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

Bright New Potato Salad ‒ Kirkas perunasalaatti uusista perunoista

Ground elder has long been on my list of wild vegetables I'd like to take into my repertoire. It's one of those plants that other bloggers into this kind of things seem charmed about. As I've walked around, it's felt as if I see it everywhere, but haven't had the courage to pick. You see, it's a real danger to mix it up with some other vascular plant, which in turn can be quite poisonous. This is especially an issue if you want to pick young shoots which are all wrinkled. The plants should really be recognised on the previous summer and see there isn't other plants between them before returning to the place.

Yesterday I visited a friend who lives in this lovely little cottage by a small forest, but only a ten-minute bus journey away from the city center. She gave me some rhubarb and lovage from her garden but also showed me a dense growth of ground elders and gave me scissors so I could pick them myself and thus learn how they grow. This feels much more assuring than just looking at pictures of them.

Now I should only learn how to best use them. The first thing I tried was as the salad leaves in this seasonal salad. In Finland potato salad usually means potato cubes drowned in mayonnaise or such but I didn't really think that would make right to potatoes at their best.

- 600 g new potatoes
- 1 big punch of young ground elders
- 1  small punch of pea shoots
- 1 small punch of spring onion
- 1 pickle
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp balsamic or white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp mustard

Don't peel the potatoes but wash if they're muddy. Cook in salted water. If they're bigger than your mouth, cut them a little. Rinse the ground elders, the pea shoots and the onions. Cut them into convenient pieces and add with the potatoes. Chop the pickle as well.

Mix the salad. Add the sauce ingredients. Mix again. Eat right away or let it marinade for a few hours.

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

Ohratto for Springtime ‒ Keväinen ohratto

This blog has been a break for the past couple of years now, and I must say that has bothered me quite a bit. Since food blogging is really fun and tends to improve my cookings about 200 % I thought I'd start writing again, and while I'm at it, do some other, hopefully helpful changes as well. We'll see about them, but now, let's move to the most important thing, food.

Ohratto has become quite a popular Finnish version of the Italian delight risotto. The basic difference is it's made of a more domestic grain, that is barley or ohra in Finnish. I actually wondered if I could translate it barleyetto or something, but that just sounded awful so I leaved the Finnish name intact. (Edit: seems like I've done that already.) They can be prepared as sidekicks, but more often they belong to that simple yet wonderful category of nutritious one-pot meals. Ohrattos often get their taste from seasonal vegetables. In autumn this might mean mushrooms, during the peak grilling season you could add grilled fruits in it. Now that the Sun has started to shine again and my first herb seeds are pushing those teeny-weeny green leaves I feel it's time for fresh and crunchy tastes.

From many ohratto recipes the one I mostly used was this one. But I also wanted to add those first asparaguses I've seen in the store this year since I never seem to be able to just pass them by. If you're using whole barley which hasn't been precooked you may want to soak them for a few hours to shorten the cooking time.

- 300 g asparagus
- 200 g frozen peas
- 1 onion
- 3 dl barley
- 1 l water
- 1/2 lemon
- 2 dl oat cream
- 1 tbsp rape oil
- 1 dose of stock
- 1 tsp apple wine vinegar
- 1 small punch of fresh coriander
- 1 garlic clove
- black pepper
- salt

Mince and sauté the onion in the oil. If the asparagus stalks seem thick and hard, peel them carefully. Then chop them for nice mouth-fitting pieces and throw in with the onion. When the asparagus has turned deep green but not lost its crunchiness yet, add the barley. Keep stirring for a few minutes before pouring the water to the pot as well as the stock and salt.

While the barley is cooking, juice the lemon and crate its peel. Also, take the peas out of the freezer, chop the coriander and mince the garlic. After the barley seems cooked but not turned all soft, add the rest of the ingredients. You can save some of the coriander leaves for decoration on top.

Nutritional values /  2242 g:
energy 1433 kcal
fat 41 g
protein 51 g
carbohydrates 207 g
fiber 47 g

Birch Bud Schnapps ‒ Silmuviina

Although this is already starting to resemble more of a drink blog than a food blog...

Along with most plant roots, one of the first things you can forage after the spring has arrived are birch buds. They are a refreshing spice to many salads, sandwiches and drinks. The only problem is that there's only a few days time to gather them ‒ when they're still young and tender, just barely opened up, feeling a bit sticky from sap. The easiest way to preserve the characteristic taste is making a tincture. Save it for winter and you will literally taste spring.

