African style braised chicken

For dinner tonight I made African style braised chicken, nothing Finnish about this recipe except that I've adapted it from a cookbook written by Judith Finlayson!  I think it must be possible to find a Finnish connection to most things, if you try hard enough...

Speaking of Finlayson, I would love to be in Tampere at the Finlayson outlet right now, we really need some new towels.  The ones I bought there in 1993 just wore out!

You can find the original recipe here.  I found it in the Chicago Tribune a long time ago, it is one of my kids' favorite dishes.  I don't really follow the original recipe, though, so I'll post what I do here so my kids can make it, too.

4 pounds (1.8 kilos) of  boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2 onions  (I used 2 tablespoons of dried minced onion this time)
4 garlic cloves (I used 2 tablespoons of dried minced garlic this time)
1 bay leaf
pepper

1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of tomato sauce
1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of water
1 chicken bouillon cube

peppers and vegetables

1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of peanut butter
juice of one lemon

First, I browned about 4 pounds (1.8 kilos) of  boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  I used a heavy pan to do this, cooking slowly until the thighs were browned well on all sides.  If I had used fresh onions and garlic, I would have cooked it with the chicken, but all I had was dried so I added it later.  If you use fresh, add 2 chopped onions and 4 minced garlic cloves.  Make sure and turn the chicken and cook it slowly so it doesn't burn.  Then I took them out and drained them on paper towels and also wiped most of the oil out of the skillet.

I deglazed the pan with 1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of tomato sauce and 1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of water.  To deglaze, just pour in all the liquid and scrape the bottom of the pan to get all the dried-on bits off.  Season with a bay leaf (take the bay leaf out before serving, you can't eat it!), one chicken bouillon cube and pepper.

I put the chicken in the bottom of a crockpot slow cooker and poured the sauce over it.  Then I added some vegetables that I found in the garden...a few green beans, some cherry tomatoes, and a variety of peppers, both hot and sweet.  It is easy to adjust the heat of the dish by omitting the hot peppers.  I leave the vegetables whole when possible in case one of the kids wants to sort them out.  I also added a generous two tablespoons each of dried minced garlic and dried minced onion at this point.

This cooked on low for about 3 hours (if you don't cook the chicken as well in the skillet as I did, you should cook it 6 hours on low or 3 hours on high).  When it is done the chicken will shred easily with a fork.

Just before serving, add the juice of one lemon and 1/2 cup (1.25 dl) of peanut butter.  Stir well and serve over rice.

If for some reason you couldn't add peanut butter, this dish would still be delicious without it, but I would still add the lemon juice and maybe a tablespoon of brown sugar (to taste).

My family loves this dish, and I hope yours will, too!

Schnitzel--Wieninleike

With Oktoberfest celebrations all around, we have really been in the mood to eat German food.  Both of my older kids are studying German in school, and enjoy all of the food-based celebrations.  In Finland, schnitzel or weininleike has been a popular lunch dish at restaraunts, usually served with lemon slices and capers and mashed potatoes or french fries on the side.  My husband has really been missing this dish, he ordered it at a German restaurant the other night, the most expensive dish on the menu!  Of course, the German restaurant served veal schnitzel, but in Finland it is most usually made with pork.  I prefer pork for many reasons.  

I started with a whole pork loin that I bought at Sam's club for about $16.  I usually buy the smaller ones, they come from smaller animals and are generally more tender.  I cut the loin in four big pieces and refroze each piece individually--each piece is enough for one meal for our family of big eaters plus plenty of leftovers.

To make the loin into pork chops, I thawed it until it was still slushy and frozen in the middle, partially frozen meat is much firmer and easier to cut up.  I used a very sharp serrated knife to cut the thin pork chops.  I cut them fairly thin so the schnitzels wouldn't be too big when they were pounded out.  

The serrated knife I used is really a bread knife, but I think it cuts partially frozen meat much better than my other knives, the teeth really dig in.  After the chops were cut, I laid them on a metal cookie sheet to quickly finish thawing (about 5-10 minutes).  Everything thaws quicker if you lay it on metal--the metal conducts heat away from the food.

