FINLAND: THE FOOD

I’ve been waiting for this day since I found these recipes. And it comes after I finally filed for my LLC with the state to start my proofreading and editing business.  Now, I’m just waiting for my debit card in order to get started.  So, its somewhat of a celebratory meal. It’s just that these recipes are perfect for fall weather when it’s 40 degrees and not 82 degrees in July. Maybe it’ll bring on the cooler weather. (Actually, we’re supposed to drop 10-20 degrees by tomorrow, so I believe it’s working.)

Small but mighty.  

The first thing I started with is a rye bread called rieska.  The preparation was rather simple: mixing together rye flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, then adding in butter and buttermilk.  After I formed it into a ball, I laid it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  I put it in the oven for about 40 minutes. My bread seemed a little small. I suppose I could’ve flattened it out a bit. I wondered if I should’ve made three more since I’m not sure if the rest of my family will get any.  But really, it was surprisingly big enough.

I completely underestimated how good this was. It would go well with a strong cup of coffee. 

After this, I made a Finnish blueberry pie called mustikkapiirakka. First, I cut a ton of butter (like, a stick and a quarter) into caster sugar.  Caster sugar is something new to me, but it’s basically just superfine sugar preferring in baking and in drinks since it dissolves in liquid better. Then I beat in one egg and added in some vanilla extract.  I didn’t realize that I was pretty much out of vanilla, so I threw in what I had and added a little almond extract.  I sifted in some rice flour and baking powder and mixed until it was consistent. And since I forgot to get a pie tin or tart tin, I used a round springform cake pan instead.  I spread the crust dough on the bottom and up the sides as well, smoothing it with my fingers. A pint of fresh blueberries filled the bottom.  In a separate bowl, I mixed sour cream, buttermilk, more caster sugar, an egg, and some more almond extract (or vanilla if I had any). Once I stirred it until it was smooth, I poured this on top of the blueberries and baked it for 30 minutes. At this point, I lowered the heat and kept it in for another 30 minutes. It wasn’t as sweet as I thought it was going to be, but it was more of a natural sweet.  I LOVED it.  I have a feeling there won’t be any left for my breakfast, though.  Maybe I should hide the rest. That’s what I have to do to keep my husband from eating all the chocolate, and I’m moderately successful at that.

Paradise topped with potatoes. 

The main meal for today is merimiespata, or Finnish beef and beer stew. I used a casserole dish for this, and put a layer of sliced and salted potatoes in the bottom. Then I added a layer of browned stew beef (sautéed with salt and pepper), topped with a layer of sautéed and sugared onions, followed by another layer of the potatoes. I poured in a bottle of beer (I couldn’t find any beer from any Nordic or Baltic country, so I used Leffe Blonde from Belgium.) and added enough beef stock to cover the potatoes. After adding a bay leaf, I put it in the oven for two hours.  This, by far, was one of the most awesome dishes I’ve made.  I picked a good beer to make this with; it wasn’t overpowering to the dish.  And it was definitely worth the wait. I’m certainly going to pull this recipe back out when it gets colder. 

All of my favorites together. 

I truly enjoyed writing about Finland. Besides the fact that I think the Finnish language looks kind of hard and their words seem as long as German words, I think I would really like to visit Finland one day.  Maybe in the summer, though.  The food we ate today was delicious, and yet, there weren’t many spices that went into it. Outside of the blueberry pie perhaps, it was generally simple to make but full of flavor.  I think these recipes are good to file as ones using only a few ingredients. For a country that I knew only a little about, Finland is now on my long list of countries I want to visit. 

Up next: France

DENMARK: THE FOOD

Well, my son finally turned five years old this week, and I turned in his application for kindergarten and the magnet school program for next year.  Hopefully, he’ll be accepted to the same school that his sister goes to, a Spanish-immersion language school where their math and science classes are taught in Spanish and the rest of the classes are taught in English.  I really love it. I wish I had those opportunities when I was in school. 

