Kalja

Kalja or kotikalja or vaarinkalja is a typical Finnish table beer you see in any canteen or formal feast. It's dark and often sweet but low in alcohol which is why the bizarre Finnish alcohol laws or strict attitude towards alcohol drinks don't apply to it. (I often hear people say we've got a liberal attitude towards alcohol. That's simply not true. Even a glass of wine is generally considered as getting pissed.) My mum always has some in the fridge. As a kid I used to drop sugar cubes in my glass just to see kalja foam.

I have a 1.5 litre jug where I wanted to make kalja but could only find recipes for big portions. So I compared a few of them and adapted a smallish version myself. It worked well so I'll post it for you too.

- 1.5 l water
- 1 dl rye malt
- 3/4 dl sugar
- 1/4 tsp yeast

Boil the water for about ten minutes and pour it on the malt and sugar. Let it cool down for couple of hours and then add the yeast crumb. Place in a warm place for a day. Filter the liquid and move it in a cool place. This is at its best after couple of days.

Like another Finnish beer sahti, kalja too would ideally be spiced with juniper berries. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any lately.

Sea Buckthorn Parfait ‒ Tyrnijäädyke

My mother-in-law and her husband came for a visit. We never have anything to offer with coffee so they've learned to bring their own buns. Thought this time I'd surprise them and moreover, my spouse.

The idea comes pretty much from Finfood's recipe. This was my first enocunter with agar so I had no idea how much I need it but this amount seemed to do well enough. Can't imagine any more elitist sounding dessert than sea buckthorn parfait (which is probably why I wanted to try this in the first place) yet it tasted absolutely decadent. This can also be done with black currant or any other sour berry juice. Both sea buckthorn and black currant contain an excessive amount of vitamin C by the way. Too bad it doesn't store.

1 small apple
2 dl sea buckthorn juice
1 dl water
1 dl sugar
2 dl whippable oat cream
2 tbsp agar-agar

Grate the apple and mix it with the juice. Mix the agar with the water and boil them for at least five minutes. Add the sugar and boil them another five minutes, enough to make it look like a pot full of pearls. Combine it with the juice as well. Put in the freezer for an hour and remember to stir occasionally. In the meanwhile whip the cream. Fuse it carefully with the rest. This time let the parfait freeze thoroughly. Half an hour before it's time to serve the parfait flip it over onto a plate as if you were taking ice cubes from a mold.

Didn't have any whole sea buckthorn berries (Although I soon will since my mother-in-law promised me some from their backyard.) so I quickly decorated the parfait with soy chocolate pudding where I added more cocoa (Some leftover cream with that cocoa would've probably done better.) and orange slices which I marinated in peppermint oil, sea buckthorn juice and brandy.

Nutritional values / 725 g:
energy 960 kcal
fat 43 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 137 g
fiber 4 g

Finncrisp Rolls ‒ Hapankorppurullat

Once again I read about algae and how I should eat more of it since it contains iodine and Finnish soil doesn't. (Iodine is added to table salt but I almost never use it.) For some reason only the Celts seem to have eaten algae in Europe. I'm not completely convinced that Finns living by waters could have scorned such a great nutrition source only cause it looks slimy but anyway, raised amongst modern customs I have no idea how to use seaweed. Last time I tried to make crippled sushi my spouse wouldn't come ten metres close to the kitchen. He said the doggone thing smells like fish. I tried to explain fish merely smell like seaweed cause they rub themselves against it all the time but it was no use.

Quite recently, I bought a cook book called Herne rokkaa (Jere Nieminen, Multikustannus) which has nothing but pea recipes. It's more of a picture book with migren launching graphics than a serious receipe book, but there are also some excellent ideas buried between the empty pages. It showed me peas can be used anywhere pretty much in the same way as soy or other beans.

One of them involved rolled finncrisps with a filling, just like the ones served at every birthday party when I was a kid. Nieminen called them ryeish pea sushi but I really wouldn't wanna mock Japanese cuisine which I truly respect. (Much like Finnish cuisine it values local high quality ingredients but also sour tastes. There are also many weird similarities between Japanese and Finnish cultures and languages.) Maybe that's why this filling I improvised involved seaweed. Or maybe it's there only cause I'm trying to foist it somewhere. Or perhaps it's meant to give taste. You decide.

