More Finnish Christmas food

I wrote a bit about Finnish Christmas food with my potato casserole recipe. This oven baked carrot casserole (porkkanalaatikko) is another traditional Finnish Christmas side dish, that would usually be served with ham or turkey. I'm not quite sure why these oven baked casseroles have a reputation of being a lot of work to make, as actually they don't take that much effort. And the best thing is you can make them ahead of time and freeze them. Then all you have to do is defrost them for Christmas eve dinner and pop them in the oven as they only improve from re-heating. Alternatively, you can prepare the casserole but freeze it before baking, and then do the full baking after de-frosting on Christmas Eve (let the casserole de-frost over night in the fridge).

Oven baked carrot casserole (porkkanalaatikko):
2 dl (200 ml or 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp) short grained rice or "pudding rice" (Finnish puuroriisi)
1/2 litre water
1 litre (full-fat) milk
1 kg carrots
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg (or more to taste)
2 tbsp syrup* (or 1 tbsp sugar) 
breadcrumbs and butter

*Finnish syrup is darker than golden syrup but lighter than treacle. I mix 1/3 treacle with 2/3 golden syrup to get something resembling Finnish syrup

The howto: 
Bring 1/2 litre of water to a boil in a large saucepan. Add rice and cook until the water has absorbed. Add the milk, and cook until rice is cooked and a loose porridge forms (about 30-40 mins). Let cool.

Peel and chop carrots. Bring enough water to a boil in a saucepan to cover the carrots. Cook carrots until soft. Drain water and mash carrots (you can use a potato masher, ricer or handheld blender). 

Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. Mix the carrots with the rice porridge and add eggs, spices and syrup. Divide into two oven proof bowls and sprinkle generously with breadcrumbs and place small knobs of butter on top. Bake in the oven for 1 1/2 - 2 hours. The top should be golden, and the carrot bake should be bubbling. In my opinion, a longer baking time makes a more tasty casserole.

The verdict:
This is one of those dishes that just have to be on the Christmas table, or else Christmas is ruined. It's really tasty and although so many buy the casseroles ready-made from the store, I think the home-made variety is infinitely better. And it's not that much of a hassle really. I like to make it a day ahead, and then re-heat on the day. The only thing that really takes a bit of time is the carrot peeling, but unless you are making in double or triple serving (and you shouldn't need to unless you are having several dozen guests) this will be more than enough for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and possibly Boxing Day as well. And after that you don't want any more anyways, it's that extra bit delicious because you only get it once a year. However, this is a really cheap dish to make and it makes quite a few servings, so I don't see why you couldn't make it at other times of the year as well, as a thrifty side. Delicious with some ham, turkey or any other meat. I even makes a light lunch all by itself.

Finnish Sweetened Potato Casserole

We have entered the magical month of December. It's cold, dark and miserable. But it's also an excuse to start thinking about Christmas food. One of the must have foods on the Finnish Christmas Dinner table are an assortment of oven baked vegetable dishes, called "laatikko" in Finnish. Basically laatikko is the Finnish word for a drawer or box, but it's also used for oven baked dishes. For Christmas you usually make "porkkanalaatikko" (oven baked carrot casserole), "lanttulaatikko" (oven baked swede casserole) and "perunalaatikko" (oven baked potato casserole). They are all relatively easy to make, but take a lot of time. First you need to peel the veg, cook them in water until soft and mash them, and then mix with the rest of the ingredients (usually bread crumbs, syrup, cream and butter) and bake very slowly in a low temperature oven for 2-3 hours to let the flavours really develop. 

The potato casserole, perunalaatikko, takes even more time to prepare than the other two. It needs to be sweetened over night so it should be started the night before. It is also completely in the hands of the food gods to decide whether the sweetening is successful or not. It's a combination of using the right potatoes and having the right temperature for the sweetening process. But no worries, the sweetening process is an old cooking process used before sugar was available. It's a process where the starch in the food is enzymatically broken down to shorter chained carbohydrates, i.e. sugar. These days, you can achieve the same by adding syrup. But I love the tradition of making the casserole using the traditional way. And last year was finally the year when I had a successful sweetening process. I'm not exactly sure what the key to success was, I think it was the right potatoes combined with pure luck.