Next, to pound out the chops, I've been using my heavy rolling pin, but today I used my new meat mallet that I bought just for this (my family has been wanting schnitzel every night lately!).  The rolling pin works fine, but it is sometimes hard to get the chop as even with it.  Cover the chop with plastic wrap before pounding it out, otherwise the kitchen will be splattered!  After pounding out the chops, I salted them a little and put them in the refrigerator until closer to dinner time.

About 45 minutes before dinnertime, I prepared the coating.  On the first plate, I put 1.5 cups of flour (3.5 dl) and seasoned it with salt and pepper.  In the bowl, I mixed 3 eggs and 1/4 cup of milk (0.5 dl).  On the last plate, I put about 2.5 cups of bread crumbs (6 dl).  I make my own bread crumbs from all the odds and ends that the kids don't eat--I keep a bag of bread bits in the freezer and when I have enough I run it through the food processor.  You could also use any dry bread crumbs--panko Japanese bread crumbs would be delicious.  I based this recipe on one by Tyler Florence, you can find it here.  Lightly season the bread crumbs with salt and pepper, too.



Coat the chops completely in flour, then carefully shake off the excess.  Dip the chop in egg and coat it liberally in bread crumbs.  At this point, I laid them in individual layers on cookie sheets.  Letting them rest for 10 minutes is supposed to help the coating stick better.

After 10 minutes, I heated olive oil and a little butter in a cast iron frying pan.  Cast iron is great to cook in because it holds heat so well and heats so evenly.  I put in a few sprigs of thyme and was really careful not to overheat the butter.  Burnt butter is not a good flavor!

At this time, I preheated the oven to 400 Fahrenheit (200 Celsius).

I took out the thyme and put in the schnitzel two at a time.  I barely browned them on each side and then put them back on the cookie sheets.  I had to add olive oil and butter to the pan as I added more schnitzel.  When all of them were browned, I put the cookie sheets in the oven for about 20 minutes to finish cooking.  That way all my schnitzel were done at exactly the same time.  You could also cook them completely in the skillet, but for a big family, it is so much easier to use the oven.

I used the drippings from the skillet and the left-over flour to make a pan gravy.  First, I browned the flour in the pan, then added milk, stirring rapidly.  I added a little Knorr beef bouillon and pinch of brown sugar.  The gravy was delicious on mashed potatoes, but I also baked a few french fries for my husband...

Don't forget to give everyone a slice of lemon to squeeze over the schnitzel.  And a few capers make this dish authentically Finnish.  I've made the pork version twice, and last night I made it with boneless, skinless chicken thighs.  

My husband said it was just like in Finland.  The kids just wanted to know if they could have it again tomorrow...and the teenager even smiled.  No better compliment than that!

Blinis with sour cream, caviar and smoked salmon--blinit

We are back from a very nice spring break, I haven't cooked a thing in over a week!  Actually, cooking and baking are never a chore for me, I find it really relaxing, almost meditative.  I've been wanting to make these blinis for several weeks now, they are often eaten on Fat Tuesday in Finland (also called Shrove Tuesday), according to The Finnish Cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas.  There is another kind of small pancake more commonly eaten in Western Finland, but I'll be making those later.  Blinnis are originally a Russian dish.  (The internet seems divided on whether to spell it blini or blinni, so excuse me while I alternate the spelling in this post, just to keep the search engines happy!)

The reason I am now able to make these pancakes is that I found a wonderful antique cast iron griddle at Aid's Antique Mall over spring break.  It has the indentations to make Scandinavian pancakes, I brought a non-stick pan back from Finland a couple of years ago, but it is so light-weight that I never use it.  This cast iron pan is worth the extra expense, it is very heavy and cooks beautifully.

Here is the ingredient list that I used, I made a few changes to the one in the recipe book:

one package dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

2 cups lukewarm milk (4 3/4 dl)

3 cups sifted flour (7 dl)

2 tablespoons sugar

3 eggs, separated

6 tablespoons melted butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

Blinnis are made with a yeast dough, so the first thing I did was warm two cups of milk in the microwave.  Make sure and stir the milk before putting the yeast in it, and don't let it get more than lukewarm or it will kill the yeast and the dough won't rise.  If you don't warm the milk, the dough will take a really long time to rise.  In my microwave it took two minutes, but microwaves vary a lot.

