Soy Lihapiirakka ‒ Soijalihis

This is a bit of a deviation from the "seasonal" theme since lihapiirakkas are sold rather evenly around the year. The name literally means "meat pie" which gave me some trouble naming the soy version since I don't think anyone would understand if I just called them soy pies. You do see a lot of naming variance like "meatless pie" or "soy meat pie", but I decided to go with a shortening in Finnish and keep the English name intact since it's already detached from the original meaning. Anyway, they're deep-fried pastries made from a doughnut type of dough and filled with rice and minced meat. Or, in the vegan version, usually rice and TVP.

Lihapiirakkas are an extremely popular fast food in Finland. You can find them cheap from practically every food store's convenience food section. Non-chain-owned street kiosks sell them even in the smallest villages with one shop and no restaurants, along with french fries and hamburgers. In bigger cities you have a chance of finding them all self-made and vegan. Quite often they're cut in half and filled with things.

When I was a teenager, a friend of mine ate at least one of them every day after school, filling them with ketchup and liver sausage, along with a glass of cold cocoa as the drink option. To her and her parents' defence I have to say my diet at the time wasn't exactly from the healthiest end either.

The regular kiosk filling includes what I like to call "the grill spices", the holy trinity of ketchup, mustard and cucumber relish. In case of cheap cucumber relish raw onion is also often added for crunchiness. With a little extra fee the fillings may include different meat products, but nothing stops from using the same forms made from plant-based ingredients, like bean patties, chickpea omelettes or soy weeners. The kiosks often serve their own specialities and understanding the subtle differences takes a real connoisseur. For a little vocabulary, these have become regional dishes known nation-wide:

Atomi and vety (Lappeenranta): "Atom and hydrogen". Vety includes a boiled egg and ham, atomi either one of these.
Hotsi (Hämeenlinna): It's role model probably being hot dog, hotsi is filled with half cut lauantaimakkara or "Saturday sausage", a certain thick and floury sausage type. In Forssa two wieners are used instead.
Möttönen (Helsinki): An especially big and thick lihapiirakka which were originally sold at the main train railway station.
Riihimäkeläinen (Riihimäki): Includes a fried egg and a minced meat patty. In Rovaniemi the same version is called ropsilainen after the local football team.
Lörtsy (Savonlinna): The good people of Savonlinna are probably going to hang me from balls for implying these are the same thing, and I do need to write a separate post about them sometime later. I haven't been able to find a recipe for lörtsy or any "official" difference in their dough, but lörtsys are about twice as large and always flat. They're one of the oldest variants and have been around since the fifties. Originally they had an apple jam filling instead of meat but nowadays you can find them in all possible sweet and savory flavours.

The dough
- 14 dl wheat flour (many prefer a version where some of this is graham)
- 6 dl oat milk
- 50 g yeast
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- 1 tbsp salt

 The filling
- 2.5 dl soy crumble
- 1.5 dl barley grains
- 1 dl roasted onion
- 1 dose of stock
- 2 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tbsp apple wine vinegar
- smoked paprika
- white pepper
- salt

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. Add the oil, the syrup and the salt. Knead in enough flour to achieve a consistency that doesn't stick to the bowl but still feels a bit runny. Cover with a towel and let rest for an hour.

Cook the barley. Soak the soy crumble in water where you've added the stock. Fry on the pan, adding the spices as you go. Combine the barley, the soy and the onion.

Divide the dough into 16 pieces. Roll each of them round between your hands, flatten and roll into a disc of about 15 cm in diameter. Keep more flour at hand to help the dough from sticking. Scoop a spoonful or two of the filling in the middle of the disc. Fold one edge on the opposite one and press it to keep it closed. Secure the edges by pressing with a fork.

Deep fry from both sides until golden in neutral tasting oil that is fine with high temperatures, for example non-virgin rape oil.

