Salmiakki Sauce for Seitan and Beet ‒ Salmiakkikastike seitanille ja punajuurelle

When I dine at a restaurant I find it very pleasant if the menu clearly states what's in a given dish, for example "Chili rubbed seitan steak, raspberry vinegar marinated beets and salmiakki sauce". It gives me as a customer much better idea of what to order if the name isn't just some fancy French word I don't know how to pronounce. But when I see this elsewhere, peculiarly in recipes, for some reason I find it annoying and just trying to sound fancy, for example "engine oil rubbed Tavastian soap with small stones and slowly caramellized rubber". It's really a combination of the different ingredients or even separate dishes, and guess my logic goes that this means that any given part of that plate isn't really worth repeating or at least the recipe writer doesn't believe it is. Guess I'm only annoyed because this has becme some sort of a fad among Finnish celebrity chefs. Anyway, I try to avoid that happening in my recipes, although I realize I might just have an attitude problem. Sometimes the combination of tastes truly is the more important thing than any given part of it. Taste pairing might just be the single most important part of kitchen art.

This is the case of this recipe too. Although the part needing a recipe is really just for the sauce, I couldn't help but putting a suggestion of what comes under the sauce in the headline. These three tastes are just fine on their own, but they work especially well together, so I thought to highlight the combo. The idea came from a salmiakki marinated beet starter dish, created by a salmiakki making company, but I thought to turn it into an entrée. For the seitan, I used chili in the dough and fried them well in oil. For the beets, I sliced them thin, drizzled with oil and raspberry vinegar, as well as spiced with salt and thyme before roasting them in the oven long just long enough to still have them crunchy. The portion is crowned by the sauce which has a lot subtler aroma than you might think.

- 150 g salmiakki candy (hard ones are best in this, I used Turkinpippuri) + 1 dl water
 - 4 dl strong vegetable bouillon
- 1 dl white wine
- 2 tbsp margarine
- 2 tbsp wheat flour
- black pepper
- salt

Prepare a salmiakki syrup by putting the candies in a small bowl and pouring water on them just enough to get them covered. Turn around with a spoon when you walk by. Dissolving only takes a few hours, so if you start in the previous evening, you can be sure they'll make it in time.

Melt the margarine in a sauce pan. Shift the flour on the melted stuff and stir. Pour in the stock before the roux start to turn brown (unlike in basic brown sauce). Let the sauce thicken on a low heat, stirring occasionally. Add the salmiakki syrup and the wine. Let the sauce reduce until the consistency is thick enough to stay on the seitan. Spice with salt and pepper according to your taste buds.

Nutritional values / 798 g:
energy 882 kcal
fat 22 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 144 g
fiber 1 g

Soy Stroganoff ‒ Soijastroganov

There's a lot of debate about what the original Stroganoff's beaf contained. There was an influential Stroganoff family who used to own practically half the Siberia. A recipe bearing their name was created in the 18th century, perhaps by one of their French chefs. Of the many competing recipes some feature mushrooms, sour cream, mustard or onions while others don't. Most versions of today mention tomato paste though tomatoes weren't even known in Russia at the time.

With not enough historical knowledge I'm not going to take part in this guessing game. Instead, I'm going to tell you how a dish called stroganoff became popular in the Nordic countries during the last century. In Finland different versions of it were served at practically every gas station. One very staple item in them, along with some form of meat and tomato paste, is pickles- Especially sausage stroganoff is still thought as a typical Finnish home food.

Sausages are fine too, but I used textured soy protein strips to make a cheap and easy winter dinner.

- 125 g soy strips
- 2 onions
- 2 pickles
- 2 dl oat cream
- 0.5 dl tomato paste
- 1 tbsp mustard
- 1 dose of stock
- oil for frying

Cook the soy strips for ten minutes in stock flavoured water. Chop and sauté the onions. Drain the soy strips and add them on the same pot with the onions.  Dice the pickles. Mix everything and let it simmer for ten more minutes.

Serve with barley or potatoes.

Nutritional values / 917 g:
energy 1052 kcal
fat 51 g
protein 74 g
carbohydrates 74 g
fiber 29 g

Lingonberry Rönttönens ‒ Puolukkarönttöset

Back to Finnish pie specialities. Before I've written about "regular" Karelian pies, with turnip and a more modern filling idea. I've also written about vatruskas of Ilomantsi, supikases and lihapiirakkas. But there are numerous more of them to go.