Stir the yeast and sugar into the warm milk.

Sift the flour before measuring it, otherwise the amounts will be wrong.  My sifter broke a long time ago, but I use a mesh strainer over a bowl and just shake it a bit, it works great!

Add one cup (2 1/3 dl) of the flour to the warm milk and mix it well.  The flour didn't dissolve well when I stirred it with a spoon, so I used a whisk.  At this point, cover the batter and put it in a warm spot to rise for about half an hour or until it doubles in volume.

After the batter rises, separate the eggs, yolks from whites.  Break up the yolks with a fork or whisk, and stir them into the batter.  

Add the rest of the flour (2 cups or 4.75 dl) and stir well.  Once again, I used the whisk to eliminate any lumps.  Add the salt and melted butter, mixing well.

Beat the egg whites until they are stiff.

Fold the egg whites gently into the batter, using a spatula to scrape down the sides.  Do not over mix at this point.  

Cover the dough again and let it rise in a warm place for another half hour.

After the dough has risen to about double, it is time to cook the blinis.  I put a little butter in each indentation before putting in about 2 tablespoons of batter.  If you don't have a pan like this, you could make them free form on any griddle but they may not be as perfectly round.  You could place a greased round cookie cutter on the griddle to shape the dough.  

The dough bubbled up nicely when it was time to flip the blinis.  I found that the new pan was so heavy and conducted heat so well that I could turn the heat off to cook the pancakes once it heated up.  I really miss having a gas stove where I could regulate the heat better!

We really enjoyed eating these savory little pancakes!  We put a dollop of sour cream and some lumpfish roe (from Ikea) on them.  The kids liked putting cold smoked salmon on theirs, and we added a few capers.  I doubt capers are very traditional, but the salty taste was really good.  

I made an extra batch of the dough because I was afraid we wouldn't have enough for my hungry teenagers, but one batch was almost enough.  If you want to see what I did with the extra batter, check out the post here.

Pytt i Panna--Pyttipannu--Hash Swedish Style

Tonight my husband requested one of his favorite dishes for dinner, pytt i panna.  This is a Swedish style hash, with all of the ingredients cut in similar size pieces, and fried separately.

Leftover small cubes of roasted or boiled beef is a main ingredient, lamb or pork could be substituted, but I didn't have any.  Fortunately, I had a chuck roast in the freezer, but it was frozen solid.  I covered it and put it on to boil in water seasoned with salt and pepper, then cut it in smaller pieces after it thawed.  After about an hour, it was ready to cut into small cubes.

I made a double recipe, so I used about 2 pounds of beef, along with 12 potatoes.  After washing the potatoes, I peeled them and cut them into small cubes.  To keep the potatoes from turning brown while waiting to be fried, I soaked them in cold water.

Next, I diced three fairly small onions.  Note that I tried to make all the ingredients into approximately the same size cubes.  I also cut up about a pound of ham.  All we had was thin-sliced ham, so it was not possible to get this to the same size.

I heated a couple of tablespoons of oil and a couple of tablespoons of butter at 350 degrees Fahrenheit on my griddle.  I decided to use a griddle instead of a frying pan because of the double recipe.  Since the griddle is nonstick, it didn't take much oil or butter, if your pan is not nonstick, you should use more and drain the cooked potatoes on paper towels after cooking.  First, I cooked the potatoes which took about 20 minutes to brown and cook through.  I salted the potatoes during cooking.

Next, I put the potatoes to the side and cooked the onions in a little more butter.  I salted the onions a little, also.  Be careful not to brown or burn the onions.

Leaving the onions on the griddle, I added the beef and ham, and cooked this for about ten minutes, stirring most of the time.

Then I added the potatoes back in, and the dish was ready.  Often, it is served with a fried egg, or a raw egg yolk.  I wouldn't feed the kids a raw egg yolk unless it were from a pasteurized egg.  This had enough meat in it that we didn't miss the egg.  You could also put a little parsley on it, we didn't have any fresh, so I omitted it.

We served it with mustard, ketchup, and marinated cucumbers.  It was delicious!