- 20 small and narrow finncrisps (If you'll only find wide ones you can always halve them after rolling.)
- 1 bottle of beer (or broth or soy sauce)
- 200 g peas
- 1 sheet of algae (I used nori which has a very strong sea flavour but not as much iodine than most. Milder arame is a better choice for beginners.)
- 3 tbsp soy yoghurt
- 1 pickle
- 1 punch of fresh mint
- dried chili
- a cucumber piece twice the width of your finnstrips

Dip the finncrisps in beer and lay them down. Mash the peas, the seaweed, the yoghurt, the mint and the chili. Cut the pickle in really small cubes and mix them in the paste. Cut the cucumber piece in 20 strips.

By now your finncrisps should be soft and rollable. If not, find a pastry brush, brush more beer on them and wait another ten minutes. Spred a thin layer of the filling on the not-so-crisps. Place a cucumber strip on one end and roll. Place the rolls close to each other on a plate so they won't open up.

If you leave the cucumber piece out you'll get more Swiss roll looking bars. In the unlikely case I'll ever host a coctail party I'd try that side by side the same thing with a red filling.

Nutritional values / 1 roll / 46.1 g:
energy 37 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 6 g
fiber 2 g

Sour Rye Loaf in a Tavastian Manner ‒ Hapan ruisleipä hämäläiseen tapaan

My very first rye bread is here! Oh my, is it delicious.

Here in Western Finland bread was baked only once or twice a year and then dried in the rafter of the house. That's the origin of those famous round breads with a hole in the middle. This kind of soft loaf or limppu was only eaten as a festive meal.

I've seen this same recipe in several forums (here, here and here for example) but none of the posters seem to mention any earlier source. Well, here it comes anyways.

The sponge (or raski):

- 300 - 500 g levain (about a fist sized glop)
- 1 l lukewarm water
- 0.6 kg rye flour

Mix the ingredients loosely. Let it leaven at least half a day. You know the bouillie is sour enough if it bubbles.

The dough:

- The sponge
- 2 tbsp salt dissolved in 0.5 l lukewarm water
- 1.2 - 1.4 kg rye flour

Mix the ingredients and knead the dough well. Cover with a towel and let it rise for at least half a day.

Save a piece of the dough for the next time you bake. If that's not going to be anytime soon, put it in the freezer so your small friends won't die. Form four loaves and put them on an oven shelf. (I only made two big ones. That wasn't too wise. They nearly climbed out from the shelf.) Let them rise a couple of hours under a towel and then stick holes in them with a fork. Bake first in 225°C for half an hour and then an hour in 175°C. Cover the warm loaves with a towel.

Unless you have a big crowd eating these you better freeze three of the four loaves to prevent them from hardening. A bred kept in a fridge quickly turns stale.

I find these already have a nice malty flavour, but next time I might try what happens if I add malts as well as some berries. Or a hint of dark syrup and caraway which by a rule of thumb always fit together with rye.

Nutritional values / one bread / 875 g:
energy 1525 kcal
fat 10 g
protein 48.5 g
carbohydrates 305 g
fiber 75 g

Can Patties ‒ Tölkkipiffit

Normally I feel recipes using convenience foods despise my intellect. The recipe magazines published by big store chains will tell you to spice your soup with their instant soup bag since that way they'll get a better prize than if they'd just teach you how to prepare your own stock. That's not really a recipe. Anyone can figure out how to open up a bag.

This however is just too beautiful an idea to be sneered at.

- 1 can of thick pea soup (The kind with carrot and onion will fall apart.)
- mustard
- breadcrumbs
- rape oil for frying

Open the soup can from both ends. Use a drinking glass with a flat bottom to press the bar out intact. Cut it in six flat pieces. Smudge with mustard, roll in breadcrumbs and fry from both sides. The result has a similar type of structure to that of Arabian fallo... sorry, falafel balls but the taste fits better to Finnish mouth.

