Pea Soup ‒ Hernerokka

Long flaxes, fine hemps and turnips size of a plate to everyone! That's what you're supposed to shout when sliding down a snowy hill on Laskiainen (the name of which refers to either descending or sliding). You see, today is one of those ancient Finnish holidays that are slowly gaining back their popularity. Connections to English Shrove Tuesday are close but in the Finnish version both Sunday and Tuesday are equally important.

During christianization Laskiainen became so intensely affected by the beginning of the Easter lent that we can now only speculate about its original meaning – and what could possibly be more fun! Slavic peoples celebrated the Sun (eating blintzes to symbolize it) and the end of the winter at this time so some believe this is also true about Laskiainen. One hint is all the well-wishing for the next harvest season. It actually looks like this time of the year used to mark the beginning of the spring all around Europe. Flax and hemp, the most important fiber plants, had a position especially significant as well as combing hair, a clear symbol for flax. All weaving and spinning was paused during the holiday. According to one theory (by Kustaa Vilkuna) it was in a way an ancient Labour Day but this sounds like a rather modern idea to me.

Today was foggy which makes the air feel really cold. So after couple of hours of sliding a thick pea soup is a must. It's an essential dish for Laskiainen but also something even a child knows you're supposed to have on Thursdays. This is how I usually make the basic version, tuned with herbs. Sometimes I like to make a double portion for the freezer.

- 500 g dried peas
- 1.5 l water (more if needed)
- 1 punch of sage
- 1 dose of stock (miso fits here as well)
- 1 carrot
- 1 onion
- 4 dl textured soy protein flakes (or smoked tofu)
- 1 tablespoon rape oil
- yarrow flowers (just a hint)
- salt

Soak the peas at least overnight. (This shortens the cooking time). You can sprout them as well if you have time. Rinse. Add the water, the stock, the salt, the pepper and the yarrow. Cook until the peas are starting to get mushy (the time needed depends a lot on how long you soaked and sprouted, but prepare yourself to at least three hours).

Chop the onion. Sauté on an oiled pan with the soy flakes until they turn golden or even crunchy. Grate the carrot and cut up the sage. Add everything into the soup. The longer you cook or more times you rewarm the soup the better it gets.

Enjoy with mustard and rye bread.

Nutritional values / 2 l:
energy 1922 kcal
fat 29 g
protein 123 g
carbohydrates 277 g
fiber 66 g

Sweet and Salty Winter Salad ‒ Makeansuolainen talvisalaatti

Everyone hopefully knows by know what a wonderful pair raw carrots and salted nuts make. Well, I was chopping carrots for a soup on the other day and thought I'd make a hi-fi version of the theme while I'm at it.

Once I remember seeing a satay carrot salad recipe I thought awesome but can't find anymore. The carrots were first grated the way Finns normally serve them but then the cold salad was garnished with hot and sweet nuts. I had been thinking a way to variate the idea without making it too similar to this hot and sweet salad. Then I saw Kahvila Vegaani's excellent selection of winter salads where the idea was to marinate (and raw cook) root vegetables and then combine them with vinaigrettes made of fruits. The combination of hot and cold fits salads well and combining sweet and salty at the same time gives it even more twist. I'm sure I'll be trying more of these.

- 300 g carrots
- 0.5 dl black currant juice (non-sweetened)
- 2 tablespoons spruce syrup
- aniseed (or star anise or liquorice)
- 0.75 dl hemp seeds (sprouted if you have time)
- salt

Peel and shred the carrots. Put them into a bowl, add the spruce syrup and sprinkle with a fair amount of aniseed. Pour the juice over the carrots and turn them over a bit. Refrigerate the bowl and forget it for a night.

Arrange the marinated carrots on your serving plate. Gulp down the remaining juice. Roast the hemp seeds on a dry pan. Salt them well. Place over the cold carrots while still hot. Serve immediately.

Nutritional values / 389 g:
energy 351 kcal
fat 17 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 39 g
fiber 19 g

Piny Cutlets ‒ Mäntyiset leikkeleet

Marinades are fun to play around with. Much like stocks, they can be made out of anything your imagination allows you to. Just for inspiration, here's one that I used for textured soy protein cutlets I've had lying in the closet for ages but can't see no reason why it wouldn't work just as well for precooked seitan or firm tofu.

The fallen but still fresh pine twig I used here sort of followed me home from a forest trip. Another thingy I wanted to get rid of was half a bottle of Gambina ‒ theoretically red vermut and juniper-spiced gin sound like a great combination but I found this way too sweet for me. It was probably a fine aperitif drunk from a stemware when first introduced in 1932 but is nowadays mostly consumed by teenagers and boozers straight from the bottle because of the cheap prize.

- 3 dl pine needles
- 2 dl Gambina
- 2 tablespoons rape oil
- 2 tablespoons apple wine vinegar
- 2 garlic cloves
- salt
- lemon pepper (continuing with the theme "something I just want to get rid of")

Crush the needles and smooth down with the rest. Move into a plastic bag with your cutlets for a few hours. Turn around now and then.

If you'd rather use a bowl, add some water to achieve a thinner mixture and soak your cutlets for the whole night.

Brush out the biggest bits and pieces and cook on a pan. One thing I noticed is that the surface gets burned quite easily so don't go reading food blogs while you cook!