Cabbage rolls--Kaalikääryleet

One of my husband's favorite Finnish dishes is cabbage rolls.  These are like a sweeter version of meatballs, wrapped in a cabbage leaf, which should be slightly charred on top.

I had intended to make the cabbage rolls earlier in the week, but we are still very busy with the remodeling project, we are getting a little tired of using the beautiful new sauna in the middle of an unfinished bathroom!    The project expanded a bit, we are converting a useless small hallway into a dressing area and refinishing the closet which we took half of to put in the sauna.  The walls are all back up and covered in drywall.  Now to mud the seams and tile the floor in all three areas.   But first, let me tell you about the cabbage rolls.

First, I put on a large pot of salted water to boil and took a large head of cabbage and cut out the core.  After boiling the cabbage for a few minutes, the leaves start to come off.

Keep carefully removing leaves as they loosen up, and remove them from the water when they are soft.  My pot was a little small, so I kept turning the cabbage over.

This is what the leaves looked like when they were removed from the water:

Meanwhile, I boiled a package of barley for about 45 minutes.  This recipe only uses 1 1/2 cups (measured after cooking), but we used the rest to make barley porridge.

I used the food processor to make 1/2 cup of fresh breadcrumbs, I always keep a bag of spare pieces of bread in the freezer to make breadcrumbs with.   I added 1/2 cup of whole milk, a teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of allspice, and a pound  of ground beef.  I let this process for a couple of minutes.

Then I put the meat mixture in a bowl and added the 1 1/2 cups of cooked barley (you could also use cooked rice if you prefer).

To fill the cabbage leaves, put in a couple of tablespoons of the meat mixture, then fold the top and bottom down just a bit and roll from the side.  The same process as rolling a burrito.  Note that I have the stem going around the roll, it seemed to work better that way.

The rolls went into a heavy glass casserole which I had sprayed with cooking spray (you could also butter it).  Next I mixed a half cup of brown sugar with a couple of tablespoons of milk, and drizzled this over the top.  I used a spoon to spread it over each roll.  Then I covered the dish and baked them for 20 minutes at 400 Fahrenheit (200 Celsius).  Then I poured in enough boiling water to almost cover the rolls, removed the cover, and reduced the heat to 350 Fahrenheit and let it bake for one hour.

The rolls developed a charred layer on top, according to my husband, this is the best part.  

We ate the rolls with mashed potatoes and lingonberries from Ikea.  Or maybe I should say that most of us did.  The youngest said that "I don't like trying new things when I'm sick."  Even telling him that the filling was just like meatballs didn't get him to try them.  My husband proclaimed them a success, and I think I will just leave it at that.

Shrimp scrambled eggs--katkarapumunakas

Tonight we were a little busy, still working on the bathroom remodel/sauna addition.  I had planned to make cabbage rolls, but just didn't have time.  Instead, I looked online for a Finnish recipe which had the ingredients that were already in the refrigerator.  I found shrimp scrambled eggs from Kotivinkki.  I followed the directions fairly closely, but substituted white onions for red ones.  I also increased the amounts by half, we have five to feed, including a teenager who is usually very hungry.

First, I chopped a large onion and two roma tomatoes.  Then I broke a dozen eggs into a large mixing bowl and added 1/4 cup of water, as in the original recipe.  Next time I will use milk instead, as I usually do.  We think scrambled eggs taste much richer with milk.

Then I soaked the precooked, frozen shrimp in water to thaw.  This just takes a few minutes, especially if you change the water often.  After they were thawed, I drained them and put them on a clean towel to dry thoroughly. 

I used a nonstick pan and a couple of tablespoons of canola oil to sauté the onions over medium heat until they were translucent.  Stir constantly and don't let them burn!  The pan I used has an eco-friendly, non-toxic nonstick, it works pretty well, but has started to show its age on the bottom.  It is from a set I found at Target a couple of years ago.  


After the onions started to get translucent, I added the tomatoes and continued cooking and stirring for a couple of minutes.  Then I added the eggs and continued to cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggs were just barely set.   Then I added the very well drained shrimp.  Salt, pepper and snipped fresh dill completed the dish.  Snipping herbs is so easy if you use kitchen shears (scissors).  

