Chocolate Waffles with Talkkuna and Berry Sauce ‒ Suklaavohlut talkkuna-marjakastikkeella

This isn't really a recipe but just a quick post about my evening snack on the other day. Funny how you get this squirrel mode on when it gets all dark and cold (I think -21°C on Monday was the record so far). I'm currently addicted into all things hot and filling, even overly sweet things which I don't care so much during summer.

The waffles in the photo are made with my basic rye waffle recipe, except that this time I added a few spoonfuls of cocoa powder and extra sugar. The real star was the sauce however. It consists of berries, sugar, some runny yogurt and about 1 dl of talkkuna, all blended together. As always, the berries are what ever I happened to grab from the freezer: sea buckthorn berries, lingonberries, bilberries and strawberries.

These paired rather nicely with the Swedish policeman Kurt Wallander (who has by the way taught me such wonderful expressions as "Finnish suicide").

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.

Talkkuna Ropsu ‒ Talkkunaropsu

A must have dessert after pea soup is ropsu. I use the South-Ostrobothnian name but most Finnish speakers call it with the word pannukakku which has the same origin as English word pancake. They have many things in common but this Finnish dish is thicker, bigger and cooked in the oven.

There are huge differences in ropsu recipes and I guess everyone just has to find their favourite through trial and error. This one gets extra flavour from talkkuna and cardamom as well as extra structure from oatmeal, yogurt and baking powder. I also use much lower temperature and less sweetening than most recipes I've seen. Actually, if I'm going to eat it with something overly sweet like jam I only use about 1 tablespoon. Most recipes use eggs which make the ropsu bubble unlike eggless versions ‒ some think it aesthetically pleasing and some are desperately trying to get rid of the phenomena.

This is easily turned into a salty version by dropping the sweetening altogether and adding some herbs like basil and marjoram. Or you might want to try other flavourings, say banana and cocoa powder.

- 1 l soy milk
- 4 dl spelt flour (or dark wheat flour)
- 1 dl talkkuna (can be replaced with more wheat flour)
- 1 dl oatmeal
- 1 dl soy yogurt
- 0.5 dl dark syrup (or sugar)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- cardamom (or some vanilla)
- salt (just a pinch)
- 3 tablespoons margarine

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the milk, the yogurt and the syrup. Whip whip whip. Let the batter rest for half an hour.

Warm up your oven to 175°C. Take a baking tray. (I've seen photos on the internet where people have tried to make these in a frying pan or some smallish casserole so let me stress this: you'll need a whole baking tray plus a sheet of parchment paper. If you only have a pan then make a smaller portion.) Put half of the margarine on it and stick it into the oven. When the tray has warmed up, take it out, spread the melted margarine evenly and pour the batter on it.

Cook your ropsu for half an hour on a low shelf. Take it out for a moment, top with margarine pieces and put on the top shelf for another fifteen minutes to get some colour. If you try the ropsu with a wooden stick at this point it should still feel sticky from the inside. Let it cool down before serving.

The classic sidekicks are strawberry jam and whipped cream. Instead of going to a food store just for oat cream I made a thick mousse from chocolate, fruity beer, half-frozen silken tofu, sugar and frozen berries. Part of the berries I just added on top. Voilá!

Nutritional values / 1555 g:
energy 2295 kcal
fat 55 g
protein 55 g
carbohydrates 339 g
fiber 34 g

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.

Karelian Pasties ‒ Karjalanpiirakat

Yesterday was Finland's Independence Day. In most countries, that's a lively carnival. In Finland it has evolved into a more dignified, even pious day, largely consisting of remembering World War II and honouring the veterans who ‒ as the only nation ‒ managed to fight back against Stalin's invasion. For my generation which doesn't even remember there ever existed a place called Soviet Union it's more about gathering together some friends, burning candles, eating well, talking about new laws that threaten our freedom of speech or right to privacy and of course, laughing at the dresses of the president's ball that YLE broadcasts every year.

While others played a game where you get a point every time you know a name of a ball guest and another one from knowing the reason they're invited I pinched up some Karelian pasties. From numerous hand-size Karelian pie types these are the ones that have an almost iconic status so I thought they'd make an appropriate snack for Independence Day. They have a thin rye crust and just about anything as a filling. Nowadays rice porridge is the filling number one and potato second but barley, talkkuna, buckwheat, carrot or rutabaga would make them a bit more "authentic" (what a terrible word). They can even have a sweet berry porridge inside. This time I used a simple turnip filling and a crust recipe straight from a flour bag.