This has been a bad berry year. Normally there's an overlap of bilberry and lingonberry season, but this time bilberries vanished before I really picked them and lingonberries haven't really appeared either. I hear my friends in the western coast hoard buckets of them though, so perhaps I'm just going to the wrong woods. now that my spouse's mum sent us some of the lingonberries she had picked, I thought I'd finally try making rönttönens.

Rönttönens are considered a speciality of the Kainuu region. They resemble Karelian pies a lot but are rounder, larger and their crust nearly always contains wheat flour besides rye. Typically the filling is made of potato and lingonberries. In the traditional version they are sweetened naturally with low heat with the same method as tuuvinki or mämmi, which together with lingonberries produces a unique flavour for sweet and sour lovers. These days the sweetening is usually done with added sugar like in this quickie version. I got 15 pies from this portion.

The crust:
- 5 dl rye flour
- 2 dl wheat flour
- 3 dl water
- salt

The filling:
- 6 cooked potatoes
- 7 dl lingonberries
- 2 dl rye flour
- 0.5 dl sugar
- salt

For buttering:
- 100 g margarine
- 2 dl oat milk

Knead the crust ingredients together. Cover with a towel and leave to rest for 2–3 hours.

Mash the potatoes and the lingonberries. Mix all the filling ingredients. Roll the crust as thin as you can, flouring the surface so it won't stick to the table or rolling pin. Take circles of about 15 centimetres in diameter from it. Pile them with flour added between them to prevent from drying or sticking together.

Spread a thin layer of the filling on each circle. Lift about a centimetre of their edges and make wrinkles between your fingers so they'll hold up.


Bake in a 250°C oven for 15 minutes. Melt the margarine and mix with the milk. Grease each rönttönen when they come out of the oven. Cover with a towel when they're still hot to help them soften.

Enjoy with hot coffee or tea.

Nutritional values / 1 pie / 149 g:
energy 220 kcal
fat 6 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 36 g
fiber 7 g

Creamy Plum Sauce ‒ Kermainen luumukastike

About a year ago when I had a big bag of freshly picked plums I tried them in a bit of everything. Jams, liqueur, pies and other desserts, as such... One of the best ideas was a sauce I threw together on a spot. Can't remember what an earth I put into it but today I thought I'd try something similar. After licking the plate my spouse announced this just became one of his favourite dishes, which sounded like an indication of me needing to prepare it again. So perhaps this time I ought to write it down.

The important part of this sauce are those small and very, very sour plums. If you can only find sweet ones, try with some other fuits or bring in something else to add sourness and remove the syrup respectively.

- 9 plums
- 4 dl oat cream
- 1 red onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 chili pepper
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tbsp rape oil
- 1 tbsp dark syrup
- green pepper
- smoked paprika
- cinnamon

Chop the onion and sauté in oil. When it's turned transparent, add the cream. Remove the stones from the plums, cut smaller if needed and add them into the pot. Spice. Cook with mild heat until the plums have fallen apart and the consistency of the sauce seems nice. Remember to stir.

Serve as the perfecting element of a savory dinner.

Nutritional values / 942 g:
energy 845 kcal
fat 54 g
protein 12 g
carbohydrates 75 g
fiber 11 g

Rhubarb Chutney with Chili ‒ Chilinen raparperihilloke

Before 18th century Finns usually acquired sourness to food by using levain. Then vinegar was introduced and eventually it became really popular. In restaurants and higher class families it used to be a basic table condiment along with salt and pepper. But in Finland vinegar usually meant white vinegar made from barley spirits whereas in Southern Europe vinegar used in food is nearly always made from different wines.

I have a small collection of different vinegars in the kitchen closet, but my most trustworthy bottle lives in the bathroom. I tend to use apple wine vinegar in everything from cooking to cleaning to hair and fabric conditioner. It's a different thing than apple cider vinegar which the English speaking world seems to be most attracted to and which I don't believe I've ever even seen. From what I can gather, apparently their acidity is about the same but apple wine vinegar has a mellower and perhaps fruitier taste from the two.

This recipe however uses the classic white vinegar which has as high as 10% amount of ethanolic acid but is otherwise rather odorless and colourless. In case you want to replace it with some other type, you probably need a bit more and you'll also get yet another taste in the mix. The rhubarb itself is also sour of course, so I used sugar to round the taste a bit. It became a wonderful condiment for the first barbecue of this summer, together with cherry tomato, tempeh and zucchini skewers as well as this year's last asparagus rolled in seitan.