I nicked the recipe for the potato casserole from the Finnish cooking web site Kotikokki, but most recipes for the casserole are pretty similar. Make sure to pick a starchy, or floury, potato. If it says "good for mash" on the pack, you have pretty much got what you are looking for.

Finnish sweetened potato casserole:
2 kg floury potatoes
2 dl (200 ml, 3/4 cups plus one tbsp) plain flour
50 g butter
0.5-1 l milk (I like to use full fat, as it is Christmas after all...)
2 tbsp syrup (if sweetening is not successful)
salt to taste (start with about 2-3 tsp)

The howto:
Peel and chop potatoes. Cook in salted water until soft, pour off the water and mash potatoes. Let the mash cool until about 50 degrees C (feels warm but not hot), add half of the butter and half of the flour into the mash and mix well. Sprinkle the rest of the flour on top of the mash, put the lid back onto the saucepan and let sweeten in a warm place for at least 6 hours, or over night. The temperature should stay between 50 and 75 degrees C, but I wrapped my saucepan in a towel and left in the kitchen over night and the sweetening process worked well. The next morning you should find your mash softer than it was the night before, and with a sweeter flavour. The mash also changes colour to almost grey on top where the flour was. Give the mash a good mix, and add milk until soft (softer than normal mash, but not quite runny). If the sweetening has not been successful, also add the syrup for extra sweetness. Mix in salt to taste. Place in one big or two medium sized oven proof buttered bowls and dot the rest of the butter on top of the casserole. The casserole will bubble while cooking, so leave one and a half to two inches space in the bowls. Cook in 200 degrees for the first 30 minutes and then in 150 degrees for another two hours. The casserole will turn dark around the edges of the bowl. I love this crunchy bit, but you can just leave it uneaten if you find it unappetising. If the top gets too dark, you can cover the casserole with aluminium foil when baking.

The verdict:
I have had varying success with this dish through the years. Last Christmas it turned out perfect. The reason I like the traditional sweetening instead of taking the easy way out of just using syrup is that it tastes different, or maybe that's in my head but I think it's sweet but not too sweet. But each to their own. Year after year one of the subjects being discussed during the Christmas dinner is whether that year's potato casserole is as good as the one Mum/Grandma made and whether it's better or worse than the year before. 

Slow cooker split pea soup for Shrove Tuesday

Split pea soup is traditional Shrove Tuesday food in Finland. It is also served in pretty much every school and workplace cafeteria on Thursdays all through the year. And as delicious as this hearty soup is (and I have come to appreciate it more and more over the years), the best thing is that it is usually always served with pancake for dessert. And that is the Finnish, oven baked pancake, not the thing that is called pancakes over here, which to me are crepes, not pancakes. On Shrove Tuesday the tradition is to serve buns with whipped cream and jam for dessert. Some people prefer the buns with whipped cream and almond paste, why they do that is beyond me, but each to their own.

Usually Shrove Tuesday tradition in Finland is to enjoy the great outdoors, the snow and the sunshine and do some sledging. However, it has been a bit unfortunate that some years there is no snow left on Shrove Tuesday, which obviously makes the sledging a bit difficult. It feels so backward that here I am, sowing seeds in my greenhouse on Shrove Tuesday, which should still be the heart of winter back home. I have been enjoying quite a bit of gardening the last few days, cleaning up the herb beds and discovering quite a bit of oregano underneath the parsley that I removed. The Culinary Consultant did some major digging and removed a big patch of fennel which I didn't particularly like. I want to focus all of the space on herbs I use more, such as thyme, dill and basil. And I want to reserve a patch for rocket and spinach as well. Obviously we will try to fill the greenhouse with tomatoes again this year, with an addition of sweet peppers. One or two courgettes and cucumbers have also been planned. Now it's all up to whether my seeds will grow or not. I just want to go in there and have a peak all the time, although I know there is nothing to see for at least a few weeks yet. 