This also works when camping. Just leave the breadcrumps out and use the mustard only just before teeth. I'm sure my Trangia will be happy to prepare peas in some other form than soup for a change.

Nutritional values / 1 pattie / 90 g:
energy 128.6 kcal
fat 3.5 g
protein 6.8 g
carbohydrates 17 g
fiber 3 g

Tar Turnips ‒ Tervanauriit

Tar turnips implement pretty much all the ideals of Finnish cuisine. They're extremely simple and transforming, their main tastes are their main ingerients which happen to present Finnishness to an almost iconic level and they're best enjoyed by the campfire with good company.

This is probably the best tasting dish I've ever come up with. I recall I saw the name on some otherwies boring recipe book when leafing through them in a book store. Besides that I could honestly call it my own but then again, it's not that hard to figure out. Here's what you need:

- 1 kg turnips
- 2 dl tar liqueur

If you wish:
- black pepper
- 50 g margarine
- 0.5 dl syrup (Don't use if the liqueur is already sweet. Unless you want a dessert.)
- 50 g blue-style soy cheese

Peel and chop the turnips to sizeable cubes that fit nicely into your mouth. Throw the cubes into a casserole or portion them out into folio pieces. Add the tar liqueur and possible other condiments. Mix up a bit. If you use a casserole cover it with a folio piece and put it into a 200°C oven for at least an hour. Remember to stir from time to time. If you use folio pieces close them well and arrange next to embers (not into a fire). Check occasionally to see when they're done.

Like most root vegetable based dishes, this just keeps getting better and better when you rewarm it. Or you can eat it cold too.

Nutritional values / 1170 g (Again, not counting the tar liqueur since in Finland the label doesn't need to tell anything besides the alcohol percent.)
energy 906 kcal
fat 48 g
protein 17 g
carbohydrates 99 g
fiber 20 g

Spinach Stuffed Tofu ‒ Pinaattitäytetty tofu

I used to eat fish for about ten years after I had given up red meat. (Which was probably better since the small country town I grew up in hadn't even heard of soy or proper nutrition recommendations back then. Luckily kids today have the Internet.) I've never been a fan of fish meat itself, but I liked certain factory-made fish steaks or more precisely their filling. Ironically, that spinach filling is the thing I've missed after becoming a vegetarian.

Seeing Lelly's delicious sounding recipe from beautiful Scotland, I knew immediately how I'd tweak it. So this isn't exactly a tradditional Finnish , but it could (and hopefully will) be. Especially if it was springtime and I could use fresh nettle instead of spinach. Besides, I have to post this just to show that photo that alone makes me drool.

- 2 nice blocks of extra firm tofu (I used 270 g pieces of smoked type)
- 150 g frozen spinach (or better, 1 l fresh nettle leaves)
- 3 tbsp margarine
- 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp mustard powder
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 chili

For crusting:
- 3/4 dl flour
- 3/4 dl nutritional yeast
- 2 tbsp mustard

Defrost the spinach or cook the nettle so it's soft. Mix together with all the other filling ingredients. Dry the tofu blocks and hollow them with a knife. (This is tricky. I managed to make several holes in them with a too sharp headed knife. My advice is to make a clean, square cut with a knife and continue scooping with a nicely shaped tea spoon.) Fill them, but not too full so they won't explode in the oven. Cover the opening with the scooped out tofu bits. Wrap in folio with the remaining filling so that the outsides get some taste too. Let them marinate for at least an hour. (They don't mind spending the whole night like that either.)

Put the tofus in a 200°C oven for half an hour. (Heads up so the filling won't pour out.) Let them cool down a bit. Mix the flour and the yeast on a plate. Heat up your frying pan. Cover the tofus with mustard using your fingers, roll in the flour mix and place on the hot frying pan. Fry from both sides.