- 800 g rhubarb stalks
- 1 onion
- 1 bell pepper
- 3 chili peppers (I used aji benitos)
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 dl farine sugar (or muscovada)
- 0.5 dl white vinegar
- 1 tsp salt
- cinnamon
- cardamom

Chop the veggies. Put everything in the same pot. Cook about half an hour and stir every now and then. Let the chutney cool down. Pour it in clean glass jars. Let it rest for couple of days.

Serve as a condiment with any dish. Works especially well on any grilled or deep fried dishes.

Nutritional values / 1422 g:
energy 1069 kcal
fat 1 g
protein 12 g
carbohydrates 239 g
fiber 18 g

Rhubarb Tart with White Chocolate ‒ Valkosuklaa-raparperipiirakka

I'm now going to post something that probably hundreds of other food bloggers are posting within a week. This is the rhubarb season, and the most classic thing to make from the excess of rhubarbs so many people seem to get from their garden is a tart or pie. Sometimes I wish this wonderfully sour plant would get to be used a bit more creatively, but then again, classics are usually classics for a reason. This year I tried to find some variation to the classic by combining the sourness of rhubarb to the rounded taste of white chocolate, which complements it just wonderfully especially when still a bit melted.

This base fits into many types of pies and tarts so if you want to variate it, try adding cocoa powder or replacing some of the flour with something crunchier like rye flour.

Basic shortcrust pastry:
- 150 g margarine
- 4 dl wheat flour
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 0.5 dl cold water
- 1 tsp baking powder

Filling:
- 5 rhubarb stalks
- 200 g white chocolate (milk-free white chocolates seem to have huge differences so taste before deciding which one to use)
- 5 dl soy yogurt (or oat)
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
- mint

Pick the sugar and the margarine together between your fingers. Add the flour, mixed with the baking powder. Keep picking until you have a bowl full of crumby mixture. Knead it together with the water to acquire a paste. Move in the fridge for a while.

While the dough is cooling down, prepare the filling. Chop the rhubarb and sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Either chop the chocolate into flakes with a knife or use a blender. Mix with the yogurt and the sugar. Spice with dried mint.

Spread the dough into your mold. Cover with rhubarb pieces. Cover the rhubarb pieces with the yogurt mixture. The idea here is to leave the rhubarb deliciously sour but place it between two sweet layers.

Bake in a 200°C oven for 45 minutes or until the yogurt has coagulated and perhaps even got some colour. If you want the structure to hold together better, you'll need the patience of an elephant: let it cool down well, perhaps even spend the night in the fridge before serving.

Nutritional values / 1890 g:
energy 3771 kcal
fat 126 g
protein 64 g
carbohydrates 341 g
fiber 25 g

Quickie Ice Cream ‒ Pikajäätelö

Today it already felt like summer and people were lying on the grass as I walked through a park. I have a feeling this summer I'll be making a lot of ice creams again ‒ they're simple and much tastier than store-bought ones. Plus, you get to experiment with your personal favourite ingredients and different bases. My flat mate has an ice cream maker I still haven't tried but the bowl part needs to be put into freezer a day before making the treat so it's not suitable for instant urges. For that kind of situations I recommend a banana based quick version of ice cream or sorbet. So every time your bananas start to look overdone, peel and chop them and move into freezer to wait for the ice cream moment. Multiply the ingredient amounts of this recipe with the amount of eaters.

- 1 ripe, frozen banana
- 1 dl frozen lingonberries (or any other berries)
- 1 dl soy yogurt (or vegetable cream of your choise)
- cardamom

Blend the yogurt and the berries together. Then add banana chunks to the mass and smoothen. If the banana chunks or berries are too tough for your blender, let them melt but only ten minutes or so. If the taste seems too sour for your liking, add some powdered sugar or other sweetener. Decorate with a pinch of cardamom.

Nutritional values / 310 g:
energy 396 kcal
fat 3 g
protein 7 g
carbohydrates 34 g
fiber 5 g

Cider Sauce with Juniper Berries ‒ Katajanmarjoilla höystetty siiderikastike

I've had some cider and juniper berries waiting for the next time I'll make seitan for a while now. Laura in her blog Kasvisruokaa has created an excellent sounding marinade from juniper, garlic and rosemary, but as at the moment I was thinking what we'd eat today, waiting untill the next night to get seitan properly marinated seemed like forever. So instead, I made a sauce from the cider and spiced it up with juniper and rosemary. The taste is quite strong and wouldn't fit together with terribly many things, but for a good seitan steak it's just perfect. Cider gives it a very zesty basic taste while juniper adds up a more foresty flavour. And while I was busy with this, my spouse cooked us an accompaniment that reminds me of Hungaria, paprika potatoes. I'll give ten points to this dinner.