Anyhow, on to this super easy split pea soup. You just load everything in the slow cooker and forget about it for 6-8 hours while you go on about your business, be it gardening or sledging. It also costs next to nothing, I think it comes out at approximately 63 p per serving (calculated for 4 servings, which means pretty big servings) if excluding the price for the peppercorns and bay leaves (and I have to say at this point, I love love love the bay tree in my garden, I can just walk over and get some bay leaves any time I want! I had no idea bay trees grew in this climate, but we have a big one in our garden, and it makes me very happy!)

Split pea soup (serves 4-6):
500 g split peas
6 cups (1.5 l) chicken or veggie stock
200 g smoked lardons (you can make a vegetable version by leaving out the lardons)
1 carrot
1 1/2 onion (because I happened to have 1/2 that needed using up)
2 bay leaves 
10 peppercorns
2 tsp mustard

The howto:
Add all ingredients apart from the mustard in the slow cooker. To be honest, I can't even be bothered to make the veggie stock separately, I just chuck in the stock cubes and water. Some recipes suggest you should pre-soak the peas over night, I'm sure you can do that if you want, but I haven't seen a need for this as the slow cooking will result in soft peas even without soaking. Also, some recipes suggest to quickly fry the lardons before adding, agin feel free to do that if you want to, but I can't be bothered and also, I'm pretty sure eight hours of cooking will make sure the lardons are cooked through enough as they are. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, stirring a few times. In the end, add the mustard, and some salt if you want to, although I find no salt is needed as the lardons add quite a bit of salt. You can puree the soup if you want to, but to me it should remain a bit chunky with the lardons chunks being great little surprises when eating the soup. This soup gets even better if you let it stand over night and slowly re-heat the next day. You can freeze the leftovers.

The verdict:
This is such a simple but tasty soup. The soup tastes better the longer you cook it, and I love the smoky flavour added by the lardons. Of course you can make a fully vegetarian version by leaving out the lardons if you wish to, but to me they make the soup all that much flavoursome and also more filling (nothing like that animal fat clogging those arteries, eh?). This soup is just so easy, chuck everything in a slow cooker and forget about it for the whole day and then you have a wonderful, tasty meal ready at the end of the day. If you don't have a slow cooker, you can easily achieve the same result in a large saucepan on the stove, just bring to a boil, and then reduce the temperature to very low and let cook for the same amount of time. You will need significantly more liquid though, probably at least twice the amount and keep an eye on the soup stirring from time to time and making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

Korvapuusti - Finnish cinnamon buns

Bring on the weekend! I spent Friday as I usually do, hitting the gym after work, and then getting home, getting in my PJs and having dinner and resting my poor aching bones and muscles. Then I snuggled up in bed while waiting for the Culinary Consultant to finish pudding. And I fell asleep (well, it was close to midnight, so you can't blame me). Then I was served warm rhubarb crumble and custard in bed. I ate it while reading a book, and then went back to sleep. That is what I call a perfect start to the weekend. Today I have been very domestic, cleaning the house and cooking. And I had a very productive crafting session in the morning. I can't believe this is what my life has come to. Cooking, cleaning, crafting and sleeping. And I'm loving it! My friends go out to party, seeing movies and being social. I don't know when I turned 75, but clearly that happened sometime in the last year or so. But I'm not complaining. We go through phases in our life, and clearly I'm going through a very peaceful and domestic phase. Instead of worrying about it, I will enjoy it wile it lasts. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, so do whatever makes you happy right now!

Talking about what makes you happy, let's talk about cinnamon buns. But not just any cinnamon buns, Finnish cinnamon buns. I think I have posted a recipe for Finnish cinnamon buns before on the blog. But I'm not sure. When I was reading food blogs, I always laughed at blog authors who said they weren't sure whether they had posted a recipe or not. I thought how can you not remember what you have posted. Well, here I am, with less than two years of blogging behind me, about 150 blog posts, and I have no idea what I have blogged about in the past. So no wonder others who have been blogging for years and years cannot remember what they have posted. But the upside to all of this is, if I can't remember, I doubt anyone else can either. And to be honest, these buns are so incredibly good that I can't write enough about them anyways. So either for the first or second time, Korvapuusti, or Finnish cinnamon buns. I have taken the recipe from Kinuskikissa, the most popular Finnish baking blog, and I think the recipe for bun dough is the best I have ever used. I also used the instructions here from the same blog for the filling. 

