wood sorrel, lady's mantle and woodland strawberry leaves.

Root vegetables are nowadays an essential part of Finnish cuisine. That's why it's hard to believe that only a few hundred years ago Finns thought gardening as something that only Swedish-speaking upper class would do. Carrots and beets didn't become popular until 20th century. Previously common folk either ate very simply (and barren of nutrition) or gathered anything edible they found from the nature. Furthermore, after the second world war no one wanted to eat the same stuff they had learned to be just a substitute, used because of the shortage. You still can't find such wildly used ingredients like chicory or pine flour from stores today.

However, there are some week signs that foraging and growing things yourself are gaining more popularity again. Perhaps they will become trendy and then common in all classes? I sure hope so. One of the things I hope to see is my generation learning to appreciate their land and nature. After all, they have so much better chances for it than their parents did. I myself hope to play a squirrel this year and learn more about preservation for winter.

- 3 dl oat milk (or apple juice)
- 3 dl sparkling water (or tab water)
- 2 dl rye flour
- 1.5 dl dark wheat flour
- 2 dl rye flakes (or rolled oats)
- 3 tablespoons rape oil
- 1 tablespoon potato flour
- 1 tablepoon dark syrup (or maple syrup)
- 1 teaspoon apple wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- salt

Mix the dry ingredients together and then add the liquid ones as well. Let the batter rest for at least half an hour. Bake a scoopful at a time according to the instructions of your waffle iron. I got six thick waffles out of this amount.

Rye waffles can be accompanied by many kinds of toppings both sweet and savory. This time I had them as the main dish with salad, well-spiced soy strips and garlicky yogurt sauce but for dessert I'd go with strawberry jam and oat cream, together with a cup of coffee. Some of the toppings you can use as a filling before closing the iron. And of course, they make a perfect picnic food when cold.

If you don't have a waffle iron just use more liquid and make pancakes or ropsu instead. When making ropsu you can also disregard the oil if you wish. With waffles you need to grease the iron between every waffle if there's no oil in the batter itself.

Nutritional values / 1 waffle (165 g):
energy 266 kcal
fat 8 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 41 g
fiber 6 g

Tempeh Bites with Herbs ‒ Yrttiset tempehpalat

2010-05-08T02:02:00.000-07:00

Highly glutamic tastes tend to divide opinions. Even people who do love them have usually needed to get themselves accustomed to them. I didn't. As a kid I used to eat a mixture of MSG and salt straight from a spice jar. The first time I took a bite of this thing called tempeh ‒ which I had heard so many people find disgusting ‒ I instantly fell in love. This moldy chunk of soy beans is rather expensive in Finland and only found in special stores so we eat it rarely, usually just sliced and fried without any extra spices. This time I thought I'd see some extra trouble to see if it can be made even better. At least these finger-size taste consortiums should crown any fine dinner.

Bites:
- 300 g tempeh
- chili powder
- onion powder
- smoked paprika
- salt
- 1 tablespoon rape oil

Filling:
- 100 g fresh cheese type of soy spread (or cashew cream or hefu)
- 1 punch of fresh parsley
- 1 tablespoon apple wine (or birch bud schnapps)
- birch buds (or rosemary)
- dragon's wort

Chop the parsley. Mix it and the other herbs with the spread and the wine. Refrigerate for couple of hours, allowing the mixture to juice up.

Cut the tempeh into thin slices. Fry from both sides with the oil and the spices. Spread a thick layer of the filling on them and pile up so they resemble small sandwiches. Enjoy with some milder sidekicks, for example barley and veggies.

Nutritional values / 504 g:
energy 1045 kcal
fat 75 g
protein 65 g
carbohydrates 45 g
fiber 1 g

White Sauce ‒ Valkokastike

2010-05-07T01:19:00.000-07:00

When writing about the brown sauce I promised to tell you later about the other mother sauce my mum makes, the white sauce. Just like the brown one, this is really simple but can be used as a base for many other sauces. While I tend to associate the brown sauce with winter, the white one is much more summery. It crowns many of those seasonal delights of springtime: new potatoes, asparagus, fireweed and dandelion leaves or artichoke but can also be used for seitan steaks or in lasagna. French cuisine calls it béchamel.

- 3 tablespoons wheat flour
- 2 tablespoons margarine (of good quality!)
- 5 dl soy milk (I find this works better than oat milk but that's naturally only a matter of taste)
- white pepper
- herb salt

Melt the margarine in a sauce pot. Sift in the flour, stirring all the time so it won't get clumpy. Add the milk as a thin strip, stirring all the time. Spice up. The sauce is ready after it has thickened up.

For asparagus and dandelion I like to add some mayonnaise and a teaspoon of vinegar. Dill, garlic and blue-type soy cheese also fit here just perfectly.

Nutritional values / 5 dl:
energy 469 kcal
fat 32 g
protein 24 g
carbohydrates 25 g
fiber 1 g

Birch Bud Schnapps ‒ Silmuviina

2010-05-06T10:27:00.000-07:00

Although this is already starting to resemble more of a drink blog than a food blog...

Along with most plant roots, one of the first things you can forage after the spring has arrived are birch buds. They are a refreshing spice to many salads, sandwiches and drinks. The only problem is that there's only a few days time to gather them ‒ when they're still young and tender, just barely opened up, feeling a bit sticky from sap. The easiest way to preserve the characteristic taste is making a tincture. Save it for winter and you will literally taste spring.

- 1 dl birch buds
- 3 dl good quality vodka
(- 1 teaspoon sugar)

Put the buds into a glass jar and pour the vodka on them. Seal the jar. Let the mixture stand for 2-3 weeks in room temperature, shaking occasionally. Remove the buds or keep them as a garnish.

Enjoy chilled as an aperitif or use in cooking.

The same thing can be done with most herbs. Just remember that some of them (like dill) quickly develop a bitter taste so you should taste the stuff every now and then to decide when it's best to your liking.

May Day Mead ‒ Vappusima

2010-05-03T23:09:00.000-07:00

The must have drink for May Day or Vappu is mead. Last year I made some rhubarb mead for the occasion, this year I was planning to have dandelion mead but the preceding week turned out so busy I didn't have the time for picking flowers. So instead, I brewed a portion of the basic type so strongly associated with Vappu.

I asked my spouse to bring me couple of lemons for this but I should've been more precise: he bought a whole kilogram. So I decided to double the lemon amount from what it said on the sugar package. (Also, we've been having a lot of noodle soups imitating Thai cuisine lately...) Because of that and the fact I only used fariini sugar my version tastes a bit stronger than most simas. If you'd rather have it light you can replace half of the fariini with white sugar and use only 1-2 lemons.

- 4 l water
- 4 lemons
- 1 pea-size piece of fresh yeast
- 2 dl raisins
- 500 g fariini sugar (A byproduct of sugar making, highly aromatic and moist, not as sweet as pure sugar. I haven't found any English name for the stuff. However, I've been told dark muscovado and molasses share a similar taste but I can't guarantee this is the right amount for them.)

Wash, then slice (or smooth down) the lemons. Bring half of the water to a boil. Pour into a a fermentation vessel. Dissolve the sugar in it (save about two tablespoonfuls), then throw in the lemon slices and the rest of the water as well. When the water has cooled down to the room temperature you can add the yeast. Seal the lid air tight but don't forget the fermentation lock.

Next day, wash and sterilize (for example with boiling water) some empty glass bottles. Portion the remaining sugar and the raisins into the bottles. Remove the lemons and bottle the mead. Seal the bottles. The mead is ready to drink when the raisins have started floating. (This normally takes 2-3 days.)

Enjoy chilled with donuts or wieners while listening to left-wing political speeches and wearing a silly hat.

Nutritional values / 4 l:
energy 2240 kcal
fat 4 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 529 g
fiber 14 g

Tippaleipä

2010-05-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

Tippaleipäs saw the day of light during the 18th century in the homes of the nobility but ironically enough they're nowadays almost entirely associated with Labour Day, along with potato salad, donuts, wieners and mead. The basic idea is pretty much the same as in strauben from Austria or funnel cake from Dutch area of the U.S. You drizzle batter into hot oil and get little cakes that demonstrate how human brains work. Somehow tippaleipäs manage to be crunchy and soft at the same time. Some find their outlooks rather dubious but I think they're fun to look and eat, tube by tube.

So yes, they seemed like enough reason to boil a litre of oil for the first time in my life. To my surprise that turned out quite easy. Didn't get even first degree burns though I happen to be rather prone to accidents.

The batter:
- 5 dl dark wheat flour
- 4 dl soy milk
- 3 dl water
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- 0.5 dl flax seed
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 0.5 lemon peel (plus a drop of the juice)
- salt

Other stuff:
- 1 l rape oil
- piping equipment (I used a washed ketchup bottle)
- round metal mould (I used washed fruit cans)
- tongs for the mould
- a slotted spoon for the tippaleipäs
- newspapers

Soak the flax seeds in the water for about an hour to achieve slime. (Filter out the seeds if you don't want them in the final pastries.) Whisk the slime together with the other batter ingredients. See that your batter is very even and clumpless. Fill the ketchup bottle.

Heat up the oil. Place the mould into the hot oil. Squeeze a free-form batter web into the mould. (If you have more patience than me you can add more layers after the previous layer has started floating, achieving a tall type of tippaleipä they sell in markets. If you add batter too soon it will loose its shape. I find it easier to just pile them up.) Let it fry for a moment, detach from the mould and flip it over. When the tippaleipä looks golden and delicious, fish it out with the slotted spoon and drain over newspapers. Repeat as long as you have batter.

If you wish decorate with powdered sugar. Serve with mead.

Nutritional values / 1285 g:
energy 3160 kcal
fat 206 g
protein 50 g
carbohydrates 277 g
fiber 29 g

Strawberries in Sparkling Wine Bath ‒ Mansikat kuohuviinikylvyssä

2010-04-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it's May Day. Finns call the day Vappu after German Walpurgisnacht since it's quite a new carnival of labour and students. There are much more traditional holidays during springtime and just as riotous but I'll tell you about them some other time. Right now I have my mind set for tonight.

The previous night, you see, is the one of jolly picnics. Or so it would be if it didn't rain. Me and my friends decided to have a picnic inside instead, at my place, and so I thought I'd repeat the dessert we had last year. Lea's version also had cucumber slices but for my level of experientialism they were a bit too much. Actually, in the tasting of last year each one of us wanted to leave out a different ingredient but since I'm the one who prepared the dish this time I got to decide. In any case, it certainly features things you won't see in my kitchen every day so it's perfect for this type of special occasion. Perhaps even more so for some summer parties when strawberries are in season and taste like strawberries.

- 0.75 l sparkling wine (Real, not champagne. Good quality cider goes fine as well.)
- 2-3 strawberries per portion (about 250 g)
- 0.5 dl dark sugar
- 1 dl water
- 1 punch of fresh lemon balm (or mint)
- 2 teaspoons agar powder (you can also use pectin but that means you'll need more sugar as well)

Slice the strawberries and arrange them into your serving glasses (I used six glasses). Mince most of the lemon balm. Cook it with the water for a few minutes to seize the aroma. Filter out the balm parts.

Add the sugar, the agar and some of the wine. Let the mixture come to a boil, then move it out of the stove. Mix very carefully with the rest of the wine (so you won't loose the bubbles) and pour evenly on the strawberries.

Decorate with lemon balm leaves. Refrigerate for couple of hours.

Nutritional values / 1 portion / 206 g :
energy 139 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 12 g
fiber 1 g

Spring Welcoming Drink ‒ Kevääntoivotusjuoma

2010-04-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

My spouse is usually the smoothie expert in our family but this time I thought I'd try something as well. With this quick and festal drink I'm taking part in this month's food challenge. It's perfect non-alcoholic but if you wish, the sea buckthorn should cover up the taste of bad spirits quite easily.

- 2 pears (I used canned)
- 1 dl sea buckthorn berries
- 3 dl birch sap (or sparkling water if sap is not available)
- 1 tablespoon spruce syrup

Chill down the ingredients. Blend smooth. Chill down yourself and enjoy while admiring the awakening nature.

Nutritional values / 723 g:
energy 229 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 45 g
fiber 12 g

Turnip Porridge ‒ Naurispuuro

2010-04-14T00:33:00.000-07:00

I know I just posted a dish combining turnip and barley but they happen to work so well together. Besides, I had to use the rest of the turnips somewhere so one of the numerous Finnish root vegetable porridges felt appropriate. This very same breakfast meal is just as often done with potato but you might also want to try carrot or rutabaga. The relation between turnip and barley varies quite a lot in different recipes; I prefer mine with more turnip and less flour.

- 700 g turnips
- 2 dl barley flour
- 7 dl water
- salt

Peel and chop the turnips. Cook them until soft. Puré with the water. Add more water if the result looks too thick (sometimes beer is used but in that case you should be very careful). Sift in the flour and the salt. Simmer for another 20 minutes. Eat while still hot!

Nutritional values / 1530 g:
energy 575 kcal
fat 5 g
protein 18 g
carbohydrates 113 g
fiber 23 g

Tarry Barlotto ‒ Tervainen ohratto

2010-04-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

One-pot meals are quick to prepare which is just perfect this time of the year when you just want to get all the possible extra minutes to take a walk outside. I'm not always so certain whether they really require a recipe but at least different recipes are good for sharing combination ideas. This is a colourful, savoury dish that features some of my favourite ingredients.

