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

Sauerkraut ‒ Hapankaali

Last Sunday I got to see a Unesco world heritage site called Sammallahdenmäki. It's a Bronze age burial site that was used for a thousand years. Nowadays it's a beautiful granite hill covered by colourful lichen species and a few dwarfy pines but in the beginning of the construction it must have looked completely different. The place used to lie on a seashore and the climate was subboreal, meaning the temperatures were much like those that Central Europe now enjoys. Pine hadn't arrived yet and nut trees were fairly common. Weirdly, we know more about the religious views and language of those people than such tangible things like what they ate. Judging from what was available it might have been much closer to what dietitians recommend than a typical nutrition of today, at least during the good years.

One food preparation method that was very likely used intensively was fermenting. And as a food enthusiast I of course want to learn how to do that myself. After all, fermented dishes are still something that everybody should eat on a daily basis and the commercially produced ones tend to be spoiled by pasteurizing. The classic to start with is naturally sauerkraut.

This doesn't really require a recipe but I'm going to tell you how I made it anyway. There are varying instructions out there and my chemistry knowledge is scarce so I can't really tell which ones are based on actual evidence and which are more like folklore. That's why I try to explain just the guidelines and leave the experimenting for you.

(That miserable greyness in the photo is by the way the view from my kitchen window at noon. That's the brightest it gets right before winter solstice.)

- 1 cabbage head
- 2 carrots (or other veggies)
- 1 tablespoon caraway (or other spices)
- 1 tablespoon salt

Grind or shred the cabbage and the carrots. Add the caraway and the salt. When the cabbage starts to sweat (because of the salt) start beating it with any mallet or jar available. The idea is to get so much juice out it covers the cabbage. If the cabbage has already seen it's best days it may be so dry that this never happens. In that case dissolve some salt into boiling water, cool down and pour over the cabbage.

Put the cabbage with its juices into a clean and airtight vessel (I just use glass jars with a weight on top). Press the cabbage below the juice level so it won't touch the air and rotten instead of lacto-fermenting anaerobically. Let your forthcoming sauerkraut sit in room temperature from 3 days to 6 weeks depending on how strong you want it to be. The reason for moving it into a colder storage place after couple of days in some recipes is to slow down the process. Notice the vessel will flood over unless there's a lot of empty space left. Sometimes mold appears on top but this isn't dangerous ‒ just peel it off.

When sauerkraut has stopped bubbling it should taste pleasantly tart. Don't eat if it has turned soft. The taste matures for about six months if stored well in cool temperature (like fridge). If you think it tastes too sore rinse with cold water before eating. Sauerkraut can be used as a salad, in green smoothies or even in hot dishes (though heating of course destroys the largest health benefits). It's a good habit to always add a spoonful on your dinner.

Nutritional values / 1730 g (counted from the ingredients, also see Fineli):
energy 534 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 19 g
carbohydrates 102 g
fiber 37 g

Glögi

Glögi is a hot drink known all around Scandinavia. Today it's mostly associated to this dark time preceding Joulu. The spices used in it sound rather exotic since the present form originates from the homes of Swedish-speaking upper class that the rest of Finland of course started to copycat as soon as they could afford it. According to Finnish Wikipedia, glögi's predecessors were spiced spirits which were used to warm up mailmen traveling long distances during winter.

Glögi is often confused with mulled wines, especially German Glühwein, but my Germany experts assure me they taste quite different. Glögi is sometimes made of red wine instead of red juice but that's so much rarer that it's usually called wine glögi in those cases. (One reason for this may be the way how alcohol is still considered a big no-no in Finnish culture, something you have to drink in secret in order not to appear a drunkard and definitely not in the town square with your children.) The spices are pretty much the same as in gingerbread (I'll try to post the recipe next month). Glühwein on the other hand is always prepared from wine like the name says, and this may also mean fruit wine made of blueberries or cherries for example. It's typically spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, cloves and most notably, orange.

There are probably hundreds of glögi variants, the best known being white glögi. The spices are the same but it's made of apple juice or white wine.

- 7 dl water
- 1 dl black currant juice (unsweetened and unwatered)
- 0.5 dl dark sugar
- cinnamon
- cloves
- ginger
- 2 dl vodka (or brandy)
- 0.5 dl raisins
- 0.5 dl almond slices

Heat up the water together with the spices. Let them simmer for about ten minutes. Filter out the spices. Add the juice and the vodka. Portion in cups. Finalize by throwing in some raisins and almond slices or let your guests help themselves. Enjoy the hot cup between your frozen fingers.

Nutritional values / 1 l:
energy 962 kcal
fat 19 g
protein 10 g
carbohydrates 70 g
fiber 9 g