Jaloviina, noble booze

    Jaloviina matches nicely with autumn colors

When people talk about Finland and alcohol, Koskenkorva vodka pops up sooner or later. But if I had to nominate our national booze, it would definitely be Jaloviina, noble booze. Koskenkorva is so straight forward and boring, Jaloviina has much more character and nuances. Jaloviina manages to be rough and elegant at the same time - and therefore it suits every possible occasion.

Jaloviina is a mixture of brandy and vodka, some call it "cut cognac" - the vodka cuts off the bitterness of cognac. Nowadays there are two editions available at Alko: one-star (Jaloviina*) and three-stars (Jaloviina***). Jaloviina* contains 1/4 of brandy, and Jaloviina*** contains about 3/4 of brandy - or at least that was the case originally, nowadays the portions are classified as confidential. Last spring Alko sold a special edition of two-stars (Jaloviina**), which had 50-50 brandy and vodka. How many stars are idea, that's a matter of taste and epic debate

As I wrote earlier, Jaloviina suits for any occasion. It also goes nicely in simple drinks: Jallu-cola (Jaloviina and Coke) is a classic. However, my personal favorite is Jallu-Pommac - a drink made of Jaloviina and flavored soda called Pommac; a perfect summer drink that was originally developed for Helsinki Olympic games in 1952. Jaloviina also strengthens nicely otherwise so boring desserts: pour some Jaloviina into chocolate mousse to reduce the sweetness, or moisturize a dry cake with suitable amount (from couple of table spoons to couple of deciliters) of Jallu. One of the best fish soups I've ever tasted was made of salmon, potatoes, onion, morel, cream and Jaloviina*.

Rotinat

In Eastern Finland there's a tradition of bringing a pulla circle to a family of a new born baby. This "pulla of new born" is called rotinat. Sometimes something in my head just snaps, and I feel like it's my job to carry the tradition on - and one of those snaps occurred yesterday. So I decided to bake rotina-pulla to my friends who had recently gotten their first child.

For a rotina-pulla you need to make a plait out of the pulla dough. And you're suppose to make it out of four strings. So I rolled two bars, both a bit over 2 meters long, crossed them at the middle and started knotting. I'm not an expert of making pulla plait, so the knotting part required some focus. Of course the dough bars somehow stretched at some parts and turned out to be extra thick at some other parts. But eventually I was able to finalize the plait. At this point I realized I had forgotten the egg from the dough. But after all the sweat, tears and swearing I turned into John Lennon: "let it be". So off we went without the egg.



Then I wrapped the plait into a circle and put it into oven for 25 minutes, 190 celsius degrees. It got some rip marks in the oven, my grandma would give me a note because of those - but it's good enough for me. Traditionally, you're supposed to fill the center of the circle with cookies, but I think for a modern house wife there's enough baking with just the pulla itself.



I've now done rotina-pulla three times: On the first time it turned out to be ugly but eatable. The second time was beautiful but inedible. Third time the charm? Well, I forgot the egg and the pulla got rip marks, but I heard it tasted good.

Lettu, pancake, crepe

Lettu, lätty, räiskäle, ohukainen - Finnish pancakes have many names. In terms of pancakes Finland is closer to France than US: Finnish lettu is thin, just like French crepes, and definitely not as fluffy and spongey as American pancakes. In Finland lettu and pancake, pannukakku, are two different things: lettu is fried on a frying pan, while pancake is baked in the oven. The best lettu is made on open fire using a cast iron pan.

Here's a very basic lettu recipe (it's difficult to say the exact amounts, since I never measure the lettu ingredients):

5 dl milk
2 eggs
2 to 3 dl flour
0,5 tea spoon salt
2 table spoon melted butter
Some more butter for frying

Melt some butter on frying pan. Pour some dough on the pan. Let it fry. Turn around (with a spatula or by casting the lettu in the air). Let it fry. Take it a aside. Next one. Enjoy with strawberry jam and whipped cream.