- 5 dl dry apple cider (please stay away from those carbonated sugar drinks)
- 6 juniper berries
- 1 tbsp margarine
- 2 tbsp wheat flour
- allspice
- rosemary
- salt

Pour the cider in a small pot. Crush the juniper berries and add them as well as the allpsice and the rosemary. Cook until the cider has reduced to half. Take aside (and if you're feeling energetic, fish out the spices). Prepare a roux as if you were making a basic brown sauce. That means melt the margarine, sift in the flower and keep stirring until things turn all nice and golden (but not black, hopefully). Pour the reducer cider back on, add some salt and remove from the stove.

Nutritional values / 534 g:
energy 336 kcal
fat 11 g
protein 3 g
carbohydrates 23 g
fiber 1 g

Mint and Black Currant Smoothie ‒ Minttu-mustaherukkapirtelö

I haven't shared much smoothie or milkshake recipes since I feel they're something that don't need much of a recipe. I mean, you just blend together any fruits and berries yu happen to have, and getting a terrible tasting combination is just rather unlikely. Besides, everyone has their own personal taste preferences with them. But even the most experienced smoothie makers can use some fresh ideas so they wouldn't end up doing just that one and the same thing every time. This is why I thought I'd start sharing some ideas for combinations I've found especially great. After all, I do post salads as well.

- 200 g frozen black currant
- 1 small bunch of fresh mint leaves
- 5 dl soy yogurt

Crush the berries. Then add rest of the ingredients. In  case you found this too sore for your liking, add sugar carefully to balance it out. Enjoy.

Beetroot Soup with Potato Dumplings ‒ Punajuuri-perunamykykeitto

All beetroot soups aren't borschtes, just like all cold tomato soups aren't gazpachos. According to Jaakko Rahola's excellent food glossary, borsch is a hot or cold Eastern European soup consisting of different vegetables. In Russia, these veggies always include beet and fermented broth used for pickling the beets, giving its distinctive taste which for most Finns is way too sour. One ingredient it never ever includes is vinegar, which by comparison is nearly always found from Finnish beetroot soups. So I wouldn't call this pink treat with the name of the famous Russian stuff but there is nevertheless a lot of resemblance with the neighbor. Shall we say it has a rather Eastern Finnish cling to it.

Then again, I topped my soup with dumplings which are more of a Western Finnish thing. Myky or more often klimppi is basically the same stuff as Russian pelmeni, German knödel, Italian gnocchi and numerous other dishes found around the world. But for some reason mykys aren't nearly as popular. In fact, many modern day Finns seem to find the whole idea of them repulsive. This shall definitely change if I can do anything about it!

- 5 beetroots (plus their leaves if you manage to acquire them intact)
- 300 g cabbage
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 1 apple
- 1 sausage
- 1 dose of stock
- 2 tablespoons rape oil
- 1 tablespoon vinegar
- 1 tablespoon ketchup
- 1 small bunch of thyme
- 1 dried chili pepper
- salt
- 2 l water

For the mykys:
- 5 cooked potatoes
- 1 dl semolina
- soup broth for boiling

Peel the root vegetables and shred them. Cook them together with the water and the spices. In the meanwhile, shred the cabbage and cook it on a frying pan with oil until it has softened up. Add the cabbage into the soup pot. Chop the sausage, the apple and the onion and roast them a bit on the pan as well. Add into the pot with the rest. The soup is ready when the beetroot pieces have turned soft.

If you wish to have mykys as well, simply mash the potatoes and mix the semolina thoroughly with them. Shape small balls out of the mass, a dessert spoonful at a time. Take enough broth from the soup to fill a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Drop the balls into the boiling broth carefully one at a time. Let them simmer for about ten minutes. Serve with the soup.

Nutritional values / 3773 g:
energy 1420 kcal
fat 36 g
protein 62 g
carbohydrates 198 g
fiber 40 g

Tomato Morsels ‒ Suupalatomaatit

These are very simple cocktail bites to emphasize the pour goodness known as cherry tomatoes. I was pondering what to use as the filling when I came across this blog post. I guess you could grill them while you're at it but why bother?