- 4 dl whole barley grains
- 150 g tempeh (or smoked tofu)
- 2 turnips
- 1 carrot
- half a leek
- 5 dl water
- 1 dl oat cream
- 0.5 dl tar liqueur
- 1 tablespoon rape oil (I prefer cold pressed type)
- 1 dose of stock
- rosemary
- curry
- salt

Sauté the barley. In the meanwhile, peel and chop the veggies. Cut the tempeh as well. Move the barley aside for a moment and do the same for the turnips, the carrot and if you wish, the tempeh. When they're starting to look tasty, throw in the rest. Let the barlotto simmer until most of the liquid has vaporized (about half an hour).

Nutritional values / 1300 g (not counting the liqueur):
energy 1726 kcal
fat 48 g
protein 72 g
carbohydrates 256 g
fiber 52 g

Viili

2010-04-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

The most discussed cook book over the last few years has most certainly been Natural Harvest - quite an interesting phenomena to anyone even slightly interested in cultural taboos. Semen and this viili I just made have at least two things in common. The oblivious one is the way they look. The second one is that strictly speaking, neither one is a vegan ingredient. But as I found out, viili could be.

Viili is a fermented milk product popular around Scandinavia and probably my personal favourite. Compared to yogurt it's rather sour and has a structure much more ropy (here's a demonstration). It can be eaten as such or with jam, talkkuna or ryecrisp pieces. I've never seen it sold vegan but it turned out just as easy to prepare with vegetable milks as it is with cow milk. Micro organisms usually aren't too picky.

You need couple of spoonfuls from an older viili batch to get the bacteria. This is most easily done by buying a jar of non-vegan viili, unless you have a chance to come and get some straight from me. Then you just need to fill the cup with milk, mix it a bit and leave uncovered on some warm place overnight. Next day you can refrigerate the cup. It takes a few more days for the taste to evolve right. Check now and then to find your preferred intensity.

The front cup in the photo with the velvety fungus surface is made out of soy milk. I used a sweetened brand but the basic taste was quickly run over by the characteristic taste of viili. The oat version didn't look as adorable but I actually preferred its taste. Oat milk is usually much thinner, forms some watery spots and takes longer to mature so I used a dollop of oat cream in it as well. The result can be seen in the background.

Mämmi Pizza ‒ Mämmipitsa

2010-03-30T04:30:00.000-07:00

This time of the year every place seems to be filled with pie recipes featuring quark and canned peach halves. Those round, bright yellow peaches look like egg yoiks and are a great symbol for the rebirth of the Sun and the nature. I got a bit fed up with quark after pasha and so I thought I'd try a salty version.

The recipe for the crust comes from Ahmed Ladarsi and the sauce is basically Jo Stepaniak's gooey grill sandwich filling. The latter one could've been a bit thinner and the amount sufficient for two pizzas or a gratin. But at least both turned out tasty. Next time I think I'll fry the tempeh, precook the crust and just warm up the whole.

The crust:
- 200 g (1.5-2 dl) mämmi, not artificially sweetened
- 1 dl rye flour
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 1 dl water
- 20 g yeast
- salt
- 1 tablespoon rape oil

The sauce:
- 2 dl water
- 0.5 dl mutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons pea flour
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 1.5 tablespoons ketchup
- 2 teaspoons potato flour
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 garlic cloves
- turmeric
- mustard powder
- salt

The filling:
- 150 g tempeh
- 5 canned peach halves
- 1 dl tomato sauce
- rosemary or marjoram
- black pepper

Dissolve the yeast and the salt into lukewarm water. Knead in the mämmi and the flour. Cover with a towel and let the dough rise for about an hour in a warm place.

In the meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients together in a sauce pan to avoid clumps. Let the mixture come to a boil, move aside from the stove and whisk a bit more.

Spread the dough on a baking sheet. Mine came out ⌀ 27 cm. Brush with oil. Sprinkle with pepper. Slice the tempeh. Arrange the slices and peach halves on the pizza. Cover with the sauce and sprinkle with rosemary. Bake until golden (about twenty minutes in 200°C).

Enjoy after cooled down a bit with your favourite chili sauce.

Nutritional values / 1321 g:
energy 1577 kcal
fat 52 g
protein 67 g
carbohydrates 216 g
fiber 35 g

Verdant Lunch Salad ‒ Vehreä lounassalaatti

2010-03-27T02:00:00.000-07:00

Now that it's bright again and things are getting warmer it feels more attempting to skip a warm meal.

- 4 dl canned peas or pea sprouts
- 10 g arame (or seaweed of your choice)
- 1 dl pickle dices
- 1 red onion
- 2 slices of rye bread
- 1 tablespoon oil used in preserving sun-dried tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon hazel nuts
- 1 tablespoon sea buckthorn juice

Let the seaweed soak in water. Dice the bread and sauté the cubes in the oil. Slice the onion into circles. Crush the nuts. Fish the seaweed out from the water (which you can use in a soup or sauce) and spice with the juice. Arrange everything but the nuts into an aesthetically pleasing art work that you can jumble up when eating. Sprinkle the nuts on top for the final touch.

Nutritional values / 648,5 g:
energy 734 kcal
fat 24 g
protein 34 g
carbohydrates 88 g
fiber 26 g

Paskha ‒ Pasha

2010-03-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't stopped eating. But I'm having a rather busy period in my life at the moment (I've heard smart people see deadline jams coming up and start working beforehand.) so new recipes may come out in a bit slower rhythm than before.

The Sun has really started shining along the Spring Equinox. Here in a Southern city the snow has almost disappeared already and I've changed into a lighter coat. To honour Päivätär I thought I'd make something special. For the orthodox christians this hilariously named thick treat is an Easter dish that marks the end of the lent. But there's no reason why the rest of us couldn't enjoy it as well. It's definitely not a light dessert option though ‒ I managed to have two tablespoons last night before giving up.

- 5 dl soy yogurt
- 100 g soy spread (fresh cheese type)
- 1 dl icing sugar
- 0.5 dl potato flour
- 1 tablespoon quality margarine (I used Keiju 70%)
- 2 tablespoons sea buckthorn juice (or lemon)
- 1 dl dried sweet cherries (or raisins and nuts)
- 1 dried orange skin

Drain the yogurt overnight (in a cheesecloth, old stockings or a coffee filter). Chop the cherries and mix everything together. Spoon the resulting paste into a mould, again lined with a cheesecloth or such. Refrigerate for another night so that there's some pressure on the mould and extra liquid can come out. Draw your favourite Sun symbol on the paskha and spread a spoonful over a white bun.

There are really beautiful wooden moulds made especially for this purpose but I just used a coffee filter. I didn't bother to press out the air and only waited for couple of hours so the result looks rather clumpy. But at least the taste is perfect.

Nutritional values / 800 g:
energy 2027 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 28 g
carbohydrates 117 g
fiber 7 g

Beetroot Wraps ‒ Punajuurirullat

2010-03-07T00:58:00.000-08:00

Since I've managed to constrain myself from posting a beetroot recipe for couple of months after Christmas I can now continue:

I've been wanting to make something like these ever since I saw this pretty picture. The rieska part is adapted from here. In a way they come close to Celia Brooks Brown's beetroot tortilla recipe (a photo here) and Nami-nami also recently posted a sandwich filling which is kind of like a simpler version.

Then I just figured out that buckwheat fits with sour creams, sour creams go together with beetroot while beetroot pairs nicely with peas which go together with horseradish. So naturally, horseradish should fit perfectly with buckwheat! Just kidding. These ingredients do sound random but at the end, the ensemble plays it groovy. In case you want a whole lunch wrap instead of finger food for cocktail parties add some pea crush.

Buckwheat rieska:
- 5 dl oat yogurt
- 2.5 dl buckwheat grains
- 1.5 tablespoons sunflower oil
- 2 tablespoons buckwheat flour (or wheat)

Beetroot filling:
- 2 beetroots, cooked or pickled
- 1 good punch of pea shoots
- 2 tablespoons mayonnaise (I used a cheap market brand that happens to be vegan but real chefs make it themselves)
- 2 tablespoons black currant cram
- horseradish (wasabi paste goes fine)
- mint (fresh if you have)

Let the grains soak in the yogurt overnight (or at least two hours if you're in a hurry). In the morning, mix in the oil and the flour. If the mixture looks a lot drier than last night, add some oat milk as well. Spread on a baking tray and cook 30 minutes in a 250°C oven.

I find it helps to roll the rieska inside its baking sheet as soon as it comes out from the oven. If it looks crumbly already at this point, sprinkle with water and let it rest for a moment.

In the meanwhile, dice one of the beetroots and mash the other. Mix the mashed one even with the mayonnaise, the black currant and the spices.

Spread the beetroot paste on the lowest third of the rieska. Array the beetroot dices below the paste and the pea shoots above it. Roll as if you were making a Swiss roll and cut into pieces as if you were making makisushi (I got ten pieces). Secure with tootpicks if you wish. Serve with more pea shoots.

Nutritional values / 1 roll / 90 g:
energy 147 kcal
fat 3,8 g
protein 4,5 g
carbohydrates 23,4 g
fiber 2,8 g

Rose Kissel ‒ Ruusukiisseli

2010-03-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

Somehow I had associated this dessert with English kitchen - perhaps because of all those puddings and fruit soups. But when I recently tried to google a recipe I couldn't find much of anything in English. What I did find was a Wikipedia article explaining kiisseli (from a Slavic word meaning sour) is popular only in Eastern and Northern Europe. I can certainly verify that claim for Finland. They're among the basic groceries and young people even like to make drinks out of the thinner soup-like varieties.

Though I still find myself a bit unconvinced that a dessert this simple could not be known in the English-speaking world, I thought I'd write down one version. Bilberries, strawberries and black currants are perhaps among the most classical flavours but I decided to use rose this time. There are two layers to complement each other but you could make just either one. Kiisseli is often prepared from plain juice but I wanted to get some odds and bits to chew. I also tried throwing some potato pearls into the white layer but that only made the mouth-feel resemble a barley porridge so I left that out from the final recipe. The thickening agent is nearly always potato starch but you might use for example ground flax seeds instead.

The milk layer:
- 3 dl soy milk (or other fatty milk)
- 3 tablespoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons potato flour (+ 0.5 dl water)
- rose water
- almond extract (just a drop)

The rose layer:
- 4 tablespoons dried rose hip pieces
- 4 dl water
- 1 tablespoon blackcurrant juice (non-sweetened, non-watered)
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 2 tablespoons potato flour (+ 0.5 dl water)

Dissolve the sugar into milk on a hot stove and season with rose water and/or almond extract. Let the milk come into a boil. Dissolve the potato flour into a dollop of cold water and pour it gradually into the pot, whisking all the time (to avoid clumps). Let the mixture come into a boil again and remove it from the stove. Stir well and pour your serving cups half full.

Wash the pot and fill again with rose hips and water. Let them simmer for a while to soften the hips and get the flavours out. (Taste to decide.) Season with sugar and black currant juice. Now repeat the potato flour adding as before. Remove the pot from the stove, stir well and pour on the milk kiisseli.

Serve either hot or cold. If you refrigerate these the structure will evolve from gluey to jelly.

Nutritional values / 957 g:
energy 517 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 14 g
carbohydrates 101 g
fiber 4 g

Chocolaty Sauerkraut Stew ‒ Suklainen hapankaalipata

2010-02-27T02:07:00.000-08:00

My favourite food is called mush. Others have invented flashier names for it though I think they're only designed to hide the truer essence. You hardly need a recipe for them since their very idea is to take a pot and stuff it with anything you find from the closet or the refrigerator. This can sometimes lead into quite dubious looking concoctions. I'm still sincerely wondering if I should divide this ingredient list into two, just for the sake of people with further developed taste buds than me. But then again, perhaps there are some other twisted minds out there.

If you can't stand sauerkraut but would like to give this a try nonetheless, flush the sharpest taste out of your kraut with water ‒ or just use freshly shredded cabbage instead. One warning: I've never run into this problem myself but little birds told me that using vanilla-flavoured chocolate in salty dishes may result in even weirder taste results.

- 300 g seitan strips
- 5 dl sauerkraut
- 2 dl beans
- 2 large apples
- 40 g dark chocolate (semi-sweet, at least 70 %)
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 1 tablespoon tar syrup
- 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
- 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
- 4 dl beer (I only had dark lager this time but I imagine stout or thick porter would fit even better)

In a large pot, heat up the oil. Fry the seitan and the beans until they've acquired some colour. Drain the sauerkraut and add it into the pot. Add the spices as well. While they warm up, peel (or just wash if you're using organic) and cut the apples. Mix in the apple chunks, the beer and finally, the chocolate. Let the stew simmer for few more minutes so everything becomes just one big mess.

Decorate with pickled onions.

Nutritional values / 1510 g:
energy 1778 kcal
fat 45 g
protein 126 g
carbohydrates 182 g
fiber 52 g

Seitan

2010-02-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a stew recipe using seitan but then I realized I've never posted any basic directions on making the stuff so I could just easily link to it. Of course, in some countries you can just buy seitan on a reasonable prize, here in Finland it's usually a better idea to use gluten flour. Some extra trouble perhaps, but that way you'll also get to flavour it the way you want to, tweak the structure and shape it creatively.