Nutritional values / 1 lihapiirakka / 114 g (before deep frying):
energy 299 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 10 g
carbohydrates 48 g
fiber 4 g

Cucumber Relish ‒ Kurkkupikkelssi

The commonness of this side item is best described by the  many names it is referred by. In my personal vocabulary pikkelssi refers to specifically cucumber relish though basically it means any kind of pickled vegetables. Kurkkurelissi is used though that still sounds a bit foreign to my ears. The most common name I think is kurkkusalaatti, meaning cucumber salad, which is pretty weird nowadays that salad usually refers to fresh things.

Any way, a spoonful of the relish can be an accompaniment in pretty much any Finnish meal. It's especially common with fast food you can buy from small kiosks like hamburgers, french fries, lihapiirakkas, porilainens and such. It's one part of the holy trinity of cucumber relish, mustard and ketchup. Most people just  use store-bought versions but somehow they never actually taste good. I especially hate a certain brand sold in every store which only tastes sugary and where the cucumber pieces are soft as if they had gone rotten or something. Home made ones on the other hand tend to be delicious on their own, and usually contain a lot of onion too. I also added a bell pepper just for the colour, but that's not an important part in any way.

- 1 kg cucumber
- 300 g onion
- 1 bell pepper
- 3 dl water
- 2 dl white vinegar
- 2 dl sugar
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp mustard seeds
- dill

Wash and cube the veggies. Combine all the spices in a pot and let it come to a boil. Add the onion pieces there and cook for about five minutes. Add the cucumbers and bell pepper as well. Turn off the stove.

When the relish has cooled down, spoon it into clean and preferably sterilized glass jars. Move into a cool place, except the jar you intend to devour first.

Nutritional values / 2110 g:
energy 1011 kcal
fat 1 g
protein 12 g
carbohydrates 222 g
fiber 15 g

Soy Kebakkos ‒ Soijakebakot

I always thought kebakkos are about as boring as food can get, but actually they're an interesting example of fusion kitchen. Guess this only proves how blind you can get for things common in your own culture. Somehow it should've been oblivious as the name already is a combination of Finnish and Turkish. The Finnish word kepakko means a stick. The Turkish word kebab apparently in English-speaking world usually refers to meat in a skewer, in Turkey to any kind of meat prepared over or next to a living fire and in Finland has come to mean certain type of spicy meat dish cut from a large skewer into strips.

Kebakkos became a popular dish somewhere in the 80's in the same time when Turkish immigrants and their restaurants started to appear in Finnish city environment. They are nowadays sold as a convenience food and at least in my childhood were served at school meals. The dish combines Turkish kebab with Finnish meatloaf. The stick makes them easy to dip and they also fit with such typical Finnish sidekicks as mashed potatoes. I find them an ideal food to warm up in grill or on the flames of a campfire.

- 400 g tomato sauce
- 4 dl soy crumble
- 1 large potato
- water (about 1 dl)
- 1 onion
- 1 dl bread crumble
- 0.5 dl rape oil
- 0.5 dl soy sauce
- your favourite chili sauce
- (smoked) paprika
- marjoram
- black pepper

Cook and mash the potato. Mince and sauté the onion. Mix all the ingredients together. Add water enough to get a structure that feels easy to mold.

Between your hands or with a help of a baking sheet, roll into bars. Place into sticks. Cook in a 200°C oven for about 20-30 minutes or until the surface looks good. If you're going to barbeque them up in a grill later, oil the surface before that so they won't dry up. With my experience of grills, I'd recoomend precooking in the oven anyway.

This could be served with just salad and a good dip sauce, but this time we had it with cauliflower purée.

Nutritional values / 990 g:
energy 1280 kcal
fat 69 g
protein 62 g
carbohydrates 103 g
fiber 26 g

Pickles ‒ Suolakurkut

Hey who took the summer away? Didn't August used to be the most summery month or is my memory playing tricks on me?

Though I already opened the mushroom season yesterday I thought that before mushroom recipes I ought to post you something I got started two weeks ago: pickles. Finns love them on rye bread, as a sidekick and especially with fast food. There are basically four common variations that can of course be seasoned creatively.