Saturday Temptation ‒ Lauantaikiusaus

Kiusaus, meaning temptation, is a popular type of oven dish around Scandinavia. While I find it hard to explicitly tell how they differ from casseroles or gratins, at least in my mind there is a clear difference. Temptations tend to be care-free main courses, quick to prepare on any night of the week. You can just lay shred root vegetables in a casserole, adding spices and such between the layers.

This one is an ideal supper for a lazy Saturday. You can put it in the oven and go to have a sauna. It should be ready by the time you come back.

- 500 g sunroot
- 250 g tofu
- 1 red onion
- 1 sheet of nori
- 2 dl oat cream (or oat milk)
- 2 tablespoons margarine
- dill
- thyme
- coriander
- black pepper
- salt

Wash the sunroots and remove bad parts but don't bother to peel. Slice as thin as you can. Julienne the tofu. Mince and saute the onion.

Oil a casserole and arrange a thin layer of sunroots on the bottom. Sprinkle with spices, onion and nori pieces. Add a layer of tofu. Repeat layering as long as you have something left. Lastly, cover with a few sunroot slices, sprinkle with spices and pour the cream on the temptation evenly. Top with margarine pieces.

Stick into a 200°C oven for about 45 minutes. (One way to make it even juicier is to turn the oven into a low heat after the temptation has acquired some colour and let it simmer for one more hour. In this case you may need to add some stock in the middle to prevent it from drying up.)

Serve with pickles.

Nutritional values / 1103 g:
energy 1016 kcal
fat 63 g
protein 48 g
carbohydrates 63 g
fiber 27 g

Runeberg's Tart ‒ Runebergintorttu

Today is a flagging day for the honour of Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. These little cakes are just as much named after his wife Fredrika Runeberg who is nowadays also a highly respected writer but was left in the shadow of her husband at the time. The recipe she had probably adapted from a confectioner called Lars Astenius was found recently and naturally has very little to do with the numerous versions we now know as Runeberg's Tarts.

At this point I have to confess the only work I've ever heard or read from either of them is Johan's poem Vårt Land (Maamme in Finnish, Our Land in English) that became Finland's national anthem ‒ and I don't even like the song. The Runebergs were a part of the Swedish-speaking elite whom I can hardly relate to. The reason I find this couple so important is that they were key figures among the Fennomans who created the idea of Finnish people as we now understand it. Thanks to them, I can now get academic education in the language of my ancestors and read the most massive poem collection of the whole world: the Finnish Folklore Archives, mostly written in the magical ancient poem form Kalevala metre. In a way I even feel me and my spouse are following their large footsteps, trying to get Finnish cultural heritage better known in our humble ways. Perhaps I really should read some of their writings.

The tarts of today typically feature almonds and gingerbread crumbs. They're decorated with raspberry jam and powdered sugar plus water icing. I used arctic raspberry, possibly the most decadent tasting berry on the face of the planet, but apple sauce fits here as well. Store-bought tarts are usually cylinder-shaped though you could also make small muffins or just one big cake. A major part of the taste comes from the moisturizing and it's hard to spread it evenly so make sure to choose something you love. (I strongly recommend my Finnish-speaking readers to read this story about making a cut brandy version.)

- 150 g margarine
- 1 dl sugar
- 2 dl almonds
- 2 dl bread crumbs (preferably consisting of gingerbread and rye crisps)
- 1 dl wheat flour
- 1 tablespoon flax seeds
- 1 dl water
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- rum or arrack punsch for moisturizing (about 1 dl)

Heat up the water and leave the flax seeds soak in it. Beat the margarine and the sugar together so they form a fluffy mixture. Grind the almonds. Add everything except the moisturizer into the batter. If you're using baking tins (or four oven-proof coffee mugs like I did) oil and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Be careful not to overfill your tins or paper cups since the tarts will rise in the oven. Even the surfaces and put them into a 175°C oven for about half an hour.

Let the tarts cool down. Moisture and wait a few hours before flipping them out of the tins. Add more rum onto the other end and decorate if you wish.

If you have the patience, refrigerate them overnight. I didn't. Eating half of these after only couple of hours was the only way to save the pecan chocolate cheese cake my spouse made for his mum.

Nutritional values / 1 mug-size tart:
energy 707 kcal
fat 48 g
protein 13 g
carbohydrates 42 g
fiber 6 g

Lingonberry Rieska ‒ Puolukkarieska

The simplest version of lingonberry rieska consists only of smashed lingonberries, cold water and rye flour. For my lazy day breakfast today I adapted a bit more complex recipe from here. From what I've learned from earlier experiments, when using store-bought oat yogurt or lingonberry cram that has already been sugared it's better to leave the syrup all out. The amount in the original (1 tablespoon for this batch) makes these way too sweet for me and destroys the tartness of lingonberries but feel free to adjust it to your own taste buds.

- 3.5 dl rye flour (coarse type)
- 1.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 0.5 teaspoons herb salt
- 1 teaspoon dark syrup
- 1 dl lingonberries
- 1.5 dl oat yogurt (or soy)
(- wheat flour)

Mix the baking powder and salt with the flour. Crush the lingonberries with a fork. Mix everything. Heat up a frying pan. Shape the paste into flat, round breads. (I got six small ones.) The paste is very sticky so you may need to use wheat flour as an aid. Fry lightly on a dry pan from both sides.

Enjoy buttered with oat milk or coffee while still hot.

Nutritional values / 462 g:
energy 924 kcal
fat 8 g
protein 26 g
carbohydrates 184 g
fiber 39 g

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