Nutritional values / 1 piece / 400 g
energy 583 kcal
fat 39 g
protein 51 g
carbohydrates 9 g
fiber 9 g

Mustard ‒ Sinappi

Some people will tell you to first read your recipes several times and then follow them rigorously. For me, this sounds very boring and lacking of personality. On the other hand, if you're making some dish for the very first time, it's easy to do a thing or two wrong and thus ruin the whole dish. I've solved the dilemma by always trying to find several recipes for the same thing. This way I can compare them, understand what are the essential parts and create food that best serves my own taste.

For example, yesterday I made my virgin flight for mustard, all Finn's favourite sauce. Borrowing from several sources I came up with a sweet mustard that mostly resembles the flavour of this company's mustards.

- 1,5 dl mustard powder (freshly grinded from seeds if you manage to find them)
- 1,5 dl brown sugar (which can be substituted with dark syrup)
- 2 dl oat cream (half of which can be substituted with coffee)
- 1 empty shampoo bottle

Those were the essentials. The following ingredients are only meant to add to the flavour and structure. Commercial mustards may also use chili or garlic.

- 1 tbsp potato flour
- 1/2 dl rape oil
- 1/2 dl vinegar (Some recipes only use as little as 1 tablespoon.)
- 1 tbsp brandy (Wonder if tar liqueur would do the trick?)

Mix the dry ingredients in a pot and combine with the liquids. Let the gunk come to a boil so it thickens up a bit, stirring the whole time. Take off from the stove. The mustard should thicken more as it cools down. A well-washed shampoo bottle makes an appropriate container.

Use on a soy sausage, with pea soup or in hamburger. Mustard also gives a nice flavour to sauces but that can be done with the powder.

Nutritional values / 500 g (without the brandy)
energy 1624 kcal
fat 91 g
protein 30 g
carbohydrates 170 g
fiber 3 g

Levain ‒ Hapanjuuri

Since I decided to make more of my own breads, the next logical step was to start my own sourdough. After all, 50 g piece of baker's yeast costs as much as 20 cents. Many people also find levain bread friendlier to their stomachs than more aggressive commercial yeast.

There's a strong consensus saying nothing's more Finnish than rye bread. However, it didn't become widespread before the middle ages, when Finns learned the leavening from Germans. Rye bread of today is always sour, since it doesn't digest all too well without the process. Also, it wasn't until the 18th or 19th century before rye gained barley in the popularity contest.

Actually I find it odd that rye bread is basically only known in Scandinavia, Russia and Baltia, even in our global era when new healthy groceries are ceaselessly seeked for. Every time I make a visit elsewhere in Europe and have to eat those white buns they call bread, I start to feel ill. I mean it's OK to enjoy one occasionally with a nice cup of coffee but how can anyone live with something that has no nutrients or fiber?

Today the levains are kept as family or bakery jewels from generation to generation and each of them make bread of a distinct taste. I have no idea what constitutes the best possible levain if you start it out fresh, so I just relied on a recipe from my favourite cook book, but replaced the cow milk. I wasn't sure if that was going to work, since the idea is to grow both lactobacilli and wild yeasts, but it did start to bubble in couple of days. Then I read more about the organisms for example from here and here and added a couple of more ingredients in the hope they would also produce some interesting life forms. I'll document here how I made it, but I recommend you to read about the process yourself, compare different recipes and try forming one out yourself.

- 1 l rye flour
- 1/2 l water
- 2 tbsp probiotic oat or soy yogurt
- piece of your favourite organic yeastless rye bread
(Only the first two are truly essential.)

Boil the water for about ten minutes. Let it cool down to lukewarm. Tear the bread in pieces and dissolve them in the water. Mix in the yogurt and finally the flours. Cover with a towel and leave it in a warm room. (Wonder how Englishmen do this part?) Feed the levain with 1 dl flour a day for about a week. In this time it should start to develop air and smell sour. Freeze the parts you won't need immediately or keep feeding it. In the future, every time you make a dough, put a fist sized piece aside. Apparently the taste of the bread you leaven with this is just plain sour at first, but it should get more distinctive the more you use it.

I'll be reporting more about how I succeeded with this. If I'm happy with it I may really get really carried away and start experimenting with other kitchen pets as well.