- 250 g cherry tomatoes
- 2 dl thick nut yogurt (I used macademias)
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme (or herb of your choice)

Mince the thyme and mix with the nut paste. Hollow out the tomatoes. (Use the insides later in a soup or a sauce.) Refill with the nutty sourness.

Enjoy with black currant jam.

Nutritional values / 310 g:
energy 461 kcal
fat 44 g
protein 6 g
carbohydrates 17 g
fiber 9 g

Rhubarb Sandwiches ‒ Raparperileivät

It's too hot to cook or stay inside. But when I come home I need something easy to prepare. This combination is one of the results of me trying to find new ways to utilize rhubarb. It's a surprisingly new species. It didn't become wide-spread before 19th century in Finland and wasn't even considered edible at first. Most Finns still don't like the overwhelming sourness as such but it's perfectly possible to prepare it in ways that don't ruin the characteristic taste and this doesn't always mean sweet dishes.

- 1 small rhubarb stalk or a piece from a bigger one
- 2 rye bread slices
- 2 slices blue-style soy cheese
- 0.5 tablespoons margarine
- 1 teaspoon dark syrup

Cut the rhubarb in pieces. Toast the bread slices and butter them. Arrange the rhubarb on the slices, pour the syrup on them and top with soy cheese. Heat just enough to warm the toppings.

Nutritional values / 132,5 g:
energy 253 kcal
fat 12 g
protein 7 g
carbohydrates 27 g
fiber 6 g

Viili

The most discussed cook book over the last few years has most certainly been Natural Harvest - quite an interesting phenomena to anyone even slightly interested in cultural taboos. Semen and this viili I just made have at least two things in common. The oblivious one is the way they look. The second one is that strictly speaking, neither one is a vegan ingredient. But as I found out, viili could be.

Viili is a fermented milk product popular around Scandinavia and probably my personal favourite. Compared to yogurt it's rather sour and has a structure much more ropy (here's a demonstration). It can be eaten as such or with jam, talkkuna or ryecrisp pieces. I've never seen it sold vegan but it turned out just as easy to prepare with vegetable milks as it is with cow milk. Micro organisms usually aren't too picky.

You need couple of spoonfuls from an older viili batch to get the bacteria. This is most easily done by buying a jar of non-vegan viili, unless you have a chance to come and get some straight from me. Then you just need to fill the cup with milk, mix it a bit and leave uncovered on some warm place overnight. Next day you can refrigerate the cup. It takes a few more days for the taste to evolve right. Check now and then to find your preferred intensity.

The front cup in the photo with the velvety fungus surface is made out of soy milk. I used a sweetened brand but the basic taste was quickly run over by the characteristic taste of viili. The oat version didn't look as adorable but I actually preferred its taste. Oat milk is usually much thinner, forms some watery spots and takes longer to mature so I used a dollop of oat cream in it as well. The result can be seen in the background.

Yogurt ‒ Jukurtti

Soy yogurt is sold in every food store I use. It's a nicely multifunctional thing in cooking but sometimes you want some extra flavour. Luckily, making different yogurt varieties yourself couldn't get any easier.

All you need is some nuts, oatmeal or seeds. First soak them overnight and in the case of nuts and seeds, drain and rinse. You can even sprout the seeds a little. Then you just have to purée the ingredients with some water. (The idea is basically to get unfiltered vegetable milk or cream so it's more complicated process when making soy yogurt. Like this.) Pour the cream into a non-metal container and let it go sour on the kitchen table for couple of days (taste every now and then to decide the best length for you) and refrigerate if you're not using it right away. Don't bother to cover the bowl or glass unless you have pets or an insect problem. Just check there's enough water for the yogurt to swallow. Some people like to add some of their own bacteria starters (usually the remains of the previous yogurt) before the fermenting to get more health benefits or speed up the process.

I thought I'd compare different sorts of yogurts a bit which is why there are as many as four of them in the photo. The ingredients from left to right are rye flakes, oatmeal and sprouted buckwheat, pine nuts and finally hazel nuts. The structure depends on the initial amount of water but generally nuts make creamier yogurts than flakes since they contain more fat. For the same reason, you can clearly see how water separates from the nut cream during the process. Think the oat version has the most pleasing sourness of these. On the other hand, the hazel version has the most recognizable original flavour left.

Besides sauces and other cooking, these yogurts can of course be eaten on their own or crowned with berries and talkkuna.