The crust:
- 5.5 dl sifted rye flour (if you can only find normal kind you should replace some of it with wheat flour)
- 2 dl water
- 2 teaspoons salt

The rest:
- 1 kg turnip
- white pepper
- 100 g margarine
- 1 dl oat milk

Cook the turnips. Peel and mash them together with the pepper and half the margarine. While the filling cools down, mix the crust ingredients together with your hands. Roll the paste into a thin layer (use extra flour generously so it won't stick). Take circular pieces from the layer with the help of a floured water glass.

Now roll each circle into an oval. Lay a spoonful of turnip mash on it and fold the edges with your index finger and thumb, from both sides simultaneously, pinching "wrinkles" on the filling as you go along. Bake about fifteen minutes in a 275ºC oven.

Melt the rest of the margarine and add the milk into it. Butter the oven-fresh pastries from both sides and lay them into a bowl over each other. Cover with a towel and let them soften up for about an hour.

Serve hot or cold, perhaps together with tar syrup.

Nutritional values / 1785 g:
energy 2084 kcal
fat 82 g
protein 48 g
carbohydrates 284 g
fiber 78 g

Tokero

Talkkuna (or kama in Estonian) means a finely milled mixture of roasted grains or pea flour. The combination varies a lot according to the province, as well as the right way to eat it. Today it's mostly used in desserts but a hundred years ago it was combined practically with anything to form a quick snack. In Tavastia talkkuna was normally mixed with sour milk products but in South Ostrobothnia it was coped together with berries and in Savo it was used with pork lard. My home town even has a street named Tokerotie since during the building in the great hunger years the workers got talkkuna porridge for salary.

Talkkuna's taste is hard to describe. As a kid I hated it, now I've come to love the bizarre combination of chocolaty and malty flavours. I've often envied the way today's Estonian kitchen seems to use talkkuna much more creatively than Finns do. Even though our test group recently decided that an Estonian chocolate bar spiced with kama tasted like old stockings, I did notice that kama and coffee used in that bar might actually make a great combination. So here's a coffee-spiked simple talkkuna snack or dessert.

- 1 dl talkkuna
- 1 dl coffee (or to be a purist, water or oat milk)
- black currants
- raspberries
(- sugar)

Mix the talkkuna and the coffee. Top with berries. Sprinkle sugar on top if you wish.

Nutritional values / 200 g (without sugar):
energy 192 kcal
fat 2 g
protein 5 g
carbohydrates 36 g
fiber 7 g

Apple Goodness ‒ Omenahyve

My parents came for an Easter visit and since it's a couple of hours drive we decided we should prepare them a lunch. Of course they had eaten on their way here. Which was great since that way it didn't matter so much that I managed to bake a raw seitan roast. I kept it in the oven for 1.5 hours but apparently the frozen cranberries I stuffed it with barely managed to melt during that time. So we just ate potatoes and brown sauce with fried mushrooms and veggies.

Since I had exhausted all our baking powder and white flours the night before when trying to make a swiss roll (It came out a raw mush as well. Maybe there's just something wrong with our oven, not my cooking skills.) I made apple crumble for dessert. Luckily it came out perfect. Even my parents liked it though they usually make fun of everything I do. (Blame the oven!) Next time I think I'll try to add some rhubarb to bring more bitterness instead of the lemon juice.

- 5 large, bitter apples (or 10 small)
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- nutmeg
- cardamom
- 1 dl sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
- 2.5 dl rolled oats
- 100 g margarine (for example Keiju 70%)
- 1 dl talkkuna

Cut the apples in slices. Sprinkle them with the lemon juice, the cinnamon and dashes of nutmeg and cardamom. Lay them on an oiled casserole. Sprinkle the sugar on top. Rub the margarine together with the oats, the kama and the vanilla sugar by your fingertips. Cover the apples with the crumble. Put the goodness in a 225°C oven for 30 minutes or until the crumble on top looks golden brown.

Serve with ice cream or vanilla sauce.

Nutritional values / 1060 g:
energy 1756 kcal
fat 69 g
protein 21 g
carbohydrates 248 g
fiber 27 g