1. Suolakurkku is pickled in salty brine. This is what I prepared after I got to watch some example from a certain lady from Eastern Karelia and realized how simple it really is.
2. Etikkakurkku is preserved in sweet vinegar brine. A common mistake is using way too much vinegar. Think this is the most common variation in the rest of Scandinavia.
3. Maustekurkku or herkkukurkku may contain both salt and vinegar but instead of them the taste should be ruled by spices. These tend to be on the sweet side as well.
4. Hapankurkku aka Russian suolakurkku is also pickled in salty brine but the pickles are turned sour, for example with a sour bread piece or some yogurt as a starter. I've never seen these sold in your average supermarket.

- garden cucumbers (as many as you can cram into your largest glass jar)
- enough water to fill the jar
- 25 g salt for every water litre
- for seasoning black currant leaves, mustard seeds, whole black peppers, garlic cloves, dill flowers and/or horseradish

Wash the cucumbers and let them soak in water overnight. In the morning, arrange the cucumbers into your jar together with the spices ‒ whole or sliced. If you're using black currant leaves wrap them around the cucumbers. Boil up the water and dissolve the salt. Pour the hot water on the cucumbers. Make sure that all the cucumbers are fully covered underneath the water since contact with air makes them rotten. Close the lid and move into a cool place. The pickles should be ready in about two weeks.

If you replace about ten percent of the water with vodka the pickles should better hold on to their beautiful green colour. For less traditional versions ginger and cinnamon also make nice spices. After you've eaten the pickles, the brine itself is an excellent basis for many soups.

Hot Dog Rieska ‒ Nakkikojurieska

The Eurovision Song Contest is always a big event in Finland. Our contestant for this year was selected last weekend here in Tampere. One of my big time favourite bands Eläkeläiset turned out too much for people who haven't followed their entire career but luckily the winner isn't bad either. As a consolation for losing the perfect excuse for going to Oslo I made myself some comfort food.

I understand this may not look that delicious but do trust me for a while. This way of using rieska is actually more popular in Swedish fast food places but I sure hope it would catch fire here as well. If you rather use a simpler rieska version you can do what Swedes do and use mashed potatoes as a filling. Actually, I think that might work better since I had some hard time keeping the whole thing together.

The rieska:
- 1 cooked potato (cold)
- 1 dl barley flour
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 0.5 dl icy water (or oat milk)
- salt

The filling:
- 2 tablespoons sauerkraut (or pickle relish)
- mustard
- ketchup
- 2 wieners (I used store-bought ones with a seitan base but you can also make your own along these lines)

Warm up a frying pan. Mash the potato and mix it with the other rieska ingredients, preferably without using your hand as it's important to keep the paste cold. Form a flat, round bread and throw it on the hot and dry pan. Flip around after a moment. You shouldn't overcook as the structure easily becomes too crumbling for rolling (like mine once again did).

Warm up the wieners. Place the sauerkraut in the middle of the rieska, then the heated dogs on the sauerkraut and decorate with mustard and ketchup. Wrap up the package and enjoy between your hands, together with a fizzy drink and some humppa music (here's a suggestion).

Nutritional values / 385 g:
energy 743 kcal
fat 15 g
protein 44 g
carbohydrates 106 g
fiber 11 g

Sausages ‒ Makkarat

According to a common saying the most popular vegetable in Finland is sausage. Well, our little household certainly proves the point as we always have soy sausages in the fridge. I never thought about making them myself before I found VeganDad's recipes. And you know what? It turned out to be quite easy. The only real problem with them is that they're too good and I end up eating them all on their own without any veggies or other sidekicks ‒ not such a great idea to fill your stomach with protein only. Ouch.

- 1.5 dl fava beans (or peas)
- 3 dl seitan flour
- 270 g extra firm tofu (or hefu)
- 1 dl tar liqueur
- 0.5 dl nutritional yeast
- 1 dose of stock
- 0.5 dl mustard
- 5 red and green chili peppers
- onion powder
- caraway
- salt
- folio
(- rape oil)

Mash the beans. Chop the chili. Crumble the tofu. Mix everything together with your hand. Divide in six pieces and shape into phallic symbols. Wrap them tightly into folio and steam for 45 minutes.

Nutritional values / 1 sausage / 158 g (without the oil and once again, liqueur):
energy 291 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 34 g
carbohydrates 18 g
fiber 6 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