Carrot Bread ‒ Porkkanaleipä

All the people I know to bake their own bread are relatively young, in their twenties or thirties. Older people seem to assossiate it with poorness and not being able to simply buy ready-made bread from the stores. The situation is probably similar to that of the 70's when all those beautiful, energy-saving fireplaces were torn down from the houses. "Look everyone: we can afford a central heating system!" Even my own home used to have them in the 20's, sadly no more.

But back to the beef: Thought I could follow the example of my friends at least occasionally, enough to see how hard a job baking your own bread really is. After all, it's cheaper, has no additives or other unwanted substances and most of all it tastes a million times better. The last part is actually the problem too. Fresh bread is so good it just vanishes though I'm not even hungry.

This was my opening receipe. Basically it contains what I happened to find home. That's the beauty.

- 5 dl water
- 30 g baker's yeast
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- 3 dl graham flour
- 3 dl oat flakes
- 6 dl dark wheat flour
- 3 dl grated carrot
- 2 dl sunflower seeds
- 3 tbsp rape oil
- 1,5 tsp salt

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. Add the other ingridients in the above order. The salt should be left last since it prevents the yeast from working. (Actually, I got better results by forgetting it altogether.) Knead the dough until it doesn't stick to the bowl anymore. Let it rise under a towel in a warm place for approximitely half an hour. Knead it again on the table (with more wheat flour if it still seems too loose) and shape the breads as you wish. (I made three baguettes) Cover with a towel and let them rise another half an hour. Moist the surfce with water and decorate with seeds if you wish. Bake in 225°C for half an hour. Try not to eat them all at once.

Nutritional values / 1 baguette / 370 g
energy 1205 kcal
fat 43 g
protein 41 g
carbohydrates 165 g
fiber 26 g

Hemp butter ‒ Hamppuvoi

Nowadays it is possible to find domestic hemp seeds from a grocery store. The world's probably most multifunctional and one of Finland's oldest cultivated plants is slowly starting to gain back the wide-used position it had a hundred years ago. Which is great, since it has the potential to solve all mankind's energy and hunger problems plus be used to make better paper, fabric and medicine. Maybe the drug police isn't allowed do anything they come up with after all.

Happy for this discovery I thought I'd try out some of the different dishes you can prepare of hamppu or liina. There are some basic recipes in the pages of the local vegan organisation. Following their instructions I managed to make hemp butter or hempini (named after tahini, a sesame seed paste). Here's what I did:

2 dl hemp seeds
3/4 dl rape oil
4 garlic cloves
1,5 tbsp basil
1/2 tsp salt
1 dl water (more or less, depending on the structure you want)

Roast the seeds on a dry frying pan enough for them to start smell and get some colour. Blend them smooth with the rest of the ingridients. Be sure not to leave those crunchy seed bits there.

The basil part made me suspicious since so far I've only found it useful with tomato soup, (And I'm not saying an Italian cook couldn't make excellent things with it.) but for once I did what I was told. And they were right, it doesn't taste too much, perhaps cause I also used a lot of garlic. (Still, next time I think I'll try a bit more Finnish type of spices.) Mine is rather strong and meant to be used for cooking in the same way as for example Italian pesto sauce is. This is mostly cause I roasted the seeds rather well. If you want to use this on the bread, roast them only lightly and use spices in a more conservative manner.

Nutritional values / 420 g (This varies quite a bit from one hemp breed to another. The one I used is particulary oily and therefore relatively lower than most in protein.)
energy 1814 kcal
fat 150 g
protein 58 g
carbohydrates 80 g
fiber 59 g

Potato Salad ‒ Perunasalaatti

Potato salad is one of those delicious sidekicks Finns tend to eat with every possible meal. And according to a Swedish tradition it's also a self evident part of May Day's (mostly liquid) nutrition.

- 5 large cooked potatoes (This time I cooked them with cabbage soup to give them more taste.)
- 2 pickles
- 1 red onion
- 1 dl oat cream
- 1 tbsp mustard
- black pepper
- bunch of dragon's wort

Chop the veggies and mix with everything else. That's it!