Seitan flour is the closest thing to pure protein. It contains over 70 % of the stuff (for comparison). When making white bread it's a terrific way to improve the structure. If you just add water into it you'll get a rubbery clump that has almost no taste. To make it chewier you want to add something extra, for example mashed beans, soy flour, pea flour or hemp flour. When making roasts I even use normal wheat flour. And to give it some taste you'll need to add spices. Lots of them.

Here's one basic combination I use. Try playing with your favourite spices. Instead of red wine and maple syrup I often use tar liqueur and a teaspoon of vinegar for a smoky result. And to get a zesty sea-flavour I might apply apple juice plus some seaweed in the broth. But of course, you won't necessarily need any of them.

The seitan:
- 4 dl seitan flour
- 1 dl pea flour
- 0.5 dl red wine
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 dried chili
- 2 tablespoon rape oil
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
- smoked paprika
- salt
- water (approximately 2.5 dl)

The broth:
- 1 dose of stock
- piece of ginger
- dried yarrow
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 2 l water

Combine all the dry seitan ingredients. Mix in the wine, the oil and the syrup. Start adding water little by little, kneading all the time. Be careful not to use more water than you necessarily need unless you really do want your seitan soft. Knead for at least five minutes.

Combine the broth ingredients and let it come to a boil. Cut seitan into pieces, flatten with your hands and drop one by one into the boiling broth. Let them simmer for half an hour. Notice that seitan will swell quite a bit so use a big pot.

Some people bother to fish the seitan pieces out of the broth and cover them into an oily marinade. I'm usually so lazy I just leave them stand there overnight. What ever you do, don't throw the tasty broth away. It's a terrific base for a soup.

Next day, fry on a pan with plenty of oil. Or proceed to make something else.

If you can't find gluten flour you can also use normal wheat flour. It takes some work and flavouring can only be done through marinating but the good thing is that it's hard to fail. You'll first have to knead 11 dl flour and 4 dl water for about half an hour to achieve a tight ball. Let it stand in cold water for a moment. Then start flushing the carbohydrates away, changing the water turned white every now and then. (It helps to keep changing between cold and hot water.) This should take about half an hour. When the water just keeps looking clear no matter how much you knead you can proceed to the boiling part.

Nutritional values / 661 g:
energy 1345 kcal
fat 36 g
protein 174 g
carbohydrates 76 g
fiber 12 g

Happy Birthday to Me

2010-02-22T08:50:00.000-08:00

I almost missed the occasion. It's been a whole year since I posted this. I was just going to collect a recipe archive of my own and possibly offer information for an occasional googler but to my surprise some fellow food enthusiasts have started to follow my kitchen adventures. Thank you! During this short period I have even been officially awarded. Thank you! Blogging about my cooking has taught me to value more seasonal (in a country of four seasons this is no light issue), local, ecological, ethical, healthy, better tasting and culturally richer eating. So last, I'd like to thank myself for doing me a huge favour.

Guess the occasion would yield for a cake but think I've had enough of them for a while, right after salmiakki muffins, bilberry cheese cake and Runeberg's tarts. (Plus, I'm starting to understand why counting those nutritional values after the recipes isn't always a good idea.) Instead, I thought I'd amuse (or bore) you with some data from Google Analytics.

One thing I feel quite excited to look at is the world map, showing where on earth do people visit my blog. The all-time top ten shows no huge surprises (India might be one if I didn't remember how many English-speaking internet users there are):

1. Finland (Surprise, surprise!)
2. United States (with California, New York and Texas leading)
3. Canada
4. United Kingdom
5. Germany
6. Sweden
7. Australia
8. France
9. India
10. Austria

Ten most popular recipes (or at least most visited ones) include:

1. Glögi
2. Mämmi
3. Hemp Milk
4. Hefu
5. Salty Mushroom Salad
6. Sea Buckthorn Parfait
7. Rhubarb Mead
8. Sour Rye Loaf in a Tavastian Manner
9. Salmiakki Pasta
10. Warmer Röstis

Ten most common keywords that people are looking for when coming to Mämmi through a search engine are almost entirely in Finnish:

1. mämmi (Surprise, surprise!)
2. hamppuvoi
3. suolasienisalaatti
4. mammi
5. perunasalaatti
6. tyrnijäädyke
7. omenapiirakka
8. hernelevite
9. hamppumaito
10. glögi

The weirdest part is the most hilarious keywords (though I must admit, they don't come even near the ones of BitterSweet):

i've been eating frozen mämmi instead
salmiakki tastes awful
simmer industrial hemp in ilk fatty
beetroot syrup harden
eat apple pie in finnish
does rhubarb have yeast?
soya bean should be take fried or simply dissolved in water
mammi cameras
how to mämmi
www.mammihot.com

Finally, maybe I really should try these:

salmiakki coffee, salmiakki chili and salmiakki wine
the weirdest gingerbread
soups made with hemp milk
rasberry beetroot
roasted pumpkin and apple soup
caraway finncrisps
cabbage rolls with rutabaga
chili mammi, mammi gravy and mämmi pasta
fermenting fireweed leaves
macaroni gram flour omelette

At this point I'd also like to ask you, my dear readers, what else do you think I should definitely write about during my second year as a food blogger?

Brown Sauce ‒ Ruskiakastike

2010-02-21T00:55:00.000-08:00

You know how French kitchen has four mother sauces that all the rest are based on? Well, my mother has just two: the brown sauce and the white sauce. This time I'll concentrate only on the brown one and save the white one for early summer and new potatoes.

English speaking world uses that wonderful term comfort food. Basic roux-based sauce with potatoes is certainly one of those for me. It's really simple in principle but it took me quite many years to learn how to properly prepare it. It got burnt, it got clumpy, it got watery. The key thing is knowing when to add the water. The flour should be roasted but not burnt. My mum, a child of the post-war shortage years, has learned to replace butter with good quality margarine but I've taken the progress even a step further. Oil seems to work just as well and you don't need it quite as much.

- 2 tablespoons sunflower oil
- wheat flour (about 4 tablespoons)
- 4 dl water
- salt

Heat the oil in a sauce pan. Sift in the flour, in small batches. Keep stirring the bubbling mixture until it has acquired a beautiful colour. Add the water, again in small batches, stirring all the time. Season with salt. Let the sauce thicken up before removing it from the stove.

You can cultivate the sauce for example with mustard, onion and sausage slices. Tomato puree, oat cream and paprika make another yummy combination. Add red wine and herbs instead of water and you've just made yourself the best red wine sauce there is. And it's nearly always a good idea to pour a dollop of stock into any of them.

Nutritional values / 467 g:
energy 379 kcal
fat 28 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 27 g
fiber 2 g

Vatruskas of Ilomantsi ‒ Ilomantsilaiset vatruskat

2010-02-19T01:56:00.000-08:00

Vatruskas are a close relative of Karelian pasties. They're usually round and open from the top but the good people of Ilomantsi like to fold them crescent shaped. Again, you can use pretty much anything for the filling. I first thought I'd just make a simple porridge but then I ended up adding mushrooms which North Karelians so dearly love.

These didn't exactly come out right with the first or second try. I managed to make a big bucket of glue several times before understanding to ask help from a friend who happens to be a chef specialized in local and traditional food. (Thank you Päivi, once again!) The most important instruction she gave me was not to use the same potato variety you would normally use for mashed potatoes. Another one was more about relieving my mind. You see, most recipes I've seen don't mention anything about the flour amount and the ones that do tell to use it as little as 1 dl. Luckily, she didn't understand how anyone could make a rollable dough with so little flour either.

The crust:
- 1 kg waxy potatoes
- dark wheat flour (I needed 7 dl)
- salt

The filling:
- 1 dl buckwheat grains
- 1 onion
- 1 dl oat cream
- 2 dl frozen mushroom chunks (for example russulas and milk-caps)
- 1 tablespoon oil for frying
- dill
- parsley

- margarine and oat milk for buttering

Cook and mash the potatoes. Season with salt. Chop and fry the onion. Cook the buckwheat. When it starts to get soft, add the onion, the mushrooms, the cream and the herbs into the same pot.

When the potatoes have cooled down enough for you to stick your hand into them without screaming, start kneading in the flour. Little by little, add as much flour as you need for a rollable dough. For me, the easiest method is to mix only some flour straight into it, then flour my hands well and make small balls out of it. Roll the dough into small, flat circles. (This makes about 15 pieces.)

Portion a tablespoon of filling on each of the circles. (I like to make them quite chubby.) Fold and close by pressing with floured fingers. Bake 10 minutes in a 250°C oven. Butter with melted margarine and oat milk mixture, then cover with a towel.

Nutritional values / 1 vatruska:
energy 177 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 32 g
fiber 3 g

Talkkuna Ropsu ‒ Talkkunaropsu

2010-02-17T02:29:00.000-08:00

A must have dessert after pea soup is ropsu. I use the South-Ostrobothnian name but most Finnish speakers call it with the word pannukakku which has the same origin as English word pancake. They have many things in common but this Finnish dish is thicker, bigger and cooked in the oven.

There are huge differences in ropsu recipes and I guess everyone just has to find their favourite through trial and error. This one gets extra flavour from talkkuna and cardamom as well as extra structure from oatmeal, yogurt and baking powder. I also use much lower temperature and less sweetening than most recipes I've seen. Actually, if I'm going to eat it with something overly sweet like jam I only use about 1 tablespoon. Most recipes use eggs which make the ropsu bubble unlike eggless versions ‒ some think it aesthetically pleasing and some are desperately trying to get rid of the phenomena.

This is easily turned into a salty version by dropping the sweetening altogether and adding some herbs like basil and marjoram. Or you might want to try other flavourings, say banana and cocoa powder.

- 1 l soy milk
- 4 dl spelt flour (or dark wheat flour)
- 1 dl talkkuna (can be replaced with more wheat flour)
- 1 dl oatmeal
- 1 dl soy yogurt
- 0.5 dl dark syrup (or sugar)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- cardamom (or some vanilla)
- salt (just a pinch)
- 3 tablespoons margarine

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the milk, the yogurt and the syrup. Whip whip whip. Let the batter rest for half an hour.

Warm up your oven to 175°C. Take a baking tray. (I've seen photos on the internet where people have tried to make these in a frying pan or some smallish casserole so let me stress this: you'll need a whole baking tray plus a sheet of parchment paper. If you only have a pan then make a smaller portion.) Put half of the margarine on it and stick it into the oven. When the tray has warmed up, take it out, spread the melted margarine evenly and pour the batter on it.

Cook your ropsu for half an hour on a low shelf. Take it out for a moment, top with margarine pieces and put on the top shelf for another fifteen minutes to get some colour. If you try the ropsu with a wooden stick at this point it should still feel sticky from the inside. Let it cool down before serving.

The classic sidekicks are strawberry jam and whipped cream. Instead of going to a food store just for oat cream I made a thick mousse from chocolate, fruity beer, half-frozen silken tofu, sugar and frozen berries. Part of the berries I just added on top. Voilá!

Nutritional values / 1555 g:
energy 2295 kcal
fat 55 g
protein 55 g
carbohydrates 339 g
fiber 34 g

Pea Soup ‒ Hernerokka

2010-02-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

Long flaxes, fine hemps and turnips size of a plate to everyone! That's what you're supposed to shout when sliding down a snowy hill on Laskiainen (the name of which refers to either descending or sliding). You see, today is one of those ancient Finnish holidays that are slowly gaining back their popularity. Connections to English Shrove Tuesday are close but in the Finnish version both Sunday and Tuesday are equally important.

During christianization Laskiainen became so intensely affected by the beginning of the Easter lent that we can now only speculate about its original meaning – and what could possibly be more fun! Slavic peoples celebrated the Sun (eating blintzes to symbolize it) and the end of the winter at this time so some believe this is also true about Laskiainen. One hint is all the well-wishing for the next harvest season. It actually looks like this time of the year used to mark the beginning of the spring all around Europe. Flax and hemp, the most important fiber plants, had a position especially significant as well as combing hair, a clear symbol for flax. All weaving and spinning was paused during the holiday. According to one theory (by Kustaa Vilkuna) it was in a way an ancient Labour Day but this sounds like a rather modern idea to me.

Today was foggy which makes the air feel really cold. So after couple of hours of sliding a thick pea soup is a must. It's an essential dish for Laskiainen but also something even a child knows you're supposed to have on Thursdays. This is how I usually make the basic version, tuned with herbs. Sometimes I like to make a double portion for the freezer.

- 500 g dried peas
- 1.5 l water (more if needed)
- 1 punch of sage
- 1 dose of stock (miso fits here as well)
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 4 dl textured soy protein flakes (or smoked tofu)
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- yarrow flowers (just a hint)
- salt

Soak the peas at least overnight. (This shortens the cooking time). You can sprout them as well if you have time. Rinse. Add the water, the stock, the salt, the pepper and the yarrow. Cook until the peas are starting to get mushy (the time needed depends a lot on how long you soaked and sprouted, but prepare yourself to at least three hours).