Rosolli

Happy Winter Solstice!
Well, actually that was yesterday but I was celebrating it in Estonia. That's when the holiday starts for me, lasting all the way to Talvennapa (January 13th), supposedly the coldest day of the year. Meanwhile, the Sun is sleeping so we have to light candles instead and feast.

One of those dishes that really make my Joulu is rosolli. Think I could eat a whole bucket of it. Rosolli or sallatti is a simple beetroot salad known in all of northern side of Europe from Netherlands to Russia. The name rosolli comes from Russian rosol, meaning salty. Of course everybody uses a bit different amounts, some leave apple or onion out altogether and some even put salted herring in it. But here's a recipe to start with.

- 4 beetroots
- 3 potatoes
- 3 carrots
- 1 apple
- 1 onion
- 2 pickles

Cook and peel the root vegetables. Cut all the ingredients into cubes. Mix. Serve cold, possibly together with whipped oat cream coloured and spiced with the vinegary pickling juice of beetroots.

Nutritional values / 1350 g:
energy 475 kcal
fat 1 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 96 g
fiber 25 g

Sea Buckthorn and Carrot Sauce ‒ Tyrni-porkkanakastike

There are some ingredient combinations that are like made to fit together and bring out the best from each other, like turnip and tar, dark chocolate and red wine, strawberries and rhubarb or rye and bilberries. Well, the consort determined for carrots in the beginning of times is apparently sour berries. Sea buckthorn and rowan berries of course have a different taste, but with carrot they work the same way.

An ideal place to take advantage of such unions are often sauces. This one tastes rather sweet-and-sour and needs something with more substance than plain pasta to work, for example this.

- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 4 dl water
- 0.5 dl sea buckthorn (or rowan) berries
- 0.5 tablespoon apple wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons brandy
- 1 tablespoon potato flour (or other thickener)
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- salt
- aniseed

Mince the onion and sauté it in oil. Slice the carrot and add into the kettle. When the carrot slices have softened, add the rest of the ingredients. Sift the potato flour so it won't clump. The sauce is ready when it thickens up.

Nutritional values / 5 dl :
energy 225 kcal
fat 7 g
protein 2 g
carbohydrates 21 g
fiber 6 g

Salty Mushroom Salad ‒ Suolasienisalaatti

One of the classic ways to pickle mushrooms for the winter is blanching them with salt. And a classic way to use the blanched mushrooms is of course a creamy salad. This recipe starts from fresh mushrooms but is really meant for blanched ones.

- 500 g mushrooms (for example russulas or milk-caps)
- salt
- 1 onion
- 2 tablespoon vegan mayonnaise
- 1 dl soy yogurt
- punch of fresh chives
- black pepper
- sugar (just a pinch to break the sour taste)

Chop the mushrooms and blanch them in salty water. Cut the onion and the chives into lengthy pieces. Put everything into the same bowl and mix up.

Nutritional values / 760 g:
energy 401 kcal
fat 19 g
protein 19 g
carbohydrates 24 g
fiber 9 g

Blins ‒ Linnit

Remeber when I frowned upon vegan caviar? Well of course I had to try it. I've never eaten roe so can't say if it reminded that or not but I did love the taste and the structure. And so did my seaweed hating spouse so I guess we'll be buying these again. Wonder if something like this could be made home?

The natural thing to eat with caviar is of course blins. Finns usually think them as a Russian dish but in Russia the word may mean any kind of pancakes. In Finland the name always means small, round and above all, sour pancakes made from buckwheat. They're the salty option for sweeter pancakes that are usually eaten as a dessert.

I've tried many recipes for blins but before this all of them have involved eggs. Now that I left eggs out I couln't tell the difference. I used this recipe with couple of minor changes.

- 3 dl oat milk
- 2 dl soy yoghurt
- 15 g yeast
- 3 dl buckwheat flour
- 1 dl spelt flour
- 1 tsp dark syrup
- 1 tsp salt
- 50 g margarine
- 1 dl beer, for example Lammin käki or Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA
- rape oil for frying (about 2 tbsp)

Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm milk. Mix in the yoghurt, the flours and the syrup. Cover the bowl with a towel and leave in a warm place for couple of hours.

Melt the margarine and whisk it in as well as the salt and the beer. Fry small pancakes with plenty of oil.

Besides red Caviart we enjoyd these with fried shiitake mushrooms, minced onion, pickle slices and whipped soy cream. Yummy!

Nutritional values / 1000 g:
energy 2259 kcal
fat 73 g
protein 50 g
carbohydrates 244 g
fiber 19 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