- 1 dl birch buds
- 3 dl good quality vodka
(- 1 teaspoon sugar)

Put the buds into a glass jar and pour the vodka on them. Seal the jar. Let the mixture stand for 2-3 weeks in room temperature, shaking occasionally. Remove the buds or keep them as a garnish.

Enjoy chilled as an aperitif or use in cooking.

The same thing can be done with most herbs. Just remember that some of them (like dill) quickly develop a bitter taste so you should taste the stuff every now and then to decide when it's best to your liking.

May Day Sima ‒ Vappusima

The must have drink for May Day or Vappu is low-alcohol mead known as sima in Finland. Last year I made some rhubarb sima for the occasion, this year I was planning to have dandelion mead but the preceding week turned out so busy I didn't have the time for picking flowers. So instead, I brewed a portion of the basic type so strongly associated with Vappu.

I asked my spouse to bring me couple of lemons for this but I should've been more precise: he bought a whole kilogram. So I decided to double the lemon amount from what it said on the sugar package. (Also, we've been having a lot of noodle soups imitating Thai cuisine lately...) Because of that and the fact I only used fariini sugar my version tastes a bit stronger than most simas. If you'd rather have it light you can replace half of the fariini with white sugar and use only 1-2 lemons.

- 4 l water
- 4 lemons
- 1 pea-size piece of fresh yeast
- 2 dl raisins
- 500 g fariini sugar (A byproduct of sugar making, highly aromatic and moist, not as sweet as pure sugar. I haven't found any English name for the stuff. However, I've been told dark muscovado and molasses share a similar taste but I can't guarantee this is the right amount for them.)

Wash, then slice (or smooth down) the lemons. Bring half of the water to a boil. Pour into a a fermentation vessel. Dissolve the sugar in it (save about two tablespoonfuls), then throw in the lemon slices and the rest of the water as well. When the water has cooled down to the room temperature you can add the yeast. Seal the lid air tight but don't forget the fermentation lock.

Next day, wash and sterilize (for example with boiling water) some empty glass bottles. Portion the remaining sugar and the raisins into the bottles. Remove the lemons and bottle the mead. Seal the bottles. The sima is ready to drink when the raisins have started floating. (This normally takes 2-3 days.)

Enjoy chilled with donuts or wieners while listening to left-wing political speeches and wearing a silly hat.

Nutritional values / 4 l:
energy 2240 kcal
fat 4 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 529 g
fiber 14 g

Tippaleipä

Tippaleipäs saw the day of light during the 18th century in the homes of the nobility but ironically enough they're nowadays almost entirely associated with Labour Day, along with potato salad, donuts, wieners and mead. The basic idea is pretty much the same as in strauben from Austria or funnel cake from Dutch area of the U.S. You drizzle batter into hot oil and get little cakes that demonstrate how human brains work. Somehow tippaleipäs manage to be crunchy and soft at the same time. Some find their outlooks rather dubious but I think they're fun to look and eat, tube by tube.

So yes, they seemed like enough reason to boil a litre of oil for the first time in my life. To my surprise that turned out quite easy. Didn't get even first degree burns though I happen to be rather prone to accidents.

The batter:
- 5 dl dark wheat flour
- 4 dl soy milk
- 3 dl water
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- 0.5 dl flax seed
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 0.5 lemon peel (plus a drop of the juice)
- salt

Other stuff:
- 1 l rape oil
- piping equipment (I used a washed ketchup bottle)
- round metal mould (I used washed fruit cans)
- tongs for the mould
- a slotted spoon for the tippaleipäs
- newspapers

Soak the flax seeds in the water for about an hour to achieve slime. (Filter out the seeds if you don't want them in the final pastries.) Whisk the slime together with the other batter ingredients. See that your batter is very even and clumpless. Fill the ketchup bottle.

Heat up the oil. Place the mould into the hot oil. Squeeze a free-form batter web into the mould. (If you have more patience than me you can add more layers after the previous layer has started floating, achieving a tall type of tippaleipä they sell in markets. If you add batter too soon it will loose its shape. I find it easier to just pile them up.) Let it fry for a moment, detach from the mould and flip it over. When the tippaleipä looks golden and delicious, fish it out with the slotted spoon and drain over newspapers. Repeat as long as you have batter.