Chop the onion. Sauté on an oiled pan with the soy flakes until they turn golden or even crunchy. Grate the carrot and cut up the sage. Add everything into the soup. The longer you cook or more times you rewarm the soup the better it gets.

Enjoy with mustard and rye bread.

Nutritional values / 2 l:
energy 1922 kcal
fat 29 g
protein 123 g
carbohydrates 277 g
fiber 66 g

Sweet and Salty Winter Salad ‒ Makeansuolainen talvisalaatti

2010-02-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

Everyone hopefully knows by know what a wonderful pair raw carrots and salted nuts make. Well, I was chopping carrots for a soup on the other day and thought I'd make a hi-fi version of the theme while I'm at it.

Once I remember seeing a satay carrot salad recipe I thought awesome but can't find anymore. The carrots were first grated the way Finns normally serve them but then the cold salad was garnished with hot and sweet nuts. I had been thinking a way to variate the idea without making it too similar to this hot and sweet salad. Then I saw Kahvila Vegaani's excellent selection of winter salads where the idea was to marinate (and raw cook) root vegetables and then combine them with vinaigrettes made of fruits. The combination of hot and cold fits salads well and combining sweet and salty at the same time gives it even more twist. I'm sure I'll be trying more of these.

- 300 g carrots
- 0.5 dl black currant juice (non-sweetened)
- 2 tablespoons spruce syrup
- aniseed (or star anise or liquorice)
- 0.75 dl hemp seeds (sprouted if you have time)
- salt

Peel and shred the carrots. Put them into a bowl, add the spruce syrup and sprinkle with a fair amount of aniseed. Pour the juice over the carrots and turn them over a bit. Refrigerate the bowl and forget it for a night.

Arrange the marinated carrots on your serving plate. Gulp down the remaining juice. Roast the hemp seeds on a dry pan. Salt them well. Place over the cold carrots while still hot. Serve immediately.

Nutritional values / 389 g:
energy 351 kcal
fat 17 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 39 g
fiber 19 g

Piny Cutlets ‒ Mäntyiset leikkeleet

2010-02-10T07:13:00.000-08:00

Marinades are fun to play around with. Much like stocks, they can be made out of anything your imagination allows you to. Just for inspiration, here's one that I used for textured soy protein cutlets I've had lying in the closet for ages but can't see no reason why it wouldn't work just as well for precooked seitan or firm tofu.

The fallen but still fresh pine twig I used here sort of followed me home from a forest trip. Another thingy I wanted to get rid of was half a bottle of Gambina ‒ theoretically red vermut and juniper-spiced gin sound like a great combination but I found this way too sweet for me. It was probably a fine aperitif drunk from a stemware when first introduced in 1932 but is nowadays mostly consumed by teenagers and boozers straight from the bottle because of the cheap prize.

- 3 dl pine needles
- 2 dl Gambina
- 2 tablespoons rape oil
- 2 tablespoons apple wine vinegar
- 2 garlic cloves
- salt
- lemon pepper (continuing with the theme "something I just want to get rid of")

Crush the needles and smooth down with the rest. Move into a plastic bag with your cutlets for a few hours. Turn around now and then.

If you'd rather use a bowl, add some water to achieve a thinner mixture and soak your cutlets for the whole night.

Brush out the biggest bits and pieces and cook on a pan. One thing I noticed is that the surface gets burned quite easily so don't go reading food blogs while you cook!

Saturday Temptation ‒ Lauantaikiusaus

2010-02-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

Kiusaus, meaning temptation, is a popular type of oven dish around Scandinavia. While I find it hard to explicitly tell how they differ from casseroles or gratins, at least in my mind there is a clear difference. Temptations tend to be care-free main courses, quick to prepare on any night of the week. You can just lay shred root vegetables in a casserole, adding spices and such between the layers.

This one is an ideal supper for a lazy Saturday. You can put it in the oven and go to have a sauna. It should be ready by the time you come back.

- 500 g sunroot
- 250 g tofu
- 1 red onion
- 1 sheet of nori
- 2 dl oat cream (or oat milk)
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- dill
- thyme
- coriander
- black pepper
- salt

Wash the sunroots and remove bad parts but don't bother to peel. Slice as thin as you can. Julienne the tofu. Mince and saute the onion.

Oil a casserole and arrange a thin layer of sunroots on the bottom. Sprinkle with spices, onion and nori pieces. Add a layer of tofu. Repeat layering as long as you have something left. Lastly, cover with a few sunroot slices, sprinkle with spices and pour the cream on the temptation evenly. Top with margarine pieces.

Stick into a 200°C oven for about 45 minutes. (One way to make it even juicier is to turn the oven into a low heat after the temptation has acquired some colour and let it simmer for one more hour. In this case you may need to add some stock in the middle to prevent it from drying up.)

Serve with pickles.

Nutritional values / 1103 g:
energy 1016 kcal
fat 63 g
protein 48 g
carbohydrates 63 g
fiber 27 g

Runeberg's Tart ‒ Runebergintorttu

2010-02-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

Today is a flagging day for the honour of Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. These little cakes are just as much named after his wife Fredrika Runeberg who is nowadays also a highly respected writer but was left in the shadow of her husband at the time. The recipe she had probably adapted from a confectioner called Lars Astenius was found recently and naturally has very little to do with the numerous versions we now know as Runeberg's Tarts.

At this point I have to confess the only work I've ever heard or read from either of them is Johan's poem Vårt Land (Maamme in Finnish, Our Land in English) that became Finland's national anthem ‒ and I don't even like the song. The Runebergs were a part of the Swedish-speaking elite whom I can hardly relate to. The reason I find this couple so important is that they were key figures among the Fennomans who created the idea of Finnish people as we now understand it. Thanks to them, I can now get academic education in the language of my ancestors and read the most massive poem collection of the whole world: the Finnish Folklore Archives, mostly written in the magical ancient poem form Kalevala metre. In a way I even feel me and my spouse are following their large footsteps, trying to get Finnish cultural heritage better known in our humble ways. Perhaps I really should read some of their writings.

The tarts of today typically feature almonds and gingerbread crumbs. They're decorated with raspberry jam and powdered sugar plus water icing. I used arctic raspberry, possibly the most decadent tasting berry on the face of the planet, but apple sauce fits here as well. Store-bought tarts are usually cylinder-shaped though you could also make small muffins or just one big cake. A major part of the taste comes from the moisturizing and it's hard to spread it evenly so make sure to choose something you love. (I strongly recommend my Finnish-speaking readers to read this story about making a cut brandy version.)

- 150 g margarine
- 1 dl sugar
- 2 dl almonds
- 2 dl bread crumbs (preferably consisting of gingerbread and rye crisps)
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon flax seeds
- 1 dl water
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- rum or arrack punsch for moisturizing (about 1 dl)

Heat up the water and leave the flax seeds soak in it. Beat the margarine and the sugar together so they form a fluffy mixture. Grind the almonds. Add everything except the moisturizer into the batter. If you're using baking tins (or four oven-proof coffee mugs like I did) oil and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Be careful not to overfill your tins or paper cups since the tarts will rise in the oven. Even the surfaces and put them into a 175°C oven for about half an hour.

Let the tarts cool down. Moisture and wait a few hours before flipping them out of the tins. Add more rum onto the other end and decorate if you wish.

If you have the patience, refrigerate them overnight. I didn't. Eating half of these after only couple of hours was the only way to save the pecan chocolate cheese cake my spouse made for his mum.

Nutritional values / 1 mug-size tart:
energy 707 kcal
fat 48 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 42 g
fiber 6 g

Lingonberry Rieska ‒ Puolukkarieska

2010-02-03T02:49:00.000-08:00

The simplest version of lingonberry rieska consists only of smashed lingonberries, cold water and rye flour. For my lazy day breakfast today I adapted a bit more complex recipe from here. From what I've learned from earlier experiments, when using store-bought oat yogurt or lingonberry cram that has already been sugared it's better to leave the syrup all out. The amount in the original (1 tablespoon for this batch) makes these way too sweet for me and destroys the tartness of lingonberries but feel free to adjust it to your own taste buds.

- 3.5 dl rye flour (coarse type)
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 0.5 teaspoons herb salt
- 1 teaspoon dark syrup
- 1 dl lingonberries
- 1.5 dl oat yogurt (or soy)
(- wheat flour)

Mix the baking powder and salt with the flour. Crush the lingonberries with a fork. Mix everything. Heat up a frying pan. Shape the paste into flat, round breads. (I got six small ones.) The paste is very sticky so you may need to use wheat flour as an aid. Fry lightly on a dry pan from both sides.

Enjoy buttered with oat milk or coffee while still hot.

Nutritional values / 462 g:
energy 924 kcal
fat 8 g
protein 26 g
carbohydrates 184 g
fiber 39 g

Hot Dog Rieska ‒ Nakkikojurieska

2010-02-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Eurovision Song Contest is always a big event in Finland. Our contestant for this year was selected last weekend here in Tampere. One of my big time favourite bands Eläkeläiset turned out too much for people who haven't followed their entire career but luckily the winner isn't bad either. As a consolation for losing the perfect excuse for going to Oslo I made myself some comfort food.

I understand this may not look that delicious but do trust me for a while. This way of using rieska is actually more popular in Swedish fast food places but I sure hope it would catch fire here as well. If you rather use a simpler rieska version you can do what Swedes do and use mashed potatoes as a filling. Actually, I think that might work better since I had some hard time keeping the whole thing together.

The rieska:
- 1 cooked potato (cold)
- 1 dl barley flour
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 0.5 dl icy water (or oat milk)
- salt

The filling:
- 2 tablespoons sauerkraut (or pickle relish)
- mustard
- ketchup
- 2 wieners (I used store-bought ones with a seitan base but you can also make your own along these lines)

Warm up a frying pan. Mash the potato and mix it with the other rieska ingredients, preferably without using your hand as it's important to keep the paste cold. Form a flat, round bread and throw it on the hot and dry pan. Flip around after a moment. You shouldn't overcook as the structure easily becomes too crumbling for rolling (like mine once again did).

Warm up the wieners. Place the sauerkraut in the middle of the rieska, then the heated dogs on the sauerkraut and decorate with mustard and ketchup. Wrap up the package and enjoy between your hands, together with a fizzy drink and some humppa music (here's a suggestion).

Nutritional values / 385 g:
energy 743 kcal
fat 15 g
protein 44 g
carbohydrates 106 g
fiber 11 g

Pea Sticks ‒ Hernepuikot

2010-01-27T04:33:00.000-08:00

As I've been home alone lately my cooking has mostly been on the line of "let's throw something quick in the pot". Just to avoid eating pasta, veggies and textured soy protein for a solid month I thought I'd make something simple out of chili peas that had gone a bit too crunchy. The resulting paste is basically a mix of peas, spices, bread crumbs and oil.

- 1 portion of dried-out chili peas
- water (about 2 dl)
- bread crumbs (about 1 dl)

Soak the peas overnight in a small amount of water, just barely covering them. Next morning they should be swollen and have absorbed all the water. Make a paste out of them, leaving some of the peas intact. Shape into sticks and cover with bread crumbs. (I got 14 pieces.)

Put the sticks into a 200°C oven for twenty minutes. Serve with one sweet and one sour dip sauce or use as a sandwich filling.

Nutritional values / 1 stick:
energy 161 kcal
fat 7.2 g
protein 4.8 g
carbohydrates 19.1 g
fiber 2.6 g

Bilberry Cheese Cake ‒ Mustikkajuustokakkku

2010-01-21T01:15:00.000-08:00

There probably isn't a single vegan food blog without a cheese cake recipe but here's one more version anyway. The beauty of cheese cake is that it's easy to variate, very hard to fail and doesn't mind to spend a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Most Finnish home bakers seem to use fresh cheese like Tofutti but I replaced that with a double portion of yogurt so mine is technically more like a yogurt cake. Fresh cheese makes the structure firmer but that's all the same if you're going to bake the cake. And even if you're not, this will stick together, it's just not as strudy. Another way of making it fattier is to use nut yogurt. In case you'd like to add a larger amount of some liquid flavouring you may want to replace the potato flour with agar. I've seen many versions where people have decorated the cake with a shiny jelly made of agar and juice but I just spilled a bag of berries straight from the freezer on it and they acted just as I had hoped: got stuck and melted their juices to form a beautiful marble pattern. The cake tin I used was ⌀ 25 cm.

- 1 l soy yogurt
- 2.5 dl vanilla sauce (for example Oatley)
- 1 dl icing sugar (or halva)
- 0.5 dl potato flour
- 1 small punch of lemon balm + some water

- 200 g frozen bilberries
- 50 g margarine
- 200 g crumbling biscuits (I used some salmiakki biscuits a friend of mine had left behind but oat biscuits or rye-based digestives fit here as well)

Drain extra water out of the yogurt. I for example placed it inside old stockings and hanged above the sink overnight.

Crush the biscuits and pick the margarine with them. Press evenly into the baking tin. Let the lemon balm simmer for a moment in a small amount of boiling water and then blend the result smooth. Mix the drained yogurt, the vanilla sauce, the sugar, the flour and the lemon balm juice. Spread the mixture evenly on the cake bottom. Bake 45 minutes in a 160°C oven.

