Red beets and yellow beets with seasoned rice vinegar

At the grocery, I found some yellow beets along with the usual red beets, and couldn't resist trying them.  This is not a Finnish dish at all, more of an experiment, but it was so delicious and simple that it really deserves its own blog page.

I boiled the beets without peeling them (separate colors in separate pots so they would keep their colors) for about half an hour.  Then I drained, peeled, and sliced them.  You have to be careful with the red beets, they turn anything they touch red.  I thought about just serving them as is, but we love putting seasoned rice vinegar on vegetables.  It is the same vinegar that is used on sushi rice, and it is wonderful.  My Mom even buys it by the case when she can.  It is a great salad topper, and a delicious wayPublish Post to make quick pickle salad from fresh cucumbers and onions.

It would be just as good with only red beets, but these were so colorful together.  I just sprinkled the vinegar on with a little salt and pepper, so simple and delicious!

Finnish Mushroom salad -- Sienisalaatti

Yesterday I made a really tasty mushroom salad, it is one of our favorite foods to buy at the grocery in Finland, but I had never made it myself.  In Finnish groceries, you can find two different kinds of mushroom salad:  herkkusienisalatti made of button mushrooms and metsäsienisalatti made from different mushrooms commonly found in the forest.  Both are delicious!  


I found a recipe in an old Time/Life book, Recipes:  the Cooking of Scandinavia and decided to modify it a bit.


Mushrooms grow everywhere in Finland, my husband's favorite type is chanterelle (kantarelli), but they are really hard to find here.  I found some dried ones in a jar at a local grocery which carries a lot of ethnic foods.  After soaking a few in warm water for a couple of hours, I cut them up and boiled them with some fresh button mushrooms.  This gave the salad a richer flavor.

First, I soaked the dried mushrooms for a couple of hours.

Then I chopped the chanterelles and about a pound of button mushrooms.  In a small pot, I added the soaking water plus enough extra water to cover the mushrooms.

After boiling for about 4 minutes, the mushrooms were ready to drain to use in the salad.  I saved the cooking water to use later for stock, it will be a great addition to soup.  Waste not want not!

To the mushrooms, I added about 1/4 cup of cream, three tablespoons of grated onion, about half a tablespoon of sugar, half a teaspoon of white pepper, and salt to taste.  It seemed like something was missing, so I also added a couple tablespoons of some French onion dip that I had in the refrigerator, but sour cream would also be good.  Some of the boughten mushroom salads seem to have mayonnaise instead of cream, I might try this later and report on the results.

The salad was delicious, everyone loved it except the youngest who refused to try it.  I'm not sure if it is traditionally Finnish, but my Finnish husband likes it best on ham sandwiches!  There are only a couple of spoonfuls left, but I am looking forward to finishing it off for lunch today!

Beet salad, Punajuurisalaatti, Rosolli

Today I'm busy making Christmas dishes, so I'll probably have at least a couple of posts.  This one is a beet salad that is a very classic Finnish dish.  My kids who tried it (the youngest refuses to eat pink food), said that it tastes like potato salad, and really liked it.  My husband ate several plates full and said that it is much better than what they sell already prepared in Finnish grocery stores.  

First, I boiled 5 carrots, 2 potatoes, and three very large beets.  The carrots were done quickly, and I took them out after just a few minutes.  Then I took out the potatoes and left the beets boiling until they were soft.  If the beets were peeled or cut, I wouldn't have boiled them all together, the beets would have turned all the other vegetables red!  While these were boiling, I finely diced one peeled onion and two tart (Granny Smith) apples. 

When the cooked vegetables were cool, I finely diced them, then stirred in a couple of tablespoons of sweet pickle relish.  I also added a little finely chopped pickled herring, but you could leave this out if you want.

Next, I made a dressing out of one pint of sour cream, the juice of one very small lime (it should have been a tablespoon of lemon juice, but I forgot to buy lemons), two tablespoons of sugar, a dash of white pepper and a dash of salt.  I stirred a few pieces of beets into the sour cream to make it pink, I think my sons would have liked it better white!  To serve, you can pour the dressing over the salad, but I let everyone put the dressing on their own serving this time.  It was delicious!

Winter squash salad, Kurpitsasalaatti

Our next cooking project is called winter squash salad, but may more accurately be described as a relish.  It reminds me of Japanese pickles, but not salty.

I looked at recipes from the Finnish Cookbook, and Helsingin Sanomat, among others.  All seem to agree that the spices include whole cloves, but some add whole nutmeg, whole chunks of ginger, and one even added cinnamon sticks.  I decided to use the whole cloves that I had in the cabinet, along with a chunk of candied ginger (there is already so much sugar in the recipe that it didn't matter that the ginger was candied.)

First we peeled and removed the seeds from a butternut squash. After dicing, the small squash yielded about 2.5 cups.

We put the squash cubes in a pot with 1 cup sugar, 1 cup white vinegar and 1 cup water.  (250 dl of each).  To this we added three cloves, a chunk of ginger (candied was all I had), and since I didn't have a piece of nutmeg, I sprinkled in a little ground nutmeg.

 This simmered for about half an hour, the squash shouldn't get too soft or it will fall apart.  The kids complained about the vinegar smell!  

When the squash was a little soft, I poured it into a container to keep and removed the whole spices.  This will go really well with meat and potato dishes, but we will save it for later in the refrigerator.  The kids tasted it, and approved.  My daughter said, "I really didn't think I would like it, but it is good."