Mämmi Pizza ‒ Mämmipitsa

This time of the year every place seems to be filled with pie recipes featuring quark and canned peach halves. Those round, bright yellow peaches look like egg yoiks and are a great symbol for the rebirth of the Sun and the nature. I got a bit fed up with quark after pasha and so I thought I'd try a salty version.

The recipe for the crust comes from Ahmed Ladarsi and the sauce is basically Jo Stepaniak's gooey grill sandwich filling. The latter one could've been a bit thinner and the amount sufficient for two pizzas or a gratin. But at least both turned out tasty. Next time I think I'll fry the tempeh, precook the crust and just warm up the whole.

The crust:
- 200 g (1.5-2 dl) mämmi, not artificially sweetened
- 1 dl rye flour
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 1 dl water
- 20 g yeast
- salt
- 1 tablespoon rape oil

The sauce:
- 2 dl water
- 0.5 dl mutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons pea flour
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons tahini
- 1.5 tablespoons ketchup
- 2 teaspoons potato flour
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 2 garlic cloves
- turmeric
- mustard powder
- salt

The filling:
- 150 g tempeh
- 5 canned peach halves
- 1 dl tomato sauce
- rosemary or marjoram
- black pepper

Dissolve the yeast and the salt into lukewarm water. Knead in the mämmi and the flour. Cover with a towel and let the dough rise for about an hour in a warm place.

In the meanwhile, whisk the sauce ingredients together in a sauce pan to avoid clumps. Let the mixture come to a boil, move aside from the stove and whisk a bit more.

Spread the dough on a baking sheet. Mine came out ⌀ 27 cm. Brush with oil. Sprinkle with pepper. Slice the tempeh. Arrange the slices and peach halves on the pizza. Cover with the sauce and sprinkle with rosemary. Bake until golden (about twenty minutes in 200°C).

Enjoy after cooled down a bit with your favourite chili sauce.

Nutritional values / 1321 g:
energy 1577 kcal
fat 52 g
protein 67 g
carbohydrates 216 g
fiber 35 g

Malty Seed Bread ‒ Maltainen siemenvuokaleipä

Continuing with the theme "how to use the leftover mash from beer brewing". An oblivious use is of course baking bread. This particular recipe is mostly based on this mämmi bread and this flax bread.

- 5 dl water
- 50 g yeast
- 5 dl barley mash
- about 12 dl dark wheat flour
- 1 dl flax or hemp seeds
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 tablespoon dark syrup
- aniseed

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm water. Mix in the mash, most of the seeds, the syrup and the aniseed. Add the flour little by little, keep stirring all the time. Last but not least, throw in the salt and mix it well.

Now you should have a runny dough. Pour it into an oiled baking tin. Cover with a towel and leave it in some warm place for an hour. Sprinkle the remaining seeds on the bread for decoration. Bake in a 200°C oven for about forty minutes.

Nutritional values / 1500 g:
energy 3630 kcal
fat 45 g
protein 134 g
carbohydrates 650 g
fiber 82 g

Mash Cake ‒ Mäskikakku

It's not that easy to decide what kind of food to make for Kekri. Nearly all of our Kekri traditions and dishes are nowadays known as Christmas traditions and dishes. But somehow malty flavours and food with a lot of grain seem the most appropriate to me.

I'm currently trying to brew some sahti for a 20 person's Kekri feast. (Yikes!) Of course there's always that leftover - a big pot of barley mash - so I've also been trying to make up some uses for it. This cake recipe uses the leftover mash after the wort has been drained from it. I think it'd be pretty safe to replace it with (unknown amount of) non-used malts or mämmi if you just check that the structure seems moist enough.

At first I thought I'd use the mämmi cake recipe The Finnish Mämmi Association gives but that had eggs in it and didn't seem that interesting otherwise either. So instead I kind of combined it with a Christmassy sounding sour milk cake recipe with some additions of my own.

- 3 dl barley mash
- 2 dl soy yogurt (apparently, soy milk thickened and soured with lemon juice should do as well)
- 1 dl potato flour
- 3.5 dl wheat flour
- 100 g margarine (for example Keiju 70%)
- 1.5 dl dark syrup
- 1.5 tsp soda
- 1 dl dried cranberries
- 1 dl dried apple pieces
- 1 dl brandy
- 1 tsp allspice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- margarine and breadcrumbs for the mold

Pour the brandy on the dried cranberries and apple pieces. Let them soak for a few hours. Mix the ingredients well together. Butter a cake mold and powder with breadcrumbs. Pour the paste in the mold and cook about an hour in a 175°C oven.

The cake is nicely spicy on its own but I decorated it with a mixture of cocoa butter, oat cream, icing sugar and a drop of lemon juice.

Nutritional values / 1100 g:
energy 3513 kcal
fat 74 g
protein 55 g
carbohydrates 495 g
fiber 32 g

Mämmi Patties ‒ Mämmipihvit

Most mämmi recipes are for desserts. Which is why I wanted to try a salty recipe I found from here, a bit veganized. I was very suspicious about them but at the end they did taste rather good. And even better cold in the next day. The mämmi however just somehow vanished so if you want to get the mämmi taste in them I recommend you try to increase the amount of it.