Korvapuusti (Finnish Cinnamon Buns), makes about 36 buns:
500 ml milk (any level of fat, but I like whole milk the best)
15 g instant yeast
2 dl sugar (200 ml or 3/4 cup plus one tbsp)
1 1/2 tbsp ground cardamom
2 tsp salt (I usually use less, about 1 tsp)
1 egg + 1 egg for glazing
200 g butter, melted
about 15 dl (i.e. 1.5 litres or 6 and 1/4 cups)

For the filling:
150 g butter, room temperature
200 ml light muscovado sugar (3/4 cup plus one tbsp)
cinnamon

The howto: 
Mix the milk and the yeast. Add the sugar, cardamom, salt and egg. Add about 3/4 of the flour, mixing with a wooden spoon and later with your hands. Add the melted butter, mix more and add the rest of the flour. The dough is a bit more sticky than regular bread dough, but it should be possible to knead it without too much sticking. I usually use a dough scraper to help me. Knead for about 5 minutes. Place in a bowl and cover with cling film, let proof in a warm place (I like to place the bowl on top of the boiler) until doubled in size, about 1.5 hours. 

Take the dough out of the bowl and knock it back (knead gently to knock the air out of the dough). Divide into two halves and work one half at a time. On a lightly floured table, roll into a rectangle, the dough should not be too thick. The origin for this recipe suggested about 25x85 cm rectangle, I never measure mine, it's not that important I think. Except if you are on the Great British Bakeoff and are being judged on each bun being the same size. But my buns are all individuals, and celebrate their wonky appearance.

Spread half of the butter onto the dough. If it's too hard to spread, pop it into the microwave for a few seconds. Sprinkle half of the muscovado sugar on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon to taste. Then roll into a tight roll (roll along the long side of the rectangle so that you get the longer possible roll). Divide roll into bun sized chunks, to me about 16 made a nice sized bun, it's not too big so you can eat at least two in one go. Do the same to the other half of the dough.

Shaping of the Korvapuusti is a personal decision every baker has to make on their own. You can cut straight down the log, giving you neat chunks. These can be placed on the baking sheet either with the cutting side up (this is the Swedish way of baking them), or in the same orientation they are when you cut them off the roll. But the traditional shape of a korvapuusti is to cut them at an angle as you can see in the picture below. They are then placed on the baking sheet with the wider part to the bottom (so every second piece needs to be flipped upside down compared to the orientation they are in when cut). Using your finger, press to make an indentation at the top along the length of the bun. This will allow the buns to spread when baking, giving them the traditional look of ears, which is where the buns get their name. Korvapuusti is the Finnish word for "slap around the ear".

Traditional korvapuusti are cut at an angle.

The cut pieces are placed on a baking sheet with 

the wide part facing down and an indentation

 is made on top to push the sides out and give 

the buns their ear shape when baking.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Let the buns rise on the baking sheet for another 10-15 minutes. Then brush with egg and sprinkle with pearl sugar. I don't know if you can get the pearl sugar outside Scandinavia, I always export some with me when I leave Finland. Pearl sugar is the only correct sugar to use on buns, but if you don't have access to it, regular sugar will do as well. Bake for 10-15 minutes. The buns should have a golden colour, but I like mine rather a teeny tad underbaked than overbaked.

The verdict:
My Grandma always says that "Children should have pulla (Finnish word for buns)" and I think cinnamon buns are the best. AndI might be a bit biased, but I think this is the best way to make Cinnamon buns. I love any bun, including the American ones with all the glazing and stuff, but the Finnish simple buns will always be the best. They are pretty and taste amazing. They are best eaten on the day of baking, I like them best while still warm, and just might or might not have eaten four of these babies almost as soon as they came out of the oven. If you eat them the next day, give them 20-30 seconds in the microwave and they will be perfect again. The buns freeze well, and can be frozen either before or after baking.