If we were in Finland, or if I had baked this week, we would be eating rye bread with butter with this dish.  Tonight we had to make do with bagels and salmon-flavored Philadelphia cream cheese, not Finnish at all, except that everyone who has visited us from Finland has liked them.  

My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the dish.  The kids, not so much...the comments were (in descending age order):  

Kids' questions:

1.  Are there tomatoes in that?  

2.  I'm not really in the mood for eggs.  

3.  Why do the shrimp look like that?

My answers:

1.  Just a little.
2.  Put more salt on it.
3.  Because they are shrimp.

Anyway, not the kind of table banter that I was hoping for, but all kids have their days where they just aren't in the mood to eat something.  Next time I make it, I'm putting milk instead of water, a little more salt, and maybe adding something salty like Parmesan cheese or capers.

My husband was very happy this week to find Christmas soda at World Market.  Tastes kind of like very sweet Coke, if you added apple cider spice. He is enjoying it with some Italian nougat, which I also don't care for. I am waiting for his sugar headache which will be coming any time now.

As an update, we still have some mead left (kotikalja), look at how carbonated it has gotten, the bottom of the jug is rounded! The last time I opened a bottle of mead that was this carbonated, I had to clean the ceiling and walls afterward.  

Have fun cooking and keep checking back, I have to make the cabbage rolls very soon.

Baked Salmon with cream--Lohi uunissa

 My family loves salmon, and we were lucky enough to find this large Norwegian salmon fillet.  I didn't really use a recipe this time, but I checked a lot of Finnish websites about baking salmon.  First, I used a little non-stick cooking spray, you could also butter the dish, and preheated the oven to 400 Fahreneheit (200 C).  I put the fillet in the pan, this one was skinless, but it should be skin side down if there is skin.  Then I squeezed the juice of one lime on it, I would have used lemon if I had had one.

Sliced onions are delicious on the top, but can be left out if you don't like them.  I had an open bag of baby carrots, so I put them on the side, they didn't get completely soft, but that is how my family likes them.  You could pre-boil the carrots if you want them softer.  Next, I sprinkled it liberally with salt and ground pepper, then poured in about a quarter-cup of cream, more would have probably been even better, but we were trying to keep the dish healthy.

Fresh dill sprigs topped off the salmon, then into the oven to bake for about 20-25 minutes, be careful not to overcook or the fish will be dry!  We ate it with boiled potatoes and a leaf lettuce salad.  It was excellent!

Cabbage casserole brings back memories of school lunches--kaalilaatikko

Today I made a casserole that was a favorite school lunch in Finland for my husband.  It tastes a lot like cabbage rolls, but is much easier to make, perfect for a busy day like today.

First, I shredded a head of cabbage and boiled it for five minutes, then drained it and added two tablespoons of brown sugar.  My recipe called for two tablespoons of butter, but my arteries are still recovering from all the rich Christmas food, so I only put a half tablespoon.  Then I was to add 1/4 teaspoon of marjoram, but didn't have any...oregano was a close substitute, but I added less because it has a stronger flavor.  A dash of salt, and the cabbage layer was ready.  

Meanwhile, I mixed a little over a pound of hamburger with a cup of cracker crumbs.  The recipe called for bread crumbs, but once again I had to substitute with what I had on hand.  Two eggs and a 1/2 cup of milk made this mixture ready for layering with the cabbage.  I'm not sure I should post a photo of raw meat, but in case you  are interested:

Next, I sprayed a casserole pan with cooking spray (you could butter it if you would rather).  Then, starting and ending with the cabbage mixture, I layered in the ingredients.  Cabbage, meat, cabbage, meat, cabbage, and then the casserole went into a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about an hour.  

 Next time, I would make sure that no bits of cabbage were sticking up on the top of the dish, these got a little overdone.  To go with the casserole, we had Lingonberry preserves from Ikea and some beautiful blue potatoes.  I love these blue potatoes, they look so dramatic and have a great flavor.  Today I boiled them, but they are best drizzled with olive oil and salt and roasted in the oven.

Everyone really enjoyed the food, except for the six-year old, who may possibly still have a stash of Christmas candy somewhere....