Nutritional values / 1380 g
energy 743 kcal
fat 10 g
protein 19 g
carbohydrates 139 g
fiber 19 g

Cabbage Rolls ‒ Kaalikääryleet

I just love cabbage. It's savory and one cheap head feeds a family for a week. One of the home made dishes everyone's mum used to make is of course cabbage rolls, though I suspect the recipe was originally borrowed from Russians. Which is probably why one thing you should definitely also try is a mushroom filling.

- 1 white cabbage
- 3 dl textured soy protein crumbles (that is, soijarouhetta)
- 2 dl barley grains
- 1 dl oat cream
- 1 onion
- 1 chili
- 3 garlic cloves
- syrup
- margarine
- blue-style soy cheese (For example Sheese)
- broth

Boil the cabbage head for about twenty minutes. Be sure not to throw away the tasty broth. Peel of about 15 biggest leaves. (The rest of the cabbage can be used to make a cabbage soup.) Thin the petioles with a knife. Cook the oat grains and fry the soy with chopped onion, chili and garlic. Mix the cream into the oat pot.

Now you're ready to roll! Everyone has their own technique with this. The main thing is just not to stuff them too full. I usually lay one teaspoon of oat and one teaspoon of soy on each leaf, top the thing with a pat of cheese and fold both ends together so that the result is more of a square than a roll. Now quickly turn it over into a casserole, so the seam side stays closed. Lay the rolls tightly side by side. Scoop broth on them enough to fill the casserole half way through. Pour syrup on the rolls with a liberal hand. Top with margarine pats and let them bake in 225°C for an hour. If they start to look dry in the oven baste them with a little more broth and syrup.

Serve with lingonberry jam and potatoes.

Nutritional values / 1 roll / 100 g
energy 116.7 kcal
fat 5.1 g
protein 4.5 g
carbohydrates 13.1 g
fiber 3.1 g

Cabbage Soup ‒ Kaalisoppa

This is an easy, tasty and light dish that my mom used to make. You can portion it into the freezer or serve to a larger crowd. And the best thing is that the more you cook it the better it gets.

- 1 white cabbage
- 5 large potatoes
- 1 onion
- 3 dl textured soy protein flakes (soijahiutaleet in Finnish)
- 1 chili
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp miso
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- a bunch of fresh chives

Boil the cabbage for around twenty minutes. Make sure not to throw away the tasty broth. Tear of the leaves from the cabbage. (If you want you can save the biggest leaves to make for example cabbage rolls.) Chop the rest of the cabbage as well as the potatoes and put them back to the broth. Let them cook while you add the rest of the ingredients.

If you want you can fry the soy with the onion, chili and garlic before adding them to the pot. Add water according to your own taste of thickness. The miso should be dissolved in a cup of water before adding it in, which is something you may want to at the very end since boiling destroys some of miso's nutritional benefits. The soup is ready when the potatoes are.

Nutritional values / 2000 g (= without the water)
energy 1110 kcal
fat 12 g
protein 54 g
carbohydrates 185 g
fiber 42 g

Rutabaga Kukko ‒ Lanttukukko

Kukkos are a Savoyard and Karelian speciality available with any imaginable filling. The most famous ones I believe are kalakukko (filled with fish), lanttukukko (rutabaga) and mustikkakukko or rättänä (bilberries). If you look the dictionary, you'll find that kukko means cock in the official language. This however isn't official language. The name of the dish refers most likely to kukkaro (wallet), cause the rye cover hides (kätkeä) something.

For my very first lanttukukko I looked help mostly from a kalakukko recipe and another lanttukukko recipe that has a lot of helpful photos about the different stages.