If you wish decorate with powdered sugar. Serve with mead.

Nutritional values / 1285 g:
energy 3160 kcal
fat 206 g
protein 50 g
carbohydrates 277 g
fiber 29 g

Strawberries in Sparkling Wine Bath ‒ Mansikat kuohuviinikylvyssä

Tomorrow it's May Day. Finns call the day Vappu after German Walpurgisnacht since it's quite a new carnival of labour and students. There are much more traditional holidays during springtime and just as riotous but I'll tell you about them some other time. Right now I have my mind set for tonight.

The previous night, you see, is the one of jolly picnics. Or so it would be if it didn't rain. Me and my friends decided to have a picnic inside instead, at my place, and so I thought I'd repeat the dessert we had last year. Lea's version also had cucumber slices but for my level of experientialism they were a bit too much. Actually, in the tasting of last year each one of us wanted to leave out a different ingredient but since I'm the one who prepared the dish this time I got to decide. In any case, it certainly features things you won't see in my kitchen every day so it's perfect for this type of special occasion. Perhaps even more so for some summer parties when strawberries are in season and taste like strawberries.

- 0.75 l sparkling wine (Real, not champagne. Good quality cider goes fine as well.)
- 2-3 strawberries per portion (about 250 g)
- 0.5 dl dark sugar
- 1 dl water
- 1 punch of fresh lemon balm (or mint)
- 2 teaspoons agar powder (you can also use pectin but that means you'll need more sugar as well)

Slice the strawberries and arrange them into your serving glasses (I used six glasses). Mince most of the lemon balm. Cook it with the water for a few minutes to seize the aroma. Filter out the balm parts.

Add the sugar, the agar and some of the wine. Let the mixture come to a boil, then move it out of the stove. Mix very carefully with the rest of the wine (so you won't loose the bubbles) and pour evenly on the strawberries.

Decorate with lemon balm leaves. Refrigerate for couple of hours.

Nutritional values / 1 portion / 206 g :
energy 139 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 12 g
fiber 1 g

Spring Welcoming Drink ‒ Kevääntoivotusjuoma

My spouse is usually the smoothie expert in our family but this time I thought I'd try something as well. With this quick and festal drink I'm taking part in this month's food challenge. It's perfect non-alcoholic but if you wish, the sea buckthorn should cover up the taste of bad spirits quite easily.

- 2 pears (I used canned)
- 1 dl sea buckthorn berries
- 3 dl birch sap (or sparkling water if sap is not available)
- 1 tablespoon spruce syrup

Chill down the ingredients. Blend smooth. Chill down yourself and enjoy while admiring the awakening nature.

Nutritional values / 723 g:
energy 229 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 45 g
fiber 12 g

Paskha ‒ Pasha

No, I haven't stopped eating. But I'm having a rather busy period in my life at the moment (I've heard smart people see deadline jams coming up and start working beforehand.) so new recipes may come out in a bit slower rhythm than before.

The Sun has really started shining along the Spring Equinox. Here in a Southern city the snow has almost disappeared already and I've changed into a lighter coat. To honour Päivätär I thought I'd make something special. For the orthodox christians this hilariously named thick treat is an Easter dish that marks the end of the lent. But there's no reason why the rest of us couldn't enjoy it as well. It's definitely not a light dessert option though ‒ I managed to have two tablespoons last night before giving up.

- 5 dl soy yogurt
- 100 g soy spread (fresh cheese type)
- 1 dl icing sugar
- 0.5 dl potato flour
- 1 tablespoon quality margarine (I used Keiju 70%)
- 2 tablespoons sea buckthorn juice (or lemon)
- 1 dl dried sweet cherries (or raisins and nuts)
- 1 dried orange skin

Drain the yogurt overnight (in a cheesecloth, old stockings or a coffee filter). Chop the cherries and mix everything together. Spoon the resulting paste into a mould, again lined with a cheesecloth or such. Refrigerate for another night so that there's some pressure on the mould and extra liquid can come out. Draw your favourite Sun symbol on the paskha and spread a spoonful over a white bun.

There are really beautiful wooden moulds made especially for this purpose but I just used a coffee filter. I didn't bother to press out the air and only waited for couple of hours so the result looks rather clumpy. But at least the taste is perfect.

