Finnish hamburger pies--lihapiirakka

These little pastries filled with meat, onions and rice are incredible.  They are not quite like the pasties served in Michigan's upper peninsula where a lot of Finns settled (those actually are an American Finnish dish, I am planning a post on those very soon), but if you like those, you should give these a try.  These are served all over Finland in cafes or outdoor fast food eateries called kiosks.

Beatrice Ojakangas calls these "Hot Meat Tarts" or "Kuumat Piiraset"  in The Finnish Cookbook.

I'll start with the yeast pastry dough recipe:

1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

1 1/4 cup lukewarm milk (3 dl)

1 teaspoon salt

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup sugar (1 dl plus 1.25 tablespoons)

4+ cups of white flour (10+ dl)

1/2 cup melted butter (113.4 grams)

First, I dissolved the yeast in the warm milk.  I microwaved the milk for about a minute and a half, then stirred it well to get the right temperature.  Microwave times vary a lot, so be careful, if the milk is too hot, it will kill the yeast and the dough won't rise.  Then I added the salt, egg and sugar and stirred it well.

I used my stand mixer with a dough hook to beat in the flour, one cup at a time for the first three cups.  This is what it looked like after three cups of flour were added (I also used a spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl):

Then I added more flour 1/2 cup at a time, here it is after 4 cups:

The dough should be very stiff, 4 1/2 cups of flour seemed to be the right amount this time, but this will vary depending on weather conditions, etc.  Here is what it looked like:

I sprinkled flour over the dough in order to be able to pull it out without getting my hands sticky.  Then I shaped it into a ball and put it in a lightly oiled non-metallic bowl to rise.  Never leave dough in a metal bowl to rise--it just doesn't work as well because the metal conducts heat too well.  I covered the dough and put it in a warm place for about an hour.

After an hour, it had doubled in size.  I punched it down and let it rise for another half an hour while I prepared the filling.

The meat filling ingredients are:

2 pounds ground lean beef (about a kilo)
1 cup finely chopped onion (5 dl) (I used dehydrated onion to make that amount)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley (1.25 dl)  (I used 8 teaspoons of dried parsley)
1 cup cooked rice

First, I put some rice in my rice cooker to cook.  Leftover rice would be great in this recipe.  I used Jasmine rice because that is what I had in the pantry, but plain rice would work as well.

Then I cooked the hamburger, stirring well so that it was in very small pieces.  You don't want to brown the meat, just cook it until it is no longer pink.  If you are using fresh onion, cook it along with the meat.  Since I used dehydrated, I added it at the end.  Dehydrated onion burns easily.  I salted and peppered the meat, then added the parsley.  By now the rice was finished, so stirred it in.

I rolled out half of the dough, it was really easy to roll compared to pie crust dough.  I cut rounds with a 3 inch cookie cutter, like any yeast dough, the circles shrink once they are cut.  Before filling them, brush a little water around the outside edge so they will seal well.  I used quite a bit of filling in each one, the dough is stretchy and easy to work with.

From the other dough, I cut squares as suggested in Beatrice Ojakangas' book.  I didn't like the way these looked after they were stuffed.  I think next time I will make larger circles by cutting with a knife around a coffee can lid.  My family all seemed to like the large ones better, and they were less work.

I've also seen some home cooks in Finland make this like a casserole with a layer of dough on the top and bottom of the filling.  I like the fact that each is an individual serving, though.

I let them sit for about an hour until everyone came home from school and work.  Beatrice recommends ten minutes to let them rise again, but it didn't seem to matter that I let them sit longer.

Preheat the oven to 400F (200C).  Brush the pastries with beaten egg before baking them.  Bake for 20 minutes.

These were delicious, we ate them with homemade pickles, tomatoes and mustard from Ikea.  They also went well with avocado slices, but that was not a very Finnish way to eat them!

The slightly sweet crust was perfect with the savory filling.  These would be great to pack in a lunch or to freeze and thaw individually for lunches.

Finnish buttermilk crepes/pancakes (lätty,lettu, lätyt in Finnish--plätt in Swedish--plett in Norwegian...)

These little crepes are very traditional little pancakes in Finland and the rest of Scandinavia.  I made these as a special treat yesterday when the kids came home from school.  I love my "new" antique cast iron pancake pan that I found over spring break, and I'm really enjoying cooking with it.  And everyone else is enjoying eating what I cook...

Sorry about the long title for this post--there is some confusion as to what these are called.  Some might even call them pannukakku in Finnish (pancake), but I agree with those that reserve the word panukakku for Finnish oven pancakes, like in this post.  By the way, you could substitute these crepes to eat on Thursday with the pea soup if you want!  ;D

I used the recipe from The Finnish Cookbook by Beatrice Ojakangas, her ingredient list is:

2 eggs
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk (2.5 dl)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup white flour (2.5 dl)
butter for frying

I doubled all the ingredients (and still didn't have quite enough once the teenagers started eating...)

Beat the eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl, then add the salt, buttermilk, melted butter and flour.

