Potato flat bread--peruna rieska

We needed some fresh bread to go with the hot dog soup yesterday, so I made potato flat bread.  This is a great bread to make if you have leftover mashed potatoes, like we did.

I used: 

2 cups mashed potatoes (5 dl)

4 Tablespoons butter, melted (about 50 g)

1 1/4 cups of flour (3 dl)

1/4 cup of rye flakes

No trick to making these, I just mixed everything well in a bowl.  For variation, you could substitute whole wheat flour.  You could also trade out the rye flakes for other grains such as oatmeal or cracked wheat, or just omit them and add a little extra flour.

The dough was very sticky, but I sprinkled it with extra flour and used about 1/3 of the dough to make a thin round on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

I used a fork to make a criss-cross design on the bread, and baked it at 450 F (250 C) for about 20 minutes, on the bottom rack of the oven.

Cut in wedges and enjoy it while it is warm!  

Grated Potato Casserole--Riivinkropsu

Tonight I had no idea what to make for dinner, so I opened up The Finnish Cookbook and started looking for recipes using the ingredients that I had available.  This casserole jumped out at me, it is basically shredded potatoes in a batter which contains the same ingredients as a baked oven pancake.  I don't remember ever eating this before, but the book says that it is a traditional dish in Satakunta in Western Finland.  Anyway, no strange ingredients in this one, just a simple casserole.

I started by grating six peeled potatoes.  This photo also shows some rutabagas in the background--I can't decide whether to eat them or wait for spring and plant them, they are sprouting so well!

Next, I beat six eggs in a bowl, then beat in three cups of milk, half a cup of flour and two teaspoons of salt.  This only took a few minutes, but notice the color change of my potatoes in the background--next time I'll soak them in cold water then pat them dry before using them in the casserole, or maybe I'll just use frozen shredded potatoes!  I stirred the potatoes into the egg/milk mixture.

I used a large casserole dish (4 quart).  I put about three tablespoons of butter in the dish and put it in the oven as it preheated to 375 F.  Once the butter melted, I made sure to cover the pan well with it, then poured in the potatoes and baked in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes.  So simple!

This made a huge casserole, but it was so good that the kids really dug in and ate most of it.  My husband didn't remember ever eating it, either, but I will definitely be making this again.  It has become a new family favorite.

Jansson's temptation--Janssonin kiusaus--Janssons Frestelse

For supper we made Jansson's temptation, a delectable potato casserole with lots of onion and anchovies.  My daughter, who loves pickled herring, gravlax, cold-smoked salmon, sushi, etc., was a little worried about eating anchovies.  She said that her friends told her they were disgusting.  She loved this dish, just goes to show that any ingredient can be delicious if prepared correctly!

I used a recipe out of an old Time/Life book, but changed some ingredients to fit what I had in stock.  The original recipe is:

7 medium boiling potatoes, peeled and cut into strips 2 inches long and 1/4 inch thick

2 1/2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 to 3 large yellow onions thinly sliced (4 cups)

16 flat anchovy fillets, drained

white pepper

2 tablespoons fine dry bread crumbs

2 tablespoons butter, cut into bits

1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup milk

I started by slicing onions, I used an old mandolin to slice them quickly and very thin.  I have a much newer mandolin that isn't stained up, and was much more expensive, but this old one that was "as seen on TV" and purchased at an outlet mall some 15 years ago is the one I prefer.  I used red onions because that is what I had.  They lost most of their color when I sauteed them, anyway, I don't think it was an important difference.

I also peeled about 8 yukon gold potatoes, I prepared the dish rather quickly, otherwise you would want to soak them in cold water so they don't turn brown.

I sauteed the onions in an old cast iron pan in two tablespoons oil and two tablespoons butter and a dash of salt.

I have given up on all of my nonstick pans.  The old nonstick pans have a toxic coating, and my newer "green" ones are barely nonstick at all.  I have a full set of cast iron pans that belonged to my paternal grandmother, and if you treat them correctly, they cook so much better than the new pans.  I originally was afraid to cook on the glass cooktop with these pans, but I have been careful and haven't caused any damage (yet).  Cast iron cookware is not for procrastinators, though, it is important to clean them right away, without using any dishwashing detergent.  Also, put them back on the hot burner to dry thoroughly before putting them away, or they will rust.  The turner that I am using here actually was a brownie server that belonged to my maternal grandma...it works great to scrape the bottom of the pan!

After preheating the oven to 400 F, I used my mandolin to slice the potatoes directly in the buttered baking dish.  (If you cut up the potatoes earlier and soaked them in water, dry them before putting them in the dish)  This is what the first layer looked like:

Next, I layered on 1/3 of the onions and some sardine slices:

After sprinkling this with white pepper and just a little salt (remember that the anchovies add quite a bit of salt to the dish), I repeated the layers two times, then ended with a layer of potatoes.  White pepper is a little spicy, but we enjoy its flavor.  I didn't have bread crumbs, and was in a hurry, so I crumbled up some saltine crackers and dotted the top with butter:

I checked the carton of cream in the refrigerator and it was spoiled!  Not to panic, I put about 3/4 cup of powdered milk in a measuring cup and added skim milk to equal 1 1/2 cups.  I've used this substitute lots of times, it adds calcium to the dish and greatly reduces the fat content.  I heated the milk in the microwave for a couple of minutes, then poured it over the casserole and baked it for about 45 minutes.