And it was also a busy week, because the rugbrød bread is now at the top of my list of “bread that takes the longest to make.”  I had to start the sourdough starter last week because it was supposed to sit for seven days (ok, mine sat for six).  I’ve never made a sourdough bread before: this one called for buttermilk, water, rye flour, whole wheat flour, and some salt to be mixed together and then sprinkled with course salt before its covered and put in a cool place (but not in the refrigerator) and forgot about.  Then today, I had to get up and start this much earlier than I normally do.  I mixed a bottle of Carlsberg beer, some honey, salt, water, yeast, rye flour, and the sour dough mix together.  Then I stirred in some cracked wheat (because I didn’t have cracked rye), some water, and some crushed sunflower seeds into it.  In Denmark, they have special rugbrød molds, but I’m just using a regular loaf pan.  I didn’t take out any to preserve as a starter, but I could have if I wanted to.  Since I didn’t do that, I had to use three loaf pans.  The recipe says to let this sit for six hours, but I’m hoping science can do its thing in five hours.  After that, it calls to bake it at 350º F for two hours, spraying it with water every half hour or so (of which I had to get kind of inventive since my husband took my spray bottle to the garage where it’s lost and presumed dead.  I improvised with a Hello Kitty soy sauce dispenser.).  Technically, to do this the right way, the bread is supposed to cool on its own for a couple of hours and then wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for a day before slicing. Obviously, I should’ve made this yesterday, and since I didn’t, I’m going to try to accelerate all of this cooling business.  Maybe I should give it the cold shoulder? (I did manage to put it in the refrigerator for a bit, and I think it was fine to cut.)

Hearty and perfect for cold weather -- it was 25 degrees colder in Indianapolis than in Copenhagen. 

The rugbrød is the basis of an open-faced sandwich called smørrebrød.  There are probably hundreds of types of smørrebrød from pickled herring to vegetarian styles.  The one I chose was called frikadeller.  It’s basically a meatball made from pork and veal, but I couldn’t find any veal, so I went with just the ground pork.  (Of course, I am shopping in the days before Thanksgiving, so some of the shelves are a little bare.)  The pork is mixed with a little onion, egg, some soda water, salt, flour, a little allspice, and pepper.  Unlike the baked meatballs that I made from Belarus, these meatballs are pan fried in butter and flattened slightly to resemble small patties. I think there was a little too much soda water because the first batch kept falling apart.  I added a little more flour, and really, even at that, they still turned out more like patties rather than slightly flattened meatballs. But regardless, the flavor was excellent. 

Yes, I ditched the veal, but these were really good.

And now it comes time to assemble the smørrebrød.  It starts out by spreading some Dijon mustard on a slice of the freshly made rugbrød (although I think I would prefer yellow mustard), then topping it with a couple of the frikadeller meatballs and some kind of garnish on top of the meatballs. I used a recipe called syltede agurker, which is Danish Pickled Cucumbers to put on top of it.  This recipe is 98.1% like a similar recipe my mother would often make in the summer.  It’s thin-sliced cucumbers, cider vinegar, water, sugar, salt, and pepper stirred together and refrigerated for a couple of hours.  Then it’s drained and sprinkled with dill weed.  I bought fresh dill for this because it was 99¢ for a bunch, but it’s a HUGE bunch, and I’ll never use it all.  Maybe I can find someone to pawn off some dill on. And maybe a loaf of rugbrød. 

Tastes like childhood, and the fresh dill just made my childhood even better. 

The bread was extremely hearty. And even though each ingredient is delicious, yet completely different from the others, when it was assembled, it all came together.  The reason I would’ve chosen yellow mustard over Dijon is that between the Dijon mustard and the vinegar cucumbers, it was a little too much bite.  But that was my only measly complaint.  Otherwise, it was the most wonderful thing I’ve eaten today.  And it was really filling.  One sandwich was plenty enough. I think this will make the best lunch tomorrow, and probably for the next couple of the days.  Of course, I chased this all down with a Carlsberg beer (but when I was at the liquor store, I found a dark rye ale called Rugbrød – it tasted something like Guinness -- I only bought it for the name). 