Let the cake cool down and then spread the frozen bilberries on it. Serve cold after the berries have melted.

Nutritional values / 1815 g:
energy 4490 kcal
fat 125 g
protein 64 g
carbohydrates 288 g
fiber 23 g

Salmiakki Muffins ‒ Salmiakkimuffinsit

2010-01-18T01:39:00.000-08:00

The past few days have been quite busy for me but at least I've been meeting a lot of great people: old schoolmates, fellow food bloggers and friends who celebrated Talvennapa with me. And as I explained here I prepared some snacks for the last occassion. The real success story of the night were vatruskas, another hand-sized pastry from Eastern Finland ‒ they were all gone before I understood to take a photo. I'll make them again another time but since I already got asked for the recipe of these muffins I'll better write it down while I still remember.

I took model primarily from Irina Somersalo's cookbook Yllin kyllin (Multikustannus 2008) and secondarily from Chocochili but if this recipe doesn't work don't blame them. I decorated them with a whole different frosting from a chocolate cake my mum likes to make, consisting of margarine, coffee and icing sugar. If you want it fluffier just leave the coffee out and whip it a bit. In that case you might also want to move the lemon peel from the muffins to the frosting. Lemon isn't necessary of course but I think it forms a nice opposite for salmiakki.

- 3 dl wheat flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 0.5 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon apple wine vinegar
- 1 dl sugar (think next time I'll only use half the amount)
- 2 dl oat milk
- 0.5 dl sunflower oil
- 1 lemon peel
- 50-150 g of your favourite salmiakki sweets, crushed or chopped (I used 100 g of Turkinpippuri)

Mix the dry ingredients together. Grind the lemon peel. Add the rest into the paste as well. Stir carefully, just enough to get everything even. Spoon the paste into paper cups or muffin tins, leaving some extra space for them to rise in the oven. Bake about 15 minutes in 200°C. If you're going to decorate them with a frosting let them cool down first.

I got 15 muffins from this amount. One of them got thrown down from Pispalanharju, the world's highest esker ‒ of course with the paper removed.

Nutritional values / 1 muffin:
energy 123 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 21 g
fiber 1 g

Pyttipanna ‒ Pyttipannu

2010-01-14T01:46:00.000-08:00

I strongly feel that throwing food away is a sin, almost comparable to pissing on a sauna stove. Of course, sometimes zucchinis start to grow an angora fur and kitchen experiments turn totally inedible. But what kind of people purposely load their plate full if they're not going to finish it? Not only are they being disrespectful towards the cook and nature but essentially, towards food itself.

Well, in a household of two little piggies the problem is usually reversed. No matter how much sauce I make there's never anything left for my breakfast bread. No matter how big a bread I bake there's never enough to dry it for breadcrumbs or croutons. And no matter how big a soup pot, it will never end up into handy freezer portions. This time however, I managed to cook enough potatoes to make the next dinner out of them. Normally I would get this treat only by buying a microwave meal.

Pyttipannu (from Swedish pytt i panna, small things in a pan) is a classic way to use leftovers. Feel free to throw in anything around you. For example tofu, beetroot, sausage, tempeh, peas, rye bread and beanstalks fit here perfectly as well. This time I made it like this:

- 5 potatoes
- 1 onion
- 1 small rutabaga
- 3 dl fava beans
- 1 chili pepper
- smoked paprika (my current favourite spice)
- salt
- 1 tablespoon sunflower oil (I bought a bottle of this for a change)

Dice everything. Throw into a very hot pan. Fry until the little cubes have got deliciously brown. (If you have a large batch or a small pan fry your pyttipannu in small portions and flush the pan between them.) Sprinkle the spices when the food is on your plate. Enjoy with something pickled.

Nutritional values / 1109 g:
energy 666 kcal
fat 15 g
protein 24 g
carbohydrates 110 g
fiber 21 g

Hemp Pancakes ‒ Hamppuletut

2010-01-13T02:59:00.000-08:00

In Finnish, January is called Oak Month (tammikuu). Most Finns won't be able to tell you why since the school system generally teaches very little about our cultural heritage. And still, it's quite an oblivious thing if you know anything about the mythology or traditional holidays. Even our national epic Kalevala tells one version of the story. On the day of Talvennapa ("the navel of winter"), the Great Oak that blocks the Sun is symbolically cut down. Yule time ends, weather starts to warm up again and the days grow visibly longer.

My calendar says this is the so-called official day. But for practical reasons, couple of my friends are coming over next Saturday for the occasion. And of course, I'm already nervous about the food part. We'll see about that.

In the meanwhile, I stumbled across a recipe for hemp pockets. The original directions are very vague so I followed them just as vaguely. They never explained how these are supposed to be pockets so I just made small pancakes. Even though I ended up using more wheat flour than the original called for and adding some water instead of a massive amount of oil they can't be folded into pockets without breaking them. I haven't decided yet whether I like these or not. The taste is nutty, very robust and down-to-earth. But I ate them with a dip sauce I can most certainly recommend for anyone.

The pancakes:
- 1 dl hemp flour
- 2 dl wheat flour
- 0.5 dl rape oil (or to be consistent, hemp oil)
- 1 dl water

Mix the ingredients. Mold into small balls and then into thin discs between your fingers. Fry on a dry pan from both sides.

The dip:
- 1 dl soft tofu (or if you're a fan of hemp seeds, 1 dl of them roasted and crushed)
- 100 g pickled bell pepper (or 1 roasted)
- 3 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 2 sun dried tomato pieces

Blend all the ingredients into a smooth sauce.

Nutritional values / 350 g and 227 g:
energy 1066 kcal and 238 g
fat 54 g and 10 g
protein 41 g and 24 g
carbohydrates 103 g and 13 g
fiber 12 g and 6 g

Garlic Potatoes ‒ Valkosipuliperunat

2010-01-09T22:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry the dish in the photo is almost eaten already. I thought I'd photograph the remains during the next day's sunlight but we gobbled up the whole batch in a flush. This dish is always a definite success, at least if you love garlic. The idea is to get a crispy outer layer and soft but garlicky inside. This time I also mixed a few spoonfuls of soft hefu with the yogurt, but that's not really an essential part of the recipe.

- 1 kg potatoes
- 2 whole garlics
- 1 onion
- 3 dl nut yogurt (you can replace this with soy yogurt of course but you'll miss something)
- 2 dl oat milk
- white pepper
- salt
- 1 tablespoon rape oil

Wash the potatoes well but don't peel. Cut them into thick slices, preferably with a knife. Oil a casserole. Lay the potato slices into rows so that they overlap each other. Chop and sauté the onion with some oil. Mince the garlic. Mix the onion, the garlic and the spices with the nut yogurt and spread it on the potatoes. Pour the milk evenly over the rest.

Bake at 200°C until the crust looks a little brown (about 45-60 minutes).

Nutritional values / 1584 g:
energy 1761 kcal
fat 95 g
protein 47 g
carbohydrates 176 g
fiber 44 g

Yogurt ‒ Jukurtti

2010-01-09T01:18:00.000-08:00

Soy yogurt is sold in every food store I use. It's a nicely multifunctional thing in cooking but sometimes you want some extra flavour. Luckily, making different yogurt varieties yourself couldn't get any easier.

All you need is some nuts, oatmeal or seeds. First soak them overnight and in the case of nuts and seeds, drain and rinse. You can even sprout the seeds a little. Then you just have to purée the ingredients with some water. (The idea is basically to get unfiltered vegetable milk or cream so it's more complicated process when making soy yogurt. Like this.) Pour the cream into a non-metal container and let it go sour on the kitchen table for couple of days (taste every now and then to decide the best length for you) and refrigerate if you're not using it right away. Don't bother to cover the bowl or glass unless you have pets or an insect problem. Just check there's enough water for the yogurt to swallow. Some people like to add some of their own bacteria starters (usually the remains of the previous yogurt) before the fermenting to get more health benefits or speed up the process.

I thought I'd compare different sorts of yogurts a bit which is why there are as many as four of them in the photo. The ingredients from left to right are rye flakes, oatmeal and sprouted buckwheat, pine nuts and finally hazel nuts. The structure depends on the initial amount of water but generally nuts make creamier yogurts than flakes since they contain more fat. For the same reason, you can clearly see how water separates from the nut cream during the process. Think the oat version has the most pleasing sourness of these. On the other hand, the hazel version has the most recognizable original flavour left.

Besides sauces and other cooking, these yogurts can of course be eaten on their own or crowned with berries and talkkuna.

Onion Soup ‒ Sipulikeitto

2010-01-07T04:01:00.000-08:00

Hot soups are exactly what I need when it's freezing outside. Onion soup is cheap, light and simple to make yet extremely savory.

This alone will hardly fill your stomach so I did what the French do: oven sandwiches. For some reason they also like to set the bread floating in the soup (well, actually they put the whole soup in the oven) but have to say I personally prefer them separated. On the next day you can use this soup as the basis for a bit more filling meal by adding potatoes, veggies and tofu.

The soup:
- 8 onions (it looks nice if you mix yellow and red ones)
- 1 l water
- 2 dl apple wine
- 1 large dose of stock
- 2 tablespoons rape oil for frying
- whole black peppers
- salt
- sugar
- thyme
- yarrow flowers

The bread:
- 6 toasted bread slices
- 2 dl soy yogurt
- 100 g melting soy cheese
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons mustard powder
- 3 garlic cloves

Slice the onions and caramelize them by frying in a low heat for an extended period (half an hour should do). Add the wine at the end of the caramelization to deglaze the pan. Be careful not to burn the onions cause that makes the soup bitter. When the onions have turned sweet, add the rest of the soup ingredients. Let the soup simmer for half an hour under a lid.

Grind the soy cheese, mince the garlic and mix them with the yogurt, the yeast and the mustard. Spread the mixture on the bread slices and place in a 200°C oven until they look crunchy and golden (about ten minutes).

Nutritional values / 2190 g soup and 1 bread:
energy 633 kcal and 235 kcal
fat 27 g and 8 g
protein 12 g and 8 g
carbohydrates 46 g and 15 g
fiber 16 g and 2 g

Mustard Foam ‒ Sinappivaahto

2010-01-05T04:18:00.000-08:00

I find the experimentalism of molecular gastronomy really fun and interesting. How could we ever come up with new recipes if we never played with food? That being said, this experiment clearly went onto my failure pile.

I saw this idea of mustard foam and thought it would make a nice dressing for my lunch salad featuring pear cubes and the remains of a seitan roast (the structure of which I like to make as dry and crumbly as I can). But the foam turned out way too faint and quickly vanishing for the mission so I had to substitute it with normal mustard instead. I can't really come up with any way to use this foam, save for the fact that fruit flies were happy to drown themselves in the liquid. Well, while I still have lecithin left I guess I'll have to make some other uses for it. Apparently it should make bread fluffier, and perhaps this type of foam would work better in hot drinks.

- 3 dl water
- 1 tablespoon mustard powder
- 1 tablespoon soy lecithin
(vinegar, salt, paprika)

First blend the mixture into a smooth liquid. Let it stand for at least fifteen minutes to let the mustard build up some burning sensation. Add some flavourings if you wish. Whip to get foam. Spoon the foam on whatever you wish to use it with.

Turnip Discs ‒ Nauriskiekot

2010-01-03T05:37:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I manage to find real swidden turnips (kaskinauris, the earliest turnip variety cultivated by Finno-Ugric peoples). Since it's a rare pleasure I want to savor them on their own, cooked in a simple and humble way.

- 500 g turnips
- about 0.5 dl spruce syrup (plus some water if it looks too thick)
- 2 dl bread crumbs (preferably rye)
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons mustard powder
- herb salt
- powdered orange zest or ginger
- rape oil for frying (about 2 tablespoons)

Wash the turnips carefully and remove the bad parts. Cut thick slices out of them with a good knife. Mix the bread crumbs, the nutritional yeast and the spices. Pat the discs with spruce syrup (I find this easiest to do with fingers). Dip the discs in the bread crumb mixture and throw on a hot and oiled frying pan. Turn them over a few times to get them evenly cooked. The discs are ready to eat as soon as they've acquired that beautiful golden colour.

Nutritional values / 702 g:
energy 981 kcal
fat 39 g
protein 27 g
carbohydrates 129 g
fiber 14 g

Vodka Sauce ‒ Votkakastike

2010-01-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

Happy this year! Quite many people in Finland have a habit of going totally teetotal for January. This questionnaire even suggests that during 2008 as many as a quarter of the whole population stuck to tipaton tammikuu, "dropless January". I've never heard of anything like that happening in any other country. The rest of us on the other hand are persistent alcohol people. That means alcoholics as much as outdoors people means homeless.

Those who aren't alcohol people often think that such delicate drink as vodka doesn't have any other taste besides alcohol. Sure, most vodkas are made by distilling it almost to pure alcohol and then diluted down to about 38 percent (the ideal volume according to Dmitri Mendeleev who worked several happy years for the Russian Tsar to find this out). But that 2 percent of impurity or possibly the water lead into significant results in character. If you're not used to spirits, try comparing them mixed with water. The differences should become quite oblivious.