Beat this until smooth with a whisk.  Then the original recipe says to let it rest for at least an hour.  I let it rest about 15 minutes to let the bubbles settle and make sure all the flour was moistened.  The kids don't come home at the same time, and I fried them fresh for each one, so some batter sat for more than the suggested hour.  We really couldn't tell the difference between the first and the last ones.  I think 15 minutes is plenty of resting time, but this keeps well if you need to wait to cook them.  It should keep fine even overnight if covered and refrigerated.

To fry the crepes, I used this pan with indentations.  If you don't have a pan like this, you could make them in a small nonstick frying pan or other small skillet.

I started by putting butter in each indentation and letting it melt as the pan heated up.  Be careful, butter burns really easily!  As soon as the butter started to melt, I filled each indentation with batter.  When the cast iron pan got really hot and they started to steam, I immediately turned it off.  (If you are using a lighter-weight skillet, just turn it down to low, but a thick pan like this stays hot for a long time).

Crepes don't have any baking powder or baking soda in them, so they don't have little bubbles when it is time to flip them (like American pancakes would).  Instead, they kind of poof up in the middle from the trapped steam, and you can see in this photo that they are starting to get firm around the edges, these are ready to turn over:

The goal with these is to not let them get too brown.  These can be a bit more brown than traditional crepes, but be careful not to burn them.  I used this small old brownie server to turn them in the small indentations (it belonged to my grandmother), it worked perfectly.

We ate these with blueberry soup, you can find the recipe here.  Or you could serve them with jam and/or whipped cream.

They were so delicious, I need to go shopping now for more buttermilk before the kids get home!

Blueberry soup--blåbärssoppa--mustikkakeitto

This is a really easy and delicious way to eat berries, and a rather low-calorie and nutritious dessert, too.  In Finland, you can buy blueberry soup in any grocery store next to the milk products.  Other popular fruit soup flavors include raspberry, mixed forest berries, and strawberry.  Gooseberries or rhubarb are also really good in this soup.  The basic process is the same for any kind of fruit that you want to substitute with.

I used some really large blueberries that grow on the high bush plants in the Ozarks because I had these in my freezer.  In Finland, the berries would probably be the smaller, wild variety.  Both taste good in this recipe, it is hard to mess up this fruit soup!

Boil these ingredients for 10 minutes over medium heat:

2 cups water (5 dl)
2 cups blueberries (or substitute other berries if you want!) (5dl)
3 tablespoons sugar

I used a medium-sized saucepan and added the blueberries right away because they were frozen, but didn't start counting the time until they came to a boil.  If you use fresh berries, it is probably better to let the water boil first, then stir in the other ingredients.

To thicken the soup, stir together in a small bowl:

3 tablespoons cornstarch or potato starch
3 tablespoons cold water

I used potato starch this time.  After you mix the thickener very well, take a tablespoon-full of the hot soup and mix it into the cold thickener.  This tempers the mixture and makes it less likely to clump.

Now pour the tempered thickener into the hot soup, stirring constantly until the soup thickens.  This is the same process used to thicken broth for lump-free gravies.

If you find that the soup is a little too thick, you can always stir in a little more water.  Fruit soups continue to thicken as they cool.

We love to eat fruit soup with a little whipped cream, but yesterday I made this as a special after-school treat with small Finnish pancakes that are a lot like mini crepes.  That recipe will be my next post.

Other ideas for Blini dough--overnight waffles and sweet pancake toppings

We had an extra batch of blini dough from this recipe, so we decided to put jam on some of them, along with a small dollop of sour cream.  They were delicious as a small, sweet pancake.

I decided that the blinni batter was a lot like a recipe that I have for overnight waffles, so I put the extra dough in the refrigerator, tightly covered, for the night.  Note that you can only do this with a yeast batter.  If the batter contained baking powder it would be flat the next day.

The next morning it was nice and bubbly, and the kids were delighted to have fresh waffles for breakfast on a school day!  Here is what the batter looked like after a night in the refrigerator:

I preheated the waffle iron and spread batter thinly and evenly in it before closing the lid.  It was so easy.  I think next time we make blinis, I might make extra batter again just for breakfast!

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.

Missouri Ozarks Cashew Chicken

Last night I was discussing food from the Missouri Ozarks with some friends on Facebook.  Anthony Bourdain has a show where he visited my home town of West Plains, Missouri (airing next Monday on the Travel channel).  You can find the link to details about the show here.  His show is known for trying really exotic food, in West Plains he skins his own squirrel for squirrel pot pie.  What he really should have been showing is one of the best foods to come out of the Ozarks, cashew chicken.  A lot of my friends asked for the recipe, so even though it has nothing to do with Finland, here it is...

This chicken also has nothing to do with China or Chinese food, except that evidently a Chinese restaurant in the area invented it a long time ago.  You can't get this dish anywhere else in the U.S., as far as I know.  They have cashew chicken on some Chinese restaurant menus here in the north, but it is a very different dish, with unbreaded chicken, hot peppers, and cashews cooked in the sauce.  My Mom has been making this at home since I was a kid, so I called her and got the exact recipe.