Finnish baked cabbage casserole

I am finally online again! A whole week without any access to the Internet. You know you are out in the sticks when there is no 3G... But now New Home is finally online and I can get back to blogging. Although I can't say I had much time to miss the Interwebs, every evening has been so full of unpacking, organising, re-organising and all the other stuff that is needed to get settled in the new place. And admittedly I do spend quite a bit of time just floating around, walking from room to room and around the garden, talking to the trees (as instructed by the previous owners) and marvelling at the garden. I'm still convinced that any day now someone will show up at the door and tell me that I have no right to live here, that it has all been a mistake, the money we paid wasn't good or the bank has withdrawn the mortgage. Every time we pull up to the driveway and I see the house I still cannot believe I actually live here. For good. No-one can make me leave. Me and the Culinary Consultant tell each other every day that we are the luckiest people in the world. But there is so much to do. We have no curtains, hardly any furniture, the Batchelor pad still has several car-loads of stuff in it, not to even mention all the painting and cleaning that needs to be done before it can be let. But we are trying to do a little bit every day, it's just that I would much rather be at home trying to come up with new and exciting ways of using up all the tomatoes from the greenhouse instead of scrubbing walls. But there is a season for everything.

We were supposed to have our first BBQ on Friday. I have said from the start that the first thing I want us to buy for the garden is a BBQ, everything else can wait (although we do have a few pieces of garden furniture as well). So the Culinary Consultant set to putting together the thousand pieces that were supposed to become a BBQ. Which it in fact did. However, after I had already prepared some potato salad and cole slaw, with our chicken, burgers and sausages waiting in the fridge, we realised the firelighters were nowhere to be found, and probably still back at the old place. So we had to admit defeat and pop the burgers and sausages in the oven instead. When we finally had food in front of us I can't say we particularly cared about the fact that it wasn't proper BBQ, we were so hungry. However, this back story about the cole slaw explains why I have loads of cabbage in the fridge, which needed to be used up. So I made kaalilaatikko, a Finnish oven baked cabbage casserole. The recipe is from Pirkka, a very popular website in Finland for recipes. 

Cabbage casserole (kaalilaatikko, serves 5-6):

1 kg (approximately) cabbage (usually white, I used a mix of about 3/4 white and 1/4 red because that was what I happened to have)

2 onions

500 ml (2 cups) water

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

500 g organic mince

2 tsp marjoram

black pepper to taste

3 tbsp syrup (Finnish syrup is dark, and I substitute by 2 tbsp golden syrup and 1 tbsp treacle)

50 ml (about 1/4 cup) risotto rice

2-3 tbsp butter

Before going into the oven

The howto:

Chop the cabbage and onions. Bring water to a boil, add cabbage, onion and salt. Let cook for half an hour. Meanwhile cook the mince in a frying pan in the olive oil. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (392 F). When cabbage has cooked for half an hour, take it off the heat (don't drain), add spices, syrup and meat and mix. Butter an oven proof dish (I didn't and had no problem getting the food out anyways) and pour rice on the bottom. Spread cabbage and meat mixture (along with the liquid in the pan) on the rice in an even layer, and add a few knobs of butter on top. Bake on the bottom rack of the oven for about 50 minutes. Serve with lingonberry jam.

The verdict:

This is a really cheap and relatively quick and easy meal to make. I pre-pack it into single servings to take with me as lunch to work, or freeze as single servings. I like how the cabbage turns sweet when baked in the oven, obviously aided by the syrup. I am used to a kaalilaatikko having a bit more rice than this recipe, but I guess in times of cutting carbs it is sensible choice. It tasted pretty much just as I remembered. I didn't use to like cabbage foods when I was a kid (although not sure any children do) but now I really like it. Be it cole slaw or casserole, it is really tasty.