Why am I jabbering about this? Because the key to success in the following recipe is to select a quality vodka with a smooth taste. Most of these are made in the traditional Vodka Belt of Northern and Eastern Europe. I prefer Russkiy Standart, Finlandia or Smirnoff, you may like something else. The point is it should be something you could enjoy on its own. And of course, your homemade moonshine can only be called vodka if it's made exclusively out of grain or potato, although EU has some twisted ideas about this definition.

As you may have noticed, I like to use alcohol beverages in cooking. I don't do it only to bring a whip of their own aged flavours into the food but also to release some of the alcohol soluble components (which tomato has quite a lot). Alcohol acts as a flavour enhancer. Sorry to crush your hopes but most of the alcohol content burns off when heated so it won't get you drunk, unless you pour the lion's share of it directly into the chef. I got the idea for this sauce from Veganomicon (Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero, Perseus Books Group 2007) and decided to add raspberries that pair nicely with tomato. Besides pasta, it fits for example with seitan or simple fried veggies. This time I went for the easy way and added some beans to call it a full supper.

- 1 dl vodka
- 400 g canned, crushed tomatoes (If you absolutely insist to start with fresh ones you'll first have to roast them or simmer them for about an hour.)
- 100 g frozen rasberries
- 1 dl soaked almonds
- 2 dl cooked fava beans
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 1 dose of stock
- 3 cloves of garlic
- basil
- dragon's wort
- marjoram

Sauté the beans in the oil to get some colour on them. Add the raspberries, the tomatoes and the spices. Simmer until the sauce has a nice, thick structure. Add the vodka. Cook a few minutes more until the stinginess of ethanol has given way to caramel-like sweetness, with just a hint of that wonderful burning bite left. Make a smooth paste out of the almonds and add to the sauce. Sprinkle some nutritional yeast flakes on your pasta portion.

Nutritional values / 834 g:
energy 1076 kcal
fat 53 g
protein 32 g
carbohydrates 60 g
fiber 22 g

Ice Cream for Troll Winter ‒ Jäätelö taikatalveksi

2009-12-30T00:57:00.000-08:00

Forecasts promise -11°C for New Year's Eve and I'm making ice cream! Yeap, I know that sounds idiotic but I just bought a pile of Christmas presents for myself, including a cook book about tofu. It made me realize you can make ice cream from soft tofu so I had to try. Of course I knew puréed tofu gives soups and smoothies a fantastic silky structure but somehow I had previously assumed you'd need cream to make ice cream.

First I thought I'd use glögi spices but then those more ethereal flavours drove over. There's no point in repeating the same things you have in the gingerbread crumbles. Think this is a wonderful dessert option for all those heavy chocolate boxes everyone has lying on the table this time of the year. And actually, a pretty healthy one as well.

The name refers to a book of Tove Jansson where Moomintroll wakes up in the middle of his hibernation, feeling all cold and alone. I can so relate to that. I'm almost certain that I ought to hibernate during wintertime but the society forces be to stay up.

- 200 g lingonberries
- 3 tablespoons lingonberry jam
- 400 g soft tofu (If you're making hemp tofu for this just forget the pressing part.)
- 3 dl gingerbread crumbs (The lovers of the unbaked paste can try rolling small balls out of raw gingerbread.)
- heather flowers
- lavender flowers (Just a hint since their scent unfortunately associates with perfume and you wouldn't want to eat perfume. It's the same problem with spearmint and tooth paste.)

Leave the frozen berries on the table for a moment to soften them up enough so you can crush them. Whip everything but the gingerbread crumbs together and stick the bowl into freezer. (Don't press the tofu even if you normally would.) Stir occasionally to break down any forming ice crystals. When you start to have hard time with the stirring (after about five hours) throw in the gingerbread crumbs and freeze one more hour. Serve with a hot drink.

The freezing of tofu ice cream seemed to be taking longer than normally and then again, it seemed to freeze really thoroughly. (This may be just due to the berries.) So thoroughly that if you don't eat it right away you have to leave it on the table for about an hour before serving in order to scoop anything out of it. The partly frosted, partly melted structure on the other hand is just heavenly.

Nutritional values / 690 g:
energy 512 kcal
fat 16 g
protein 25 g
carbohydrates 66 g
fiber 16 g

Beetroot and Pea Loaf ‒ Punajuuri-hernemureke

2009-12-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

We usually spend the Yule eve at my spouse's mum since his siblings gather there as well and then go to see my parents on the Yule day. We don't buy much gifts but think it's nice to bring something special for the dinner table. Knowing his family, my spouse convinced me we should make them a seitan roast, along these lines. After all, the only hardcore carnivore on the table was his big brother, the chair of the local hunting club, but even he hadn't eaten pig for a year. And to my surprise, instead of thinking seitan as a fake ham they seemed to like it, even though I myself thought there was too much spices and the experiment with rye flour had made the structure rather sandy.

My parents on the other hand have a history of being much harder to please. I'd like to think they've stopped mocking my vegetarianism cause they now realize I'm a responsible grown-up and have started enjoying my dishes since I've become a better cook but actually, think the change happened when I dragged home a 34-year old, hairy, oveweight and loud guy who refused to eat meat. The power of example is amazing. Still, for them, I thought the beetroot and pea loaf from the book Härkäpapua sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007) would be a safer option.

Last time I tried something like this was a fiasco (lacking of taste and crumbling apart) so this time I wanted to follow a recipe rather faithfully. The medley of different herbs is naturally very dominant, and since there are so many of them you can't really put your finger on any specific one. Somehow I thought they made the loaf taste more like summer than Yule but liked the result anyway. It doesn't make a centerpiece for a dinner table but it's a good sidekick on the fancier side.

Pea layer:
- 1 dl crushed peas (or 3 dl cooked peas)
- 3 dl water
- 2 potatoes
- 0.5 dl buckwheat flour
- 2 teaspoons dried marjoram
- 0.5 teaspoon ground coriander
- 2 teaspoons dried basil
- 1 teaspoon herb salt

Beetroot layer:
- 2 large beetroots
- 1 potato
- 0.5 dl buckwheat flour
- 1 onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- 0.5 teaspoon dried sage
- 3 teaspoon parsley
- 0.25 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon herb salt

Cook the peas with the two potatoes in scarce amount of water. Let them cool down. Then mash and mix with the other ingredients of the pea layer. Cook the beetroots with the potato (again, with minimum amount of water so you won't have to waste any taste into the sewer). Cool down as well. Mash them smooth with the rest of the beetroot layer ingredients (you can either smooth down the onion in a blender or such like the rest or just chop crunchy pieces out of it).

Butter a mold. Pour in the pea layer and spread it even. Pour the beetroot layer on the pea layer and spread even as well. Cook 40 minutes in a 200°C oven in a water bath (this can be achieved by placing the mold into a larger casserole where you pour some water).

Serve cold. Enjoy with some perky sauce or slice on crackers.

Nutritional values / 1055 g:
energy 771 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 33 g
carbohydrates 149 g
fiber 24 g

Oat and Raisin Casserole ‒ Ohra-rusinalaatikko

2009-12-25T00:50:00.000-08:00

Happy Yule! The Sun has born again! You can clearly see how the day is now longer again... Well, at least if you use a lot of imagination.

One of the four classic casseroles of the Finnish Yule table is liver casserole. That's something bound to divide opinions even amongst meat eaters. Some get repulsed by the sheer idea of eating organs while I remember loving it as a child. One person I know even explained she's a vegetarian most of the time but has this perversion (that's the term she used herself) of eating a whole liver casserole once a year.

Making a vegan version without that dreaded body part isn't complicated at all but it's much harder to make up the name. Yeast is what gives a special flavour into this but using it in the name has the same problem as its predecessor: doesn't sound too appealing, no matter how quickly the stuff tends to vanish at our home. So instead I named this after the other distinctive ingredient, raisin though I think I could try some dried berries next year instead. Feel free to suggest a better title.

The original version of this was posted here.

- 2 dl barley grains
- 2 dl soy crumbles (TSP)
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 1 red onion
- 1 dl raisins
- 2 dl oat cream
- 2 tablespoons dark syrup
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 1 teaspoon marjoram
- 100 g yeast paté (for example Tartex or Marmite)
- 2 tablespoons margarine

Soak the raisins in water. Cook the barley. Chop the onion and sauté together with the soy crumbles and soy sauce. Mix all the ingredients in a buttered casserole. Top with margarine pieces. Bake 45 minutes in a 175°C oven. Enjoy with lingonberry cram.

Nutritional values / 800 g:
energy 1613 kcal
fat 73 g
protein 55 g
carbohydrates 180 g
fiber 37 g

Tuuvinki

2009-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

There are four standars casseroles in the standing Finnish Yule table: carrot, rutabaga, liver and potato. The idea is to take just couple of spoonfuls of each so they'll form a colourful medley of tastes. They're designed to get better and better when rewarmed again and again during those magical days of night.

My definite favourite of these is the potato version tuuvinki that is sweetened naturally. Some people just use dark syrup or sweet potato instead of waiting but I call that cheating.

- 1 kg potatoes (floury variety)
- 4 dl oat milk
- 2 tablespoons wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons margarine

Cook and mash the potatoes. Add the wheat flour (as well as some water if the potatoes seem dry) and pour the mashed potatoes into a casserole. Leave to sweeten in a warm place for a night. If you don't have one set your oven to the lowest temperature possible and keep the mash there for a few hours.

Taste. If the potatoes haven't sweetened enough on their own (= the place you chose wasn't warm enough) you can pour in a tablespoon of dark syrup at this point. Stir in the other ingredients as well. Top with margarine pieces. Bake 3 hours in a 150°C oven.

Nutritional values / 1451 g (also see Fineli):
energy 1033 kcal
fat 25 g
protein 22 g
carbohydrates 174 g
fiber 20 g

Rosolli

2009-12-22T11:10:00.000-08:00

Happy Winter Solstice!
Well, actually that was yesterday but I was celebrating it in Estonia. That's when the holiday starts for me, lasting all the way to Talvennapa (January 13th), supposedly the coldest day of the year. Meanwhile, the Sun is sleeping so we have to light candles instead and feast.

One of those dishes that really make my Joulu is rosolli. Think I could eat a whole bucket of it. Rosolli or sallatti is a simple beetroot salad known in all of northern side of Europe from Netherlands to Russia. The name rosolli comes from Russian rosol, meaning salty. Of course everybody uses a bit different amounts, some leave apple or onion out altogether and some even put salted herring in it. But here's a recipe to start with.

- 4 beetroots
- 3 potatoes
- 3 carrots
- 1 apple
- 1 onion
- 2 pickles

Cook and peel the root vegetables. Cut all the ingredients into cubes. Mix. Serve cold, possibly together with whipped oat cream coloured and spiced with the vinegary pickling juice of beetroots.

Nutritional values / 1350 g:
energy 475 kcal
fat 1 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 96 g
fiber 25 g

Yule Bread ‒ Joululimppu

2009-12-16T05:35:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned earlier, here in western Finland soft bread or limppu used to be eaten only couple of times a year. One such important holiday was ‒ and still is ‒ Joulu or Yule. My idea of a proper joululimppu involves black skin, softness, sweetness and a lot of spices. Such taste needs some time to evolve.

My inspirations for this creation come mainly from mustaleipä ("black bread") of Åland islands and fairer looking but spicier joululimppu recipes. I also thought about throwing in some dried cranberries or nuts but totally forgot. Well, it's not like this would exactly need them. Ideally the bread should be baked couple of days before the actual eating but guess if I could keep my hands off for so long.

- 4 dl oat yogurt (or soy yogurt ‒ anything goes as long as it's sour)
- 3 dl rye malts
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 dl rye flour

- 25 g yeast
- 3 dl wheat bran
- 5 dl dark wheat or spelt flour (This is how much I counted I'd need based on other recipes but it seemed to take quite a lot more. Next time I make this I promise to update the amount.)
- 3 tablespoons rowan jelly (just for the flavour, this can be dropped out if you don't have any)
- 1 teaspoon fennel
- 1 teaspoon anise
- powdered bitter orange peel
- some mixture of dark syrup and coffee for buttering

Mix together the yogurt, the malts, the syrup the salt and 2.25 dl rye flour. Sprinkle rest of the rye flour on the composition and cover with a towel. Leave in a warm place for a day (or two if it seems to bubble lazily).

Dissolve the yeast in a drop of lukewarm water. Add the yeast and the rest of the ingredients into the fizzy drink you made yesterday. Cover with a towel again and let it rise for 6 ‒ 8 hours.

Knead it into a semicircle or an oval. Let your loaf rise under a towel for ten minutes. Bake it 10 minutes in a 200°C oven. Butter with the syrup and coffee mixture. Bake 10 more minutes and rebutter. Wrap the loaf into folio, turn the oven to 150°C and leave the bread in there for three hours. Turn off the oven and take the bread out when the oven has gone cold.

Nutritional values / 1150 g:
energy 2705 kcal
fat 23 g
protein 77 g
carbohydrates 537 g
fiber 64 g

Red Onion Sauce ‒ Punasipulikastike

2009-12-13T09:08:00.000-08:00

This quick sauce seems to be on everybody's Christmas dinner list in this animal rights forum. And no wonder. Oat, syrup and red onion form a pleasant, sweet trinity where the spices bring the final kick.