And now let's get to the point - the reason why lettu is such a brilliant dish: you can make tens or hundreds of variations without actually loosing the essence. I've listed some of the variations here, but I'm sure everyone has their own:

• If you have issues with milk, you can replace the milk with soda water (vichy) and butter with oil.
• Replace part of the wheat flours with barley or buckwheat to get more rustic feeling.

• Mix some nettles or spinach into the dough and have smoked fish and cheese on top - that's a proper lettu-lunch.
• Mix some blood into the dough and you'll get blood pancakes, verilettu. Sounds horror but it makes a proper meal. Serve with lingonberry jam.
• Back to less hard core mixes: blueberries and/or banana in the dough give a nice touch too.
• Pancake dough made of buckwheat and yeast turns into blini. Serve with sour cream, onion, mushrooms, roe and salted fish. Heavenly.
• Mix the leftover porridge into pancake dough, put it into oven and you'll have Åland style pancake. That'll keep the hunger away for some time.

But one thing I'm a bit surprised about: Finnish restaurants serve lettu very seldom as dessert. I can't understand why. Well, Sodexho and other lunch restaurants serve pancake, pannukakku almost every Thursday as dessert, and sometimes some bad industrial lettu. But I mean that you can't see lettu very often on the menus of real restaurants. I think the only restaurant where I've had lettu as dessert is restaurant Savu - and their lettu plate is really good!

Ateljé Finne

5 years ago we had some 40 minutes to kill before the beginning of our wedding ceremony. So we decided to pop into Ateljé Finne for a glass of sparkling. The brunch time was already over, and there were still couple of hours until the dinner time, so in theory the restaurant was closed. But luckily there were the Madventures guys Riku and Tunna having a very long brunch with their friends, so we could also stay for a while. The sommelier asked "whose big day is it?". "Ours", we replied. "Then it's on the house", he said.

Yesterday, on our 5th anniversary, we decided to return. Well, we have been there with friends, together and separately, during these 5 years - but not just two of us.

It's probably partly nostalgia, but I like Finne a lot. The place is really a former studio of sculptor Gunnar Finne, and some of his pieces are still present at the restaurant. And the food... oh! I guess the food could be categorized as modern scandinavian. I'd say it's rustic fine-dining, made of really high quality seasonal ingredients. And if you you happen to be served by the sommelier, he'll introduce you the most beautiful wines that match perfectly with the dishes.

I had a steak tartare for starter. I've never eaten tartare before, but Finne is one of the only places I dare to have that. And it was delicious. Not yucky at all, but fresh, salty and sour at the same time. As the main course I had a fish cake made of lightly smoked fish, nettles and fresh peas - and it was fantastic. In places like Finne it's ok to have meat, you won't be disappointed - but the fish dishes are just so phenomenal, that shame on you if you miss the fish. The dessert I had is the classic of Finne: licorice créme brûlée. There are very few sweets I like, but this one was just perfect - maybe because it wasn't too sweet.

So if you want to have Finnish food and something better, try Ateljé Finne. And if you want to have same style of food but one more step towards rustic - go for the Finne's sister restaurant Kuurna.  

What to do on weekend

Next weekend is filled with events - either very affordable events or totally free of charge. All of these have been advertised in English, so I'm quite confident that they work for non-Finnish-speaking too:

1. Restaurant day

On Sunday anyone can open a pop-up restaurant. The concept is expanding outside Finland too! Check out the restaurant closest to you on the map.


2. Helsinki Design Open

Image: Rauno Träskelin

Pop-up concept store / exhibition / café about Finnish design at Iron house, right opposite to Stockmann at city center. Open only until Saturday (9 AM to 2 PM). Quality pieces, beautiful architecture.


3. Robot workshop

Build your own robot at Kaapelitehdas. Instructions and material are on the house. Workshop is running on Sunday from 11 AM to 3 PM.

So many things to do, so little time...

Tasting Savonlinna

Savonlinna is one of those beautiful summer cities in Finland (i.e. it's dead for 10 months of the year).  The annual opera festival in July creates some nice buzz in the city even though you'd not be that much of a fan of opera. 