Here are the ingredients that I used to make more than enough for the five of us:

3 pounds boneless, skinless chicken (1.3 kg)

3 eggs 

3/4 cup milk (1.75 dl)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

flour to coat the chicken twice

frying oil, the recipe called for peanut oil, but I used canola oil

For the sauce:

3 cups of water (7 dl)

3 chicken boullion cubes (if you use the Knorr cubes like I did, they make 2 cups each, so only use 1.5)

6 tablespoons cornstarch

6 teaspoons sugar

3 tablespoons oyster sauce (or substitute soy sauce)

To serve:

Cashews, green onions and rice.

I started by cleaning and cutting up some green onions:

I cooked rice in a rice cooker.  We ate it with plain rice tonight, I'll post my fried rice recipe another time.  (This post already has so many photos!)

The chicken breasts I used were frozen.  They cut up really well while they are still partially frozen.  I laid the chunks on a jelly roll pan to thaw more.  Meat thaws quicker if you lay it on something metal.  Don't make the chicken chunks too big, they get a lot bigger when you bread them.

To make the sauce, boil half of the water (1 1/2 cups) with the boullion.

Stir the cornstarch, oyster sauce, and sugar into the other half of the water.  Make sure to mix it well.

Pour the mixture into the boiling water, stirring constantly so it stays smooth.  Continue stirring and cooking until it boils again.

When it comes back to a boil, the sauce will become more transparent and thicker.

While I was making the sauce, I put flour on the cubed chicken.  I didn't measure exactly, but it was probably about a cup of flour.  Just coat them really well.  Let the chicken sit for 15 minutes at this point.  The jelly roll pan was a great container to do this in.

Break the three eggs in a large mixing bowl.  Stir them well, then stir in the milk, salt, and pepper.  Did you ever notice how hard it is to break up egg yolks if you don't break them before you add the other liquid?

While the chicken is in the egg mixture, put a cup or more of flour on the jelly roll pan that you had them on before.  Dip the wet chicken nuggets back in this flour before frying them.

Heat the oil in a heavy pan.  Test the temperature by dropping a bit of the breading in the oil, when it bubbles and floats the oil is ready for the chicken.  If you put the chicken in before the oil is hot, it will get too greasy.

I used my Grandma's old cast iron skillet.  You need quite a bit of oil, a deep fryer would also work great.  I used canola oil, but the recipe specified peanut oil.  Peanut oil would have been good to use, it has a higher smoking point, but I didn't have any.  Don't overcrowd the pieces in the pan.  It takes a while to fry all the chicken...

I have a very unscientific method of testing the chicken for doneness...I pull out the biggest piece and cut it in half.  If it is done, then they will all be done.  I like to use chopsticks to turn and remove fried food, but tongs or even a fork would work.  Drain the chicken on a plate covered with paper towels.

Serve the chicken immediately.  We like to assemble the dish on our plates, rice, then chicken.  Pour the sauce over the top and sprinkle with green onions and cashew pieces.  There is something about the combination of cashews and green onions that is irresistible!

One last warning, it is very easy to eat too much of this dish!

Lihakeitto--Finnish Beef Soup

For dinner tonight, I made lihakeitto, which literally translates as "meat soup."  Not a very appetizing name for such a delicious dish.  It was so cold and rainy today, and this was so warm and nourishing, the kids loved it.  This is a really typical Finnish food, delicious and filling.

First, I chopped up the leftover meat from last night's roast, I believe there was about a pound left (.4 kilos).  I chopped up about an equal amount of potatoes, in this case about 5 medium.  The carrots are from a bag of "baby carrots."  I tried to get all of the ingredients into about the same size pieces so that they would cook in about the same amount of time.  That is always a good idea with soup ingredients.

If I hadn't had leftover cooked meat, I would have chopped up pieces of a fresh roast and browned them in the stew pot before adding the other ingredients.

Next, I chopped up a rutabaga and added it to the pot with the other ingredients.  Note that I'm still trying to keep the pieces the same size as the potatoes and carrots.

I used three leeks in the soup.  You could use less if you want, or substitute with one onion.  If you use leeks like I did, make sure and wash them really, really well.  Leeks are always full of sand and grit, and the dirt is inside the green tops.  I like to slice the leeks up first before washing them and straining them at least twice.  If you slice them before washing, all the grit falls out.  It is really frustrating to try to wash them when they are whole.

I added 12 whole allspice to the soup.  This gives a really wonderful flavor.  Some recipes also use a bay leaf, but I didn't today.  I added about 8 cups of water and 2 tablespoons of salt to the pot.

Here is what the soup looked like before it started cooking.  I brought the soup to a boil on high heat, then reduced it to low to simmer.

This is what it looked like after one hour of simmering on low heat (I had the lid tilted on the pot so it wouldn't overflow).

After two hours of simmering, here is the finished soup.  I added one Knorr beef bouillon cube to make the broth just a little richer.

It was so good!  We enjoyed it with crispbread and Kalle's caviar from Ikea.  Well, at least we grownups enjoyed the Kalle's caviar paste, it seems our kids have not learned to appreciate pastes made of salty fish eggs yet...funny how it reminds my husband of his childhood, yet our kids won't eat it.