- 2 large red onions
- 4 dl oat cream
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- 2 teaspoons dark syrup
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- 2 teaspoons milled black pepper
- 2 teaspoons soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon tomato paste
- 1 good punch of fresh parsley

Cut the red onions into semicircles. Sauté in oil. Pour on them everything but the parsley. Let the sauce simmer for 5 ‒ 10 minutes. Remember to stir occasionally. If your sauce looks too thick add water, and if too thin add potato flour.

Chop the parsley and sprinkle on the sauce. Enjoy together with casseroles and other Joulu dishes.

Nutritional values / 4 dl:
energy 862 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 14 g
carbohydrates 80 g
fiber 9 g

Plum Seitan ‒ Luumuseitan

2009-12-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

Though I actually eat them rarely, plums are among the tastiest fruits I know, be it straight from a tree or dried ones. Chocochili's seitan dish reminded me of a simple meat dish my mum used to prepare although BBC's original pork version of it doesn't look like that at all. But at the same time, there was something so christmassy in this I thought I'd save it for December.

When I finally started cooking, I noticed I was out of vinegar so I replaced the stock part with red wine (and had to finish the rest of the bottle as well so it wouldn't turn into vinegar). Oh poor me. Also, I assumed the plums in the original are fresh ones so I doubled the amount for dried ones and dismissed the sugar. So finally, I ended up with a treat like this:

The seitan:
- 3 dl seitan flour (aka gluten flour)
- 1.5 dl pea flour (or chickpea)
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- 0.5 dl rape oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- smoked pepper powder
- water (just enough to make it stick together, about 1 dl)

The rest:
- 1 onion (or 10 pickled spring onions)
- 10 dried plums
- 1 carrot (or celeriac)
- 4 dl red wine
- 1 dl tomato sauce
- 1 dried chili
- anise or star anise (I bet salmiakki would work as well)
- cardamom
- juniper berries

Mix the seitan ingredients. Slice into strips and drop into boiling water. Precook about half an hour (I like to season the water with some stock). Slice the onions and the carrots. Halve the plums. Combine everything in a casserole. Let the plum seitan simmer for 45 minutes in a 175ºC oven. Thicken the marinade by boiling it together in a sauce pot and return on the seitan (or if you're lazy like me, just sprinkle some potato flour on top and stir).

Serve with mashed potatoes.

Nutritional values / 1272 g:
energy 1890 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 143 g
carbohydrates 139 g
fiber 21 g

Karelian Pasties ‒ Karjalanpiirakat

2009-12-07T05:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Finland's Independence Day. In most countries, that's a lively carnival. In Finland it has evolved into a more dignified, even pious day, largely consisting of remembering World War II and honouring the veterans who ‒ as the only nation ‒ managed to fight back against Stalin's invasion. For my generation which doesn't even remember there ever existed a place called Soviet Union it's more about gathering together some friends, burning candles, eating well, talking about new laws that threaten our freedom of speech or right to privacy and of course, laughing at the dresses of the president's ball that YLE broadcasts every year.

While others played a game where you get a point every time you know a name of a ball guest and another one from knowing the reason they're invited I pinched up some Karelian pasties. From numerous hand-size Karelian pie types these are the ones that have an almost iconic status so I thought they'd make an appropriate snack for Independence Day. They have a thin rye crust and just about anything as a filling. Nowadays rice porridge is the filling number one and potato second but barley, talkkuna, buckwheat, carrot or rutabaga would make them a bit more "authentic" (what a terrible word). They can even have a sweet berry porridge inside. This time I used a simple turnip filling and a crust recipe straight from a flour bag.

The crust:
- 5.5 dl sifted rye flour (if you can only find normal kind you should replace some of it with wheat flour)
- 2 dl water
- 2 teaspoons salt

The rest:
- 1 kg turnip
- white pepper
- 100 g margarine
- 1 dl oat milk

Cook the turnips. Peel and mash them together with the pepper and half the margarine. While the filling cools down, mix the crust ingredients together with your hands. Roll the paste into a thin layer (use extra flour generously so it won't stick). Take circular pieces from the layer with the help of a floured water glass.

Now roll each circle into an oval. Lay a spoonful of turnip mash on it and fold the edges with your index finger and thumb, from both sides simultaneously, pinching "wrinkles" on the filling as you go along. Bake about fifteen minutes in a 275ºC oven.

Melt the rest of the margarine and add the milk into it. Butter the oven-fresh pastries from both sides and lay them into a bowl over each other. Cover with a towel and let them soften up for about an hour.

Serve hot or cold, perhaps together with tar syrup.

Nutritional values / 1785 g:
energy 2084 kcal
fat 82 g
protein 48 g
carbohydrates 284 g
fiber 78 g

The Weirdest Glögis

2009-12-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

A punch of friends invited themselves at my place to throw one more pikkujoulu party. We listened to the greatest Christmas songs (like this or this) and tried the weirdest glögi ideas we could find. These are starting to get pretty far from any definition of glögi but what matters most, all turned out surprisingly delicious. Exceptionally, I'll write just one long post about them.

Carrot Glögi ‒ Porkkanaglögi

This one sounded like the most awful one so we started with it. But the drink came out quite yummy and didn't taste healthy at all.

- 1 l carrot juice
- half a lemon
- 1 tablespoon cloves
- 2 dl vodka (the bottle in the photo actually isn't vodka)

Wash and grind the lemon half (don't peel). Put the lemon and the cloves into a kettle together with the juice and let it simmer for a moment. Filter out the bits and pieces. Pour into mugs. Finalize with vodka.

Beer Glögi ‒ Olutglögi

I bought three bottles of Sinebrychoff's excellent porter for this and felt so bad in advance for having to ruin it. But no, this came out good as well though there was a bit too much ginger in relation to cinnamon.

- 1 l porter
- 2 dl water
- 1 piece of fresh ginger
- 5 cinnamon sticks

Peel the ginger piece. Let the ginger and the cinnamon sticks simmer in the water until you've caught their taste. Combine the liquid part with the beer and warm it up. Be careful not to boil the beer since it turns bitter quite easily. Beer glögi is best enjoyed while still hot.

Snowball Glögi ‒ Lumipalloglögi

The last one was the winner. There are quite many flavours in this drink but they all seemed to stand out. Sadly, the snowball itself melted all too fast.

- 1 l soy milk
- 2 dl water
- half vanilla pod
- green tea (I used a variety spiced with fruit pieces)
- spruce syrup
- 2 dl whipped oat cream
- cinnamon
(- brandy to taste)

Let the vanilla and the tea simmer in the water. Add the syrup and the milk and warm up the whole thing. Filter into mugs. Pour in some brandy if you wish. Let your guests crown the drink with a cream snowball and cinnamon.

Gingerbread ‒ Piparit

2009-12-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

Warning: Keeping a food blog may cause you to try the weirdest things. Last year my spouse came home from a journey just in time for Yule so I surprised him by decorating gingerbread cookies with obscene symbols and hanging them all around our home. Knowing exactly how good I am with handicrafts I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have even crossed my mind to build a full gingerbread house if I couldn't tell about it here. The artwork in the photo is my third one and it was built together with three friends of mine. If you want to see more traditional examples gather ideas from here.

In different countries, gingerbread can mean all sorts of cakes or biscuits. In Scandinavia it means a dark, thin and crunchy biscuit with a generous amount of spices. They're eaten almost exclusively during Christmas time. Besides houses, they often have a shape of people, pigs, spruces, hearts, stars and bucks. The Finnish name piparkakku comes from Swedish pepparkaka, "pepper cake".

Here's the most basic gingerbread recipe I can think of (combining at least this and this recipe):

- 2 dl dark syrup
- 2 dl sugar
- 1 dl water
- 200 g quality margarine (for example Keiju 70 %)
- 1 l wheat flour (or spelt)
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon clove
- 1 tablespoon cardamom
- 1 tablespoon ginger
- 0.5 tablespoon bitter orange peel

Melt together the sugar, the syrup, the water and the spices. Pour the hot mixture over the margarine. Keep stirring until the margarine has melted as well. Let the mixture cool down a bit and then whip it fluffier. Filter in the flour and the soda in small amounts. Leave the paste in the fridge for overnight. Try not to eat it all.

Next day you can roll the paste out into a thin layer (I recommend sprinkling some flour on the table first). Cut it into merry shapes and put them into a 200°C oven until they've gotten some nice brown colour (10-15 minutes).

If you wish, decorate the cookies with an icing made of water and confectioner's sugar. You can get a pink colour by adding a drop of beetroot juice in the icing or a blue one with bilberry juice.

When building a house you should first draw blueprints (if creating your own architectural design it helps to make a model out of cardboard). Cut the paste into flat shapes you can put together after baking. Don't forget to make a soil from the last lump to build your house on. The pieces will swell in the oven so it may be a good idea to cut the edges a little right after they come from the oven and are still soft. Let them cool down and then decorate. Glue the pieces together (and repair the broken ones) with sugar melted on a non-sticky frying pan. You need to be quick, careful and precise with this phase so a calm, grown-up assistant would certainly help. Finally, turn the collapsing side of the house towards a wall and sprinkle some more confectioner's sugar ("snow") over it to cover the ugliest seams.

Nutritional values / 1500 g:
energy 4990 kcal
fat 156 g
protein 87 g
carbohydrates 802 g
fiber 25 g

Food Blog of the Month \o/

2009-12-01T07:16:00.000-08:00

Wow. Mämmi was chosen the food blog of the month by Suomalaisen ruokakulttuurin edistämisohjelma ("Program for Promoting Finnish Food Culture"). It's a three-year program started by Finnish government and aims to uplift the respect of good food. Judging by the list of the previous acknowledged blogs I'm in first-class company. Mämmi isn't even the first vegan blog that has been selected but it is the first one in English. Excuse me for repeating myself but wow!

Here are the reasons they mention:

"Mämmi on blogi, joka on selkeästi profiloitunut suomalaisen ruokaperinteen sanansaattajana. Se muistuttaa unohdetuista suomalaisista herkuista ja luo niistä omia, tuoreita versioitaan. Englanninkielisyytensä ansiosta Mämmi kertoo ruokakulttuuristamme myös ulkomaalaisille - tehden sen iloisesti ja nöyristelemättä. Blogin jokainen postaus vakuuttaa lukijansa rikkaasta ruokakulttuurista, jonka antimia voi soveltaa monenlaisen ruokailijan tarpeisiin sopiviksi."

Apparently I've managed to do something right for a change. It's been less than a year but I find food writing abnormally fun and addictive. It encourages me to try new things in the kitchen (which certainly improves at least my own nutrition) and gives the satisfaction of filling a certain empty spot in something I care about. Hope I'll stay this excited in the future as well!

Sauerkraut ‒ Hapankaali

2009-11-29T04:42:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday I got to see a Unesco world heritage site called Sammallahdenmäki. It's a Bronze age burial site that was used for a thousand years. Nowadays it's a beautiful granite hill covered by colourful lichen species and a few dwarfy pines but in the beginning of the construction it must have looked completely different. The place used to lie on a seashore and the climate was subboreal, meaning the temperatures were much like those that Central Europe now enjoys. Pine hadn't arrived yet and nut trees were fairly common. Weirdly, we know more about the religious views and language of those people than such tangible things like what they ate. Judging from what was available it might have been much closer to what dietitians recommend than a typical nutrition of today, at least during the good years.

One food preparation method that was very likely used intensively was fermenting. And as a food enthusiast I of course want to learn how to do that myself. After all, fermented dishes are still something that everybody should eat on a daily basis and the commercially produced ones tend to be spoiled by pasteurizing. The classic to start with is naturally sauerkraut.

This doesn't really require a recipe but I'm going to tell you how I made it anyway. There are varying instructions out there and my chemistry knowledge is scarce so I can't really tell which ones are based on actual evidence and which are more like folklore. That's why I try to explain just the guidelines and leave the experimenting for you.

(That miserable greyness in the photo is by the way the view from my kitchen window at noon. That's the brightest it gets right before winter solstice.)

- 1 cabbage head
- 2 carrots (or other veggies)
- 1 tablespoon caraway (or other spices)
- 1 tablespoon salt

Grind or shred the cabbage and the carrots. Add the caraway and the salt. When the cabbage starts to sweat (because of the salt) start beating it with any mallet or jar available. The idea is to get so much juice out it covers the cabbage. If the cabbage has already seen it's best days it may be so dry that this never happens. In that case dissolve some salt into boiling water, cool down and pour over the cabbage.

Put the cabbage with its juices into a clean and airtight vessel (I just use glass jars with a weight on top). Press the cabbage below the juice level so it won't touch the air and rotten instead of lacto-fermenting anaerobically. Let your forthcoming sauerkraut sit in room temperature from 3 days to 6 weeks depending on how strong you want it to be. The reason for moving it into a colder storage place after couple of days in some recipes is to slow down the process. Notice the vessel will flood over unless there's a lot of empty space left. Sometimes mold appears on top but this isn't dangerous ‒ just peel it off.

When sauerkraut has stopped bubbling it should taste pleasantly tart. Don't eat if it has turned soft. The taste matures for about six months if stored well in cool temperature (like fridge). If you think it tastes too sore rinse with cold water before eating. Sauerkraut can be used as a salad, in green smoothies or even in hot dishes (though heating of course destroys the largest health benefits). It's a good habit to always add a spoonful on your dinner.