The cover:
- 5 dl water
- 1/2 tbsp salt
- 100 g margarine
- 9 dl rye flour
- 3 dl white flour, for example wheat or spelt

The filling:
- 1 kg rutabaga (actually I used turnip which I find tastier)
- salt
- sugar
- tar liqueur (I'm quite certain beer would work as well)
- margarine
- barley grains (about 2 dl)

Peel and slice the rutabagas. Put the slices into a pot and shake with sugar and salt so the slices start to “sweat”. Mix the cover ingredients and spread it on the table to a circle so that it's diameter is about one metre. The edges should be about one centimetre thick, the centre may be thicker. Spread a thin layer of barley grains in the centre and on it a layer of rutabaga. Also sprinkle salt, tar liqueur, barley grains and margarine on them. Then add the next rutabaga layer and keep going until you've finished all your slices. Top with salt, tar liqueur and margarine. Now you can seal the kukko. Even the cover with wet hands so there are no holes or lumps.

Put it in the 250°C oven for half an hour so the cover hardens up and gets some colour. Lower the heat to 125°C. Wrap the kukko in moist parchment paper and after that into folio. Cook four hours more. When you take the kukko out cover it with towels so the cover won't get hard.

There are different schools in how to eat this thing. Some say you should cut the top open and start eating from the insides. I like to slice it like bread. Either way you'll notice it's a very versatile dish.

Nutritional values / 2700 g
energy 3076 kcal
fat 98 g
protein 116 g
carbohydrates 669 g
fiber 141 g

Bilberry Pie ‒ Juolukkapiirakka

While the oven was hot anyway, I thought I'd make the dessert as well. So I just improvised a quick sweet pie as well. Used mostly frozen bog bilberries cause I happened to have them left in the freezer (gods only know from which year) but any forest berries will do.

The paste:
- 1 dl rape oil
- 3 dl graham flour
- 1/2 dl sugar
- a dollop of water
- 1 tsp baking powder

The topping:
- 4 dl bog bilberries
- 2 dl whippable oat cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (unless the cream itself is already flavoured)

Heat the oven to 200°C. Mix the paste ingredients together and spread it on a cake tin. Top with bilberries and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. In the meantime whip the cream and flavour with vanilla sugar. Spread the whipped cream on the pie and let it bake another 5‒10 minutes.

My first version of this pie didn't come out exactly as planned. Actually it was quite boggy. So couple of good tips: if you use frozen berries, let them melt a little so you can pour out the extra water. And make sure you've whipped the cream long enough. (Not sure if mine was even meant to foam in the first place.)

It's also possible to leave the cream all out or add it only just before serving on the chilled down pie. Next time I thought I'd try this with ice cream instead of ‒ well, warm cream.

Nutritional values / 900 g
energy 2232 kcal
fat 124 g
protein 31 g
carbohydrates 250 g
fiber 33 g

Anarcho Pie ‒ Anarkopiirakka

One reason more to hope I was an anarchist!

This recipe from Vegaanin keittokirja by Mirka Muukkonen and Anna Särkisilta (Like Kustannus 2008) seems to have almost a canonical status among Finnish vegans. Another version of it has been turned into a punk song by Oi Polloi. Of course I had to try it out!

- 5 cooked potatoes
- 5 dl wheat flour (replaced half of it with graham flour myself)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 200 g margarine (only used 100 g plus some water)

The topping can be be almost anything you happen to have in your kitchen. I used:

- 1 chili
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 broccoli
- 1 onion
- 340 g silken tofu
- 1/2 dl nutritional yest

Heat the oven to 225°C. Mix the dough ingredients together and spread it in a baking tin. Save a piece. Add the toppings. Form a big anarchy symbol from the rest of the dough and decorate the pie with it. Stick it in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until it looks golden on top. Enjoy with punk music and a punch of hippies.

My first try didn't come out exactly perfect. First of all it didn't bake enough in the given time. (I'm starting to suspect there's something wrong with the oven) And even if it did it still might be a good idea to fry the toppings a bit. Second of all that silken tofu isn't that good a topping alone. I knew it's quite tasteless but thought it would melt nicely in the oven which it of course didn't. Have to mix it with something next time. But the pie did vanish in an eye blink anyway.

Nutritional values / 1600 g (Like always, I've estemeted this according to the measures I myself used.)
energy 2665 kcal
fat 100 g
protein 125 g
carbohydrates 311 g
fiber 44 g