Cream of Fireweed Soup ‒ Maitohorsmasosekeitto

As you may remember, I'm not especially fond of bouillon cubes that don't seem to give any taste to the dishes you use them in besides a little saltiness and sometimes a remotely industrial aroma. Every now and then I like to make my own stock bases from stalks and remains and store them in the freezer. Miso, some curry pastes and most seaweeds can give a nice base to a soup, but they don't really fit terribly well into most European-style dishes. Besides the water where rutabaga and cabbage have been cooked for a looong time, lovage makes a nice quick option. Just put a sprig of it into the soup or sauce right in the beginning of the process.

- 1 l fireweed shoots
- 4 carrots (or potatoes)
- about 6 dl water
- 2 dl oat cream
- 1 lovage sprig
- 1 tbsp rape oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 tsp apple wine vinegar 
- tarragon
- salt

Rinse the fireweeds. Lightly sauté them in oil. Add the spices, carrots in small chunks so they'll cook quicker and enough water to just about to cover the veggies. When the carrots feel soft, blend the soup smooth. If you don't like the additional mouthfeel you can also filter out the remaining bits and pieces. Add the cream just before eating.

This makes a nice starter or a lunch together with those lovely Scandinavian-style open sandwiches.

Nutritional values / 1480 g:
energy 603 kcal
fat 38 g
protein 124 g
carbohydrates 50 g
fiber 33 g

Garlic Sautéd Fireweed Shoots ‒ Valkosipulissa kuullotetut horsmanversot

We're finally getting to enjoy the first wild veggies. On Thursday we picked some fireweed and nettle from a nearby forest. Fireweed is at its best when the young shoots haven't grown leaves yet and get often compared to asparagus. (It seems like most of the veggies with an edible stalk get compared to asparagus but it's useful in that looking at asparagus recipes gives you good ideas about how to cook fireweed shoots too.) The smallest ones are great  for salads since they still have the sweetness the plant has been hiding in its roots all winter. A bit longer ones, less than 20 cm long, taste mild but delicious and fit in pretty much any cooked dish. The thing why you're not likely to see them sold in stores is that they tend to droop very quickly and lose their wonderful snappiness after you cut them and should be eaten on the same day.

Lightly roasting with oil and salt is usually what I find the best way to enjoy a veggie's aromas. And that felt like the best way to cook these delicacies since this was the first tasting of them this year. They're a nice warm sidekick to any meal but we (after the initial gnawing) had them with pasta and basic soy crumble sauce.

- 1 handful of fireweed shoots
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp rape oil (or other vegetable oil that doesn't have a strong taste)
- salt

See the fireweeds look alright. Rinse or cut the stalks a little if it seems they need it. Mince the garlic. Heat up the oil on a pan and toss in the garlic. Lay the fireweeds on them. Turn around until they look done but haven't completely lost their green colour. Sprinkle with salt. Enjoy on the spot.

Nutritional values / 74 g:
energy 152 kcal
fat 14 g
protein 16 g
carbohydrates 5 g
fiber 3 g

Fermented Rowan Tee ‒ Hiostettu pihlajatee

The easiest way to get herb teas is just drying up the leaves and flowers you plan to use. This summer I thought I'd learn a new method of finding some new tastes from familiar plants by fermenting. This is how green tea turns into black tea.

The leaves in the photo are from a rowan tree. I also mixed some bilberry and fireweed (which is by the way an excellent basis for any tee mixture) leaves with it. Other plants more than appropriate here include for example raspberry, black currant and birch.

When the leaves you plan to use are still fresh, crush them (between your hands or using a rolling pin for example) so they juice up evenly. Lay them fluffily in a large glass jar and cover. The process needs some oxygen so see the lid isn't too tight.

Place the jar in a hot place (40-50°C) for as long as the leaves have turned brown. You can for example cover the jar with a black t-shirt and leave it on a window sill on a hot summer day or put it in a polystyrene box with hot water bottles. Depending on the plant this may take only an hour (as in the case of rowan) or several days. Last, make sure the leaves have dried up as well so they won't mildew. (I spread them on a newspaper for a night.)

The aroma lasts longer if you store the leaves intact and crush them only a moment before usage.

White Sauce ‒ Valkokastike

When writing about the brown sauce I promised to tell you later about the other mother sauce my mum makes, the white sauce. Just like the brown one, this is really simple but can be used as a base for many other sauces. While I tend to associate the brown sauce with winter, the white one is much more summery. It crowns many of those seasonal delights of springtime: new potatoes, asparagus, fireweed and dandelion leaves or artichoke but can also be used for seitan steaks or in lasagna. French cuisine calls it béchamel.

- 3 tablespoons wheat flour
- 2 tablespoons margarine (of good quality!)
- 5 dl soy milk (I find this works better than oat milk but that's naturally only a matter of taste)
- white pepper
- herb salt

Melt the margarine in a sauce pot. Sift in the flour, stirring all the time so it won't get clumpy. Add the milk as a thin strip, stirring all the time. Spice up. The sauce is ready after it has thickened up.

For asparagus and dandelion I like to add some mayonnaise and a teaspoon of vinegar. Dill, garlic and blue-type soy cheese also fit here just perfectly.

Nutritional values / 5 dl:
energy 469 kcal
fat 32 g
protein 24 g
carbohydrates 25 g
fiber 1 g

Vagabond's Dulcet Fire Salad ‒ Rentun suloinen tulisalaatti

Fireweed is known in Finland as the vagabond's rose (rentun ruusu). A famous song for example tells about a boozer who crawls up from a ditch in the morning and takes fireweed flowers to his loved one as a sign of remorse for being lost for the whole week again. Much fewer people seem to remember fireweed also makes an excellent tea or salad. This one got its inspiration from the English name. It's sweet and burning for your heart just like a vagabond. Think I got a bit carried away with decorating it but I promise that for once the taste is worth the looks.

- 0.5 l young fireweed leaves
- 100 g strawberries
- 1 dl cooked fava beans
- 10-15 lemon balm leaves
- a handful of wood violets (or some other edible viola)
- 2 tbsp spruce syrup
- your favourite chili sauce

Wash the fireweed leaves and lay them on a plate. Sprinkle syrup and chili sauce on them. Slice the strawberries. Lay everything on the fireweed bed as beautifully as you want. Sprinkle some more syrup and chili on the beans and the lemon balm if you wish.

Nutritional values / 300 g:
energy 257 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 54 g
fiber 13 g