I suck at pouring beer into a glass since it was all foam.  So, I drank it straight from the bottle.

And at least this is a short workweek for Thanksgiving. It’s a common time to reflect on what you’re thankful for, and I suppose I’ve been thinking about it a little myself.  I’m thankful for so many things including my family and this blog, and my ability to think and read and write – it’s more than a lot of people have.

Mmmm. There are no words but mmm mmm. (Ok, that's also the sound I make with food in my mouth.) 

Up next: Djibouti

BELARUS: THE FOOD

Rye bread is particularly popular in Belarus, mainly because its cold and wet climate limits which grains can work within its environment. Spices are used minimally, mostly herbs like marjoram, chives, bay leaves, parsley, and others. Many foods are flavored by salt and pepper, onions and garlic, and sour cream or milk.

Earlier this week, I had found a recipe for Belarusian meatballs from a book called “The Belarusian Cookbook” by Alexander Bely. I did add a few herbs that weren’t listed in the recipe (namely marjoram, chives, thyme, parsley). I actually had made some penne with an alfredo sauce and I added some fresh chard from my cousin’s garden into the sauce.  This is one recipe that I’ll definitely keep.

 Belarusian meatballs with penne alfredo with homegrown chard. 

Today, I made the rye bread. The recipe I had actually called for the dough to be made in a bread machine. But I don’t own one, nor want one. So, I made it by hand and let it rest for an hour and a half. It never did rise very much. I formed it into a ball, and covered it in caraway seeds, which to me, is the one thing that really gives it that “rye bread” smell. After baking it for 45 minutes, it came out of the oven smelling wonderful.  I’ll have enough to eat on and give away, since my husband really (and I mean REALLY) doesn’t like rye bread, or any bread with seeds on it (or as he calls it, “debris” or sometimes “rocks and sticks.”)

Rye bread with caraway seeds on top; or, my husband's demise. 

One popular dish that I kept coming across on many different sites was called draniki. It’s made of grated potatoes mixed with a few other ingredients and fried. While it was always described as a potato pancake, what I made seemed more like hash browns. And it could possibly be the style that I grated the potatoes. After frying it up, it turned out really well. But the topper, the apex, the kicker: I took some chopped garlic, added a little vegetable oil, some salt and whipped it in a blender, then added a couple dollops of sour cream in it and blended it some more, and THEN placed a little on top of the draniki. It made good even better.

Draniki.  I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and midnight snack.

Now for the main dish.  I chose Kotleta Pokrestyansky. It’s basically pork cutlets browned in some butter. Then you pour in a simmered mixture of mushrooms (I used baby bellas), some butter, some dry sherry and chicken broth and let the whole thing simmer for a while. I did add some extra salt and pepper to the mixture. It turned out pretty well. I can see how some might think it’s not as flavorful, but if you close your eyes and concentrate on what you’re tasting, the flavors are there; it’s just that it’s subtle.

Rye bread, draniki, and kotleta pokrestyansky.

Overall, this meal was really good. The thing that really got me about these recipes was that many of these recipes only use a few ingredients (ok, like less than 10). Many of these recipes that are considered “national dishes” (and this goes for almost every country) are directly from the kitchens of the families that are simply trying to survive the leaner times. The amazing thing about people is that we’ve always found ways to add flavor to our food by using what was available: like cream and local herbs and the styles that we choose to cook it. It’s a great lesson in thinking of ways to flavor food during those non-pay weeks: a small way to trick your mind to think that things really aren’t that tough when you’re eating well.

Oh, and I finally made myself an apron. To me, it’s the most fabulous apron ever. Definitely classy.

Best. Apron. Ever. Mostly because I made it myself. Even though you  can't see it  sparkle in the picture. 

Up next: Belgium