Nutritional values / 1730 g (counted from the ingredients, also see Fineli):
energy 534 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 19 g
carbohydrates 102 g
fiber 37 g

Cranberry Glögi with Chili ‒ Chilinen karpaloglögi

2009-11-25T11:42:00.000-08:00

Remember when I said there are probably hundreds of glögi variants? Well, now I have this urge to try if not hundreds then at least a dozen of them. Cranberry version is still quite a standard one so I also experimented with the spices.

For once, I admit I may have exaggerated with chili ‒ maybe that challenge I talked about in the last post was still haunting in my mind. It covered most of the other flavours and started to hurt my stomach. (A note to self: remember you shouldn't use chili nearly as much for liquids as you would for the same amount of solid food.) Otherwise however, this seemed to work rather well. The structure came out surprisingly thick so if you prefer your glögi transparent use less berries.

- 200 g frozen cranberries
- 0.5 dl spruce syrup
- 1 dl water
- 1 dl dried cranberries
- dried chili
- aniseed
- cardamom

Cook the cranberries in the water so long they get mashed. Filter out most of the pieces (and use on your breakfast porridge in the next morning). Add the syrup and the spices. Let the glögi simmer for about ten minutes. Pour in the serving glasses and give the final touch with a few dry berries.

Nutritional values / 1 l:
energy 264 g
fat 1 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 64 g
fiber 1 g

Warmer Röstis ‒ Lämmitysröstit

2009-11-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

This time of the year I tend to long for all kinds of things that warm my bones. Therefore this challenge for hot recipes circulating in Finnish food blogs seemed to come straight from heaven. I've never taken part of these before but as you may have noticed already, I use chili in everything but strawberry cake (well there's an idea), even though my own babies never seem to grow old enough to bare fruit. And so I thought I'd post a dish where chili is truly essential part and not just my personal soft spot.

Röstis are fried root vegetable patties most often made of potato. For some reason I've most found of the beet version, perhaps cause the colour won't reveal whether I've managed to grate some of my fingers in them as well. (You wouldn't believe if I told you how good I am in that. At the moment I've got a plaster in my right index finger and two smaller cuts in my left hand.)

A must spice with any beet dish is chili. The amount of course depends on your choose of species and how used you are to capsaicin. The ideal dosage should give that heavenly endorphin stimuli but not block all the taste which is what happens if there's more chili than your tongue buds can handle. In my household a good balance means about 4-5 small rawits or 1 habanero.

- 1 kg beetroot
- 3 dl soy crumbles (TSP)
- 3 dl rye flour
- 1 onion
- chili peppers
- 1 tablespoon dark syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
- white pepper
- dragon's wort
- rape oil for frying (about 0.5 dl)

Peel and grate the beets. Chop and sauté the onion. Mix all the ingredients except the oil together. Pat the mush into thin discs.

Fry the röstis from both sides on a hot pan to get both a crispy surface and a soft inside. Beet turns dark when fried but don't mistake that as scorched. If you're hosting a dinner party or posting to your food blog, cut the röstis into heart shapes. Otherwise, enjoy as such.

Warmer Röstis are best accompanied by a sour sauce that softens the burning sensation a bit and emphasizes the sweetness. The next day they're terrific on a rye bread.

Nutritional values / 1659 g:
energy 1833 kcal
fat 66 g
protein 68 g
carbohydrates 238 g
fiber 71 g

Lingonberry Foam ‒ Vispipuuro

2009-11-20T11:35:00.000-08:00

One of my mom's bravuras is vispipuuro, literally "whipped porridge". It's one of those traditional dishes which are sold in every basic supermarket but of course something that's been standing in a plastic jar for a month can never have that fluffy structure it's supposed to so recently I thought I'd try to make it myself for the first time. Turned out much simpler than I had thought. And oh my, it felt like I had little crispy clouds in my mouth.

I took the basic amounts from the recipe of Kamomillan konditoria since it used more lingonberries and less sugar than most. (Actually, I could do with even less sugar.) This basic recipe is easy to pimp to any occasion, for example with glögi spices.

- 5 dl lingonberries (currants are also sometimes used)
- 1 l vettä
- 1,5 dl semolina (white kind of course makes the structure even fluffier but I couldn't find anything to complain about the dark semolina I used)
- 1 dl sugar
- 0.5 teaspoon salt

Let the berries simmer in the water as long as they become mashed or take a shortcut by mashing them with a blender. Some people like to filter out the skins in which case I think it would be easier to use juice instead of whole berries. Add the semolina and let the porridge simmer for about ten minutes. Keep stirring from time to time. Add the sugar and the salt.

Now you have to keep patient. Let the porridge cool down. Here in the north, this time of the year, this is done rather quickly by forgetting the kettle outside for a moment. When it's chilled down (and hopefully not frozen) you can start whipping. The porridge should turn light pink in colour and the volume should approximately double itself.

Scoop the pink cloud into serving bowls. If you wish, add some sugar and oat cream on top.

Nutritional values / 1505 g:
energy 828 kcal
fat 4 g
protein 16 g
carbohydrates 181 g
fiber 15 g

Glögi

2009-11-18T00:16:00.000-08:00

Glögi is a hot drink known all around Scandinavia. Today it's mostly associated to this dark time preceding Joulu. The spices used in it sound rather exotic since the present form originates from the homes of Swedish-speaking upper class that the rest of Finland of course started to copycat as soon as they could afford it. According to Finnish Wikipedia, glögi's predecessors were spiced spirits which were used to warm up mailmen traveling long distances during winter.

Glögi is often confused with mulled wines, especially German Glühwein, but my Germany experts assure me they taste quite different. Glögi is sometimes made of red wine instead of red juice but that's so much rarer that it's usually called wine glögi in those cases. (One reason for this may be the way how alcohol is still considered a big no-no in Finnish culture, something you have to drink in secret in order not to appear a drunkard and definitely not in the town square with your children.) The spices are pretty much the same as in gingerbread (I'll try to post the recipe next month). Glühwein on the other hand is always prepared from wine like the name says, and this may also mean fruit wine made of blueberries or cherries for example. It's typically spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and most notably, orange.

There are probably hundreds of glögi variants, the best known being white glögi. The spices are the same but it's made of apple juice or white wine.

- 7 dl water
- 1 dl black currant juice (unsweetened and unwatered)
- 0.5 dl dark sugar
- cinnamon
- cloves
- ginger
- 2 dl vodka (or brandy)
- 0.5 dl raisins
- 0.5 dl almond slices

Heat up the water together with the spices. Let them simmer for about ten minutes. Filter out the spices. Add the juice and the vodka. Portion in cups. Finalize by throwing in some raisins and almond slices or let your guests help themselves. Enjoy the hot cup between your frozen fingers.

Nutritional values / 1 l:
energy 962 kcal
fat 19 g
protein 10 g
carbohydrates 70 g
fiber 9 g

Pepper Boats ‒ Paprikaveneet

2009-11-17T03:57:00.000-08:00

Some kind of stuffed veggies are probably prepared all over the world and Finland is no exception. Previously I've posted about such classics as stuffed turnips and cabbage rolls. Stuffed bell peppers or tomatoes are also a typical thing on a dinner table when the host wants offer something a bit fancier and colourful than normally, yet avoiding too exotic and odd tastes. I've heard some people in their 30's even suffer traumas from making these in the school cooking classes.

- 3 large bell peppers
- 2 dl fava beans
- 1 dl nuts
- 1 dl tomato sauce
- 6 dried tomato pieces
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 chili peppers
- basil
- margarine or such for topping

Cut the bell peppers in half and scoop out the seeds. Crush the nuts and the garlic, mince the dried tomato pieces and the chili peppers. Mix everything but the bell peppers and the margarine together. This becomes even better if you bother to precook the stuffing before stuffing. Spoon into the pepper halves. Top with margarine. Place in a 200°C oven for 30-45 minutes.

Of course it's also possible to use whole bell peppers by just cutting the hat off. The hat can even make a pretty decoration. I personally think they turn out better this way but that's just a matter of taste. Oh, and before someone asks, those cubes in the photo are nut pate.

Nutritional values / 1 boat:
energy 162 kcal
fat 11 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 11 g
fiber 5 g

Fist Rieska ‒ Nyrkkirieska

2009-11-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

If you want to see two Finns fight ask them what kind of a bread is rieska. In different parts of the country the same word is used to describe very different types of leavened and unleavened breads. Generally younger people of the day already share a common view: rieska is the kind of flat, unleavened, usually round or rectangular bread sold in all Finnish grocery stores. It's most typically made of barley or potatoes with possibly wheat as a binding agent. Around Scandinavia there are probably hundreds of ways to use rieska.

For starters, here's one very basic rieska recipe:

- 5 dl ice cold water
- 0.5 tbsp salt
- 9-10 dl barley flour (preferably coarse kind though it's hard to find)

Dissolve the salt in the water. Add the flour little by little. Mix the dough with a wooden fork rather than your hand since it should stay cold. Knead quickly on floured table. Pat the dough into four thin (about 0.5 cm thick) discs (or make one big layer and use a bowl to cut circles from it). Sting holes on them with a fork. Place into a 300°C oven for about 5 minutes. If possible, use a plain grate instead of a tray so they'll get more evenly baked.

Rieskas are done when they've got some colour. If successful, they feel light, the cover is crispy and the inside is done but a bit sticky. Wrap them inside a towel to soften up (mine never do cause I keep forgetting them in the oven for too long).

Rieska can be eaten as it is in the same manner as Indian naan bread or French baguette. You can also use it for wrappings like Mexican tortillas, cover it with toppings like Italian pizzas or crumble it into cold oat milk or gravy like um... Well, I'm sure there's some example of this one too somewhere in the world. In any case, rieska is best when still fresh.

Nutritional values / 1 rieska:
energy 509 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 105 g
fiber 12 g

Rye Lasagna ‒ Ruislasse

2009-11-13T10:33:00.000-08:00

Globalization and localization married together make interesting children. Once again, I'm raping Italian names with Finnish ingredients. Forgive me dear boot country dwellers but your words have become common language and disconnected from their original meanings. Besides, if you ever tasted those dishes in Finnish restaurants you'd love this.

The idea of using finncrisps and peas for lasagna came from Jere Nieminen's cook book Herne rokkaa (Multikustannus) but otherwise I mostly followed the recipe I've found from a lasagna noodle box in the year X, even though this doesn't even use the stuff. Like I said, I'm not sure if it's right for lasagna to call this dish lasagna but I'm afraid I don't have enough imagination for a better name. "Layered Rye and Pea Casserole"? Doesn't really sound appetizing.

- about ten large finncrisps
- rape oil for buttering and frying

Red sauce:
- 200 g dried peas
- 500 g crushed tomatoes
- 2 onions
- 1 chili pepper
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 dose of stock
- 1 teaspoon salt
- basil

White sauce:
- 50 g margarine
- 1 l oat milk
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 100 g melting soy cheese
- 4 garlic cloves
- nutmeg

Soak the peas overnight if you can, then rinse and crush them. Chop the onions and fry together with the peas. Chop the bell pepper as well and mix all the the red sauce ingredients together.

Heat the oat milk carefully. Keep stirring all the time so it won't burn. Sift the flour in little by little. Also add the other ingredients in small pieces. When the sauce starts to thicken you can move it away from the stove.

Butter a casserole. Scoop some of the red sauce on the bottom as an even layer. Lay finncrisps over the sauce. It doesn't matter if they lap over one another ‒ they'll soften up. Scoop some of the white sauce on the finncrisps. Continue this way with the second round of layers and third as well if you still have enough stuff left. Bake 50 minutes in the lowest shelf of a 175°C oven.

Nutritional values / 2248 g:
energy 2548 kcal
fat 102 g
protein 81 g
carbohydrates 314 g
fiber 63 g

Tokero

2009-11-11T01:30:00.000-08:00

Talkkuna (or kama in Estonian) means a finely milled mixture of roasted grains or pea flour. The combination varies a lot according to the province, as well as the right way to eat it. Today it's mostly used in desserts but a hundred years ago it was combined practically with anything to form a quick snack. In Tavastia talkkuna was normally mixed with sour milk products but in South Ostrobothnia it was coped together with berries and in Savo it was used with pork lard. My home town even has a street named Tokerotie since during the building in the great hunger years the workers got talkkuna porridge for salary.

Talkkuna's taste is hard to describe. As a kid I hated it, now I've come to love the bizarre combination of chocolaty and malty flavours. I've often envied the way today's Estonian kitchen seems to use talkkuna much more creatively than Finns do. Even though our test group recently decided that an Estonian chocolate bar spiced with kama tasted like old stockings, I did notice that kama and coffee used in that bar might actually make a great combination. So here's a coffee-spiked simple talkkuna snack or dessert.

- 1 dl talkkuna
- 1 dl coffee (or to be a purist, water or oat milk)
- black currants
- raspberries
(- sugar)

Mix the talkkuna and the coffee. Top with berries. Sprinkle sugar on top if you wish.

Nutritional values / 200 g (without sugar):
energy 192 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 36 g
fiber 7 g