The topping got a little overdone, I think my oven temperature might be a little higher than the thermostat reads.  Next time, I will probably cover it for half of the cooking time.

Even with all of the substitutions, the dish turned out really good.  This was a hearty, warm supper that was perfect for a traditional sauna evening.  A fun way to teach the kids about their heritage!

Traditional Finnish Christmas Ham Feast with potato casserole.

For Christmas Dinner, we had a delicious ham, I cooked a shank ham for a couple of hours in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven (to an internal temperature of 175 degrees, then poured off the drippings and coated it with brown mustard and sprinkled on some dry bread crumbs.  Back into the oven for a few minutes, it developed a delicious crust.  A half-cup of the drippings went into a sauce pan with a half-cup of cooked and pureed prunes and a half-cup of water.  After this cooked a few minutes, I added a half-cup of cream which was mixed with a tablespoon of corn starch.  The gravy was excellent on the ham, this was probably the best ham we have ever had.  We were a little reluctant to make the gravy, it sounded a little odd, but we will be eating this every time we have ham from now on!

I also made an extremely traditional Finnish potato casserole.  The day before, I cooked and mashed 6 large baking potatoes, making a very dry potato mash.  To this, I added 3 Tablespoons of flour, then I put the dish in my warming drawer overnight.  It is very important to keep the potatoes at about 125 degrees Fahrenheit for an extended time, the starch breaks down due to a reaction with the flour, and the dish becomes naturally sweet.  (If for some reason you can't do this, you could add a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar).  After the potatoes have sweetened, I added 2 1/2 cups of whole milk and a quarter stick of melted butter before placing them in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven to cook for 2-3 hours until they develop a crust.

We also enjoyed our rutabaga casserole and carrot casserole which I got out of the freezer from previous posts.  Beet salad rounded out our meal.  We had a condiment and cracker tray, but unfortunately by the time I took this picture, the 2 pounds of pickled herring had all but disappeared!  There still still some winter squash salad, though.

Later in the day we had strawberry fluff, it should have been with lingonberries, but since I didn't have any, we took a vote and strawberries beat cranberries 3-2.  I pureed a package of frozen, sweetened strawberries, then folded in a pint of sour cream.  At serving time, I folded in a couple cups of whipped cream.  We ate this with more prune tarts.

Santa was very good and brought us some delicious Finnish licorice.  The World Market store near us got a big shipment in this year.  Salmiak is a kind of licorice that we don't often find in the U.S., it is very salty and has a strong flavor.  We really enjoyed finding this treat under the tree.

Merry Christmas to everyone, hope you all had as delicious of a holiday as we did!

Squeaky cheese, cloudberries, leftovers reinvented, and sausages!

Since the kids have been out of school for winter break, I've had less time to cook, so we are using some Finnish "fast food."  For a snack yesterday, we had a very delicious Finnish cheese, leipäjuusto.  Direct translation, it is "bread cheese" but Trader Joe's calls it "Frying cheese."  The Finnish/American community calls it "squeaky cheese."  Food.com has a recipe for it here--I haven't tried to make it myself before, I'm not sure where to buy rennet.  Someday when I am no longer able to just buy it at the store, I will probably try to make it myself.  My husband likes to put Cloudberry Jam on it, that is typically Finnish.  Cloudberries are one of the only Finnish foods I do not care for, they look like yellow raspberries, but have an odd flavor, and are quite a delicacy in Finland.  This jar of jam was purchased at Ikea.


For dinner, I decided to use up some mashed potato leftovers and meat in mushroom and cream sauce.  My family does not like leftovers if they can recognize them, so I had to get creative.  (My six year old would like to point out that he actually likes leftovers!)  In the Finnish Cookbook, Beatrice Ojakangas lists a Lapp recipe for stuffed potato patties.  I used this as inspiration and ground up the meat and thick sauce in my food processor with some onion.  Then I put more chopped onion in the potatoes and added an egg and lots of breadcrumbs.  I stuffed the patties in my hand, patting out the potatoes, adding some meat filling, and wrapping the potatoes around the filling.  Then I baked them instead of frying them in butter, I figured our cholesterol levels could use a break, too.  They were delicious topped with the kurpitsasalaati (winter squash salad, you can find my recipe here) and a little Finnish mustard.  I caught a couple of my half-American children putting ketchup on them, but I guess that is to be expected.  By the way, my oldest, who is probably my pickiest eater when it comes to vegetables, is the one eating the winter squash salad on everything!  

Today we spent the entire day at a museum, looking at Christmas trees from around the world.  If you would like to see the gorgeous Finnish Christmas tree, visit my other blog, brushesandpaint.blogspot.com.

We got home late, and the kids were very excited to have a sauna evening in our newly built sauna, so what better to have for dinner than Finland's traditional vegetable...sausages!  These are the closest I have found to Finnish makkara in the U.S., and we have had to try lots to find them!  These are a little thinner and longer, but the flavor and texture is very similar.  They were delicious with Finnish mustard.  The kids really enjoyed learning about this part of their heritage.