Nutritional values / 800 g:
energy 2027 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 28 g
carbohydrates 117 g
fiber 7 g

Rhubarb Sima ‒ Raparperisima

It may be a bit too late for this recipe but at least it's now here for the next May Day. Besides, I imagine this would taste great in the summer when rhubarbs actually grow here. And I've heard that garden angelica also makes a good mead.

Different varieties of mead are probably known everywhere in the world. A part of Finnish May Day celebration is nowadays a sweet but zesty mead called sima (usually very mild in alcohol for the reasons I've ranted about before). In the 18th century it was only enjoyed by wealthy people but when the ingredients grew more wildly available it became an appropriate symbol for May Day that has a strong working class echo in Finland. Sima is usually sweetened with muscovado (fariinisokeri) and bittered with lemon but since I don't find lemon an especially typical Finnish fruit I thought I'd try a recipe I found from Härkäpapua sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007). I scaled down the amounts and it still seemed to work so here you go!

- 1 rhubarb stalk
- 1.5 l water
- 1.5 dl muscovado (or a combination of normal sugar and dark syrup)
- ginger
- a yeast crumble

Chop the rhubarb in small pieces. Put it in a jug together with muscovado and ginger. Boil the water and pour it on them. Stir. When the water has cooled down a bit add the yeast. (Do yourself a favour and don't exaggerate with the yeast. More yeast won't bring more alcohol, more sugar does.) Let the jug stand in a warm place for the next day.

Filter the sima and bottle it. Add a teaspoon of sugar to every bottle to get sparkling sima. Loosen up the tops a bit every day so the bottles won't break. The sima should be ready in about 3-5 days. A common trick is to put some raisins in the bottle so when they float, you know the sima is ready.

Nutritional values / 1.5 litres (counted from the ingredients):
energy 510 kcal
fat 0 g
protein 1 g
carbohydrates 124 g
fiber 2 g

Mämmi

Some of you may have wondered what the name of my blog means. Mämmi is a traditional sweet rye pudding that's today known mostly as an Easter dessert. The sweet dish nowadays known as mämmi was originally eaten only in the Southwest whereas elsewhere in Finland a runnier sweet-and-sour dish also known in Eastern Europe was prepared.

One of my many plans is to tell you more ways to use mämmi all around the year. In the meanwhile go and find a book called Mämmi-kirja by Ahmed Ladarsi, the founder of The Finnish Mämmi Association. I'm sure I will. It's got 80 different recipes that use mämmi as a main ingredient.

For starters you need some mämmi. The recipes differ greatly, so I just followed the one that seemed most convincing (which in my case means taking the longest time to let it sweeten naturally). Now I've got four casseroles full of it and they won't all fit into my freezer. At some point I may have to try if this can be done as a smaller dose.

5 l water
1 kg rye malts
1.5 kg rye flour
0.5 tsp salt

If you wish:
2 tbsp powdered bitter orange rind (Of course this isn't an original spice but it is commonly added. Funny thing is that I've never seen any other recipe even mention the whole fruit.)

Heat 2 l water to a boil and pour it into a 10 l bucket. Add half of the malts and one fifth of the flour. Whisk well. Sprinkle a thick layer of flour on the surface. Cover the bucket tightly and leave it to sweeten for about two hours hours in a warm place.

Pour another round of hot water into the bucket. Add the rest of the malts and some flour. Whisk, sprinkle and cover as you did last time. Keep adding water and flour every two hours until they're finished. (I for example made four rounds.)

After the last sweetening whisk the mixture cool. Add the salt and the bitter orange at this point. Fill casseroles (or tuokkonens if you're happy enough to have some) half full but be careful not o overfill since mämmi may flood. Put them into a 150°C oven for three hours. Stir occasionally to prevent a hard crust from forming.

Conserve in cold. Mämmi is at its best after couple of days. The classic way is to serve it in a tuokkonen, a box made of birch park. Even commercial mämmis often have a birch print on their carton boxes. Try sugar and oat milk, whipped oat cream, vanilla sauce or ice cream with it.

Besides on its own, mämmi can be used in many, many ways in desserts, breads, beverages, sauces and even main courses. Anywhere you wish to have its smooth and sweet but malty flavour. We'll get back to that.

Nutritional values / 7500 g (counted from the ingedients, also check Fineli):
energy: 8365 kcal
fat: 52 g
protein: 263 g
carbohydrates: 1685 g
fiber: 368 g

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

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