- 2 cooked potatoes
- 1.5 dl mämmi
- 2 dl soy yoghurt
- 2 dl wheat flour
- 100 g melting soy cheese
- 1 onion
- chive
- parsley
- black pepper
- salt
- rape oil for frying

Mash the potatoes. Grind the cheese. Chop the herbs and the onion. Sauté the onion. Mix everything together. Mold the paste into patties that you fry golden from both sides. (Got myself ten patties.) Put them in a 200°C oven for ten minutes. (Next time I think I'll keep them there a bit longer though.)

Nutritional values / 1 pattie:
energy 194.3 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 17.9 g
fiber 2.1 g

Mämmi Drink ‒ Mämmijuoma

I hope you understood to hoard lots of mämmi when it was at its cheapest right after Easter cause I'm planning to post my experiments on ways to use it. If you didn't, here's a recipe.

This is a slightly tuned version of Mämmijuoma in a cook book called Härkäpapua Sarvista (Irina Somersalo & al., Multikustannus 2007). This is anything but light but it does work as a great recovery drink after sports because of the high amoount of carbohydrates.

- 2 dl mämmi
- 5 dl cold oat milk
- 2 dl frozen bilberries (or fresh bilberries plus additional ice crush)
- 2 tbsp Vana Tallinn (An Estonian liqueur with a distinctive taste. If you can't find any, try cloudberry liqueur or coffee liqueur instead.)

Blend everything smooth. Decorate with bilberries. Enjoy with sunshine.

Nutritional values / 1 serving: (Without the Vana Tallinn)
energy 531 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 11 g
carbohydrates 104 g
fiber 20 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

Stock ‒ Liemipohja

One characteristic feature in Finnish cuisine is soups. They aren't just appetizers or snacks but quite often very filling main courses of the day. And all the cooks in the world know that the secret of a good soup is the broth, which is why they keep their special stock recipes secret. You should always have couple of different kinds of them available cause otherwies all your foods start to taste the same. Cooking a stock is all very easy but if you make a larger portion at once it quickens things up for busy days.

Some general guidelines:
1. Making a stock is a perfect way to recycle all the vegetable leftovers like peels and heads. If you use whole vegetables wash them normally and remove the clearly rotten parts but don't bother to peel. Remember you're not going to eat them.
2. Try to add something from all the basic tastes (except fat which has also got into this category lately): bitter, salty, sour, sweet and savory (aka umami).
3. Keep fat out of this since it doesn't store well. You can always add margarine or cream to the soup itself to make it richer.
4. Many alcohol drinks like wines or brandies fit this purpose well. But as much as I love beer this isn't the place for it since it turns bitter when boiled (as I learned when trying to make beer soup).
5. Don't exaggerate with any of the ingredients. If you want your broth to taste like white wine add white wine to the broth itself. Try to keep the stock well balanced and multifunctional.
6. Frying the veggies isn't necessary but it adds to the taste. The one you shouldn't fry is garlic since it may turn bitter.
7. If you for some weird reason want to clarify the stock use for example a clay called bentonite which is widely sold for winemaking.
8. When you're using the stock remember to let it come to a boil to get the taste out of it.
9. How much you should use the stock at once depends on your personal likings, the amount of other spices you're going to use and the denseness of your stock (aka how tighly you concentrate it). It may just as well be 2-3 ice cubes or 1 dl at a time.

Just to show you a couple of examples, here are the recipes for three stocks I've made so far. Next time I might try for example yeast pate (for example Tartex), cider, laurel, lovage, juniper berries or birch sap. Perhaps even a hint of strong tastes like salmiakki (Ammonium chloride), tar or horseradish might work.

Hearty stock:
- 0.5 rutabaga plus the skin and the head of the other half
- skins and heads of 500 g carrots
- skins and heads of 500 g beets
- 1 onion
- 1/2 garlic
- 1 punch of dill
- 8 whole black peppers
- 0.5 dl dark syrup
- 0.5 dl miso (dissolved in water)
- 0.5 dl apple wine vinegar (more aromatic than apple cider vinegar)
- 1 tsp monosodium glutamate
- 1 tsp salt

Zesty stock:
- leftovers from 1 white cabbage
- leftovers from 1 cauliflower
- cores and peels of 3 apples
- 1 sheet of algae (nori)
- 2 tsp dried yarrow flowers
- 2 dl white wine
- 0.5 dl lemon juice
- 0.5 dl mustard powder (Remember mustard condiment also contains oil and sugar.)
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp monosodium glutamate
- 1 tsp salt

Spicy stock:
- 1 leek
- 500 g tomatoes
- 1 bell pepper
- 1 chili pepper
- all the dried herbs I had in the closet but couldn't recognize anymore
- 2 dl red wine
- 0.5 dl mämmi
- 0.5 dl sea buckthorn juice
- 1 tsp monosodium glutamate
- 1 tsp salt

Chop and fry the veggies on a dry pan. Put them in a cattle with the rest of the ingredients and 1.5 litres of water. Let them simmer without a lid. The stock is ready when at least half of the liquid has vaporized and the veggies have turned mashy (after approximitely two hours). Filter the stock, pour it into an ice cube tray (if you've saved plastic soy yoghurt cups or such they're also ideal for this) and freeze. The part that didn't fit there stores a few days in the fridge.