The beautiful castle Olavinlinna is the landmark of the city. For those who appreciate useless trivia: the first water closet in Finland is in Olavinlinna, those bumps on the towers. Structure-wise they are closets, there's a seat with a hole (a seat made of rock, I've heard in winter time there was a slave warming up the seat sitting there butt naked), and if you look into the hole, you can see water, the lake, where all the products eventually dripped and dropped.

And from toilet to table: there are certain food that you just have to try if you visit. Please find the top tips below, in priority order:

1. Lörtsy - a flat pastry cooked in oil. It can be savory (filled with meat and rice) or sweet (filled with apple, sugar on top). The one and only place to eat Lörtsy is at the market place, in one of the coffee booths.

2. Muikku - vendace that are rolled in rye flours and fried in butter. If you quickly have a portion of muikku at the market place, you can eat them with your fingers. But if you have something on the side, then you'll need fork and knife. Restaurant Seurahuone right next to market place, at top floor, is the place to go for Muikku. And by the way, when taking a photo, we don't say "cheese", we say "muikku".

3. The sandwich of the house at restaurant Majakka. Heavy stuff, doesn't leave you hungry.

4. Ice cream at Lippakioski. Huge ice creams, at half of the price you pay here in Helsinki. You can find Lippakioski if you start walking along the shore from market place to Olavinlinna castle.

5. Rommipulla - rum bun. A cinnamon roll filled with rum-flavored cream. Perfect combo. You can buy these at the market place. I don't now remember which of the market stalls it is, but keep your eyes open.

The only challenge with all this delicious stuff is time: you can't eat all of them during one day - so staying over night is a must.

Gold in the forest

I've always had a bit sarcastic attitude towards mushroom praise. You know, when people post the outcome of their mushroom hunting to Facebook. But I guess I've just been envy for not knowing good mushroom places here in Helsinki region.

However, now the tables have turned and I'm joining the praising team: I've been picking chanterelles and I loved it! It's unbelievable how rewarding it is to spot the shiny yellow gold in the moss and gently pick them up into basket. I believe this year will be a good mushroom year, thanks to the rainy summer weather - It must be, since even I was able to find mushrooms on my own.



In Finland you don't need anyone's permission for picking berries or mushrooms for your own needs. You can simply walk into forest and start picking them. But of course you should know what to pick and where to pick, since some of the mushrooms are poisonous suckers. The mushroom season starts with the chanterelles, most likely you can spot them for about a month and a half from now on. Chanterelles tend to grow in semi-sunny places, in the very same hoods with birches, moss and wild strawberries.

What do you do with chanterelles? Pick them, clean them and fry them on a pan (without oil or butter) - until the mushroom juice has been evaporated (and the mushrooms have shrank into half). Then just freeze them for the winter. And if you want to eat them right away, then use some butter in frying, chop some onion along, a bit of salt and black pepper. Voilá.

The dessert of my childhood

Maitokiisseli, milk kissel, or more describingly, milk pudding was one of the top desserts of my childhood. Maybe because it's very simple and affordable - all you need is milk, potato starch and sugar. I guess this is poor nations' version of creme brulee, crema catalana, pannacotta or whichever white vanilla stuff. I had almost full jar of milk with threatening due date, so I decided to upgrade the recipe a bit:

8,5 dl milk
1,5 dl cream
1 pod of vanilla, cut into half
6 tbs cornstarch
4 tbs sugar
A hint of salt

Mix all the ingredients in a non-sticky kettle. Cook the mixture until it's boiling - you need to mix it all the time. After 2 minutes of boiling, take off the kettle and remove the vanilla pod. Put the kettle into sink with cold water and let it cool down. Mix every now and then. This way you can prevent the "skin formation" on top of the pudding. Dose the pudding into small bowls or cups - there's enough stuff for six if you want bigger portions, or for eight if you prefer normal size. Let it rest in the fridge over night. Serve cold with berries.

The pudding was ok. Maybe a bit lame with strawberries, though. With huge amount of blueberries or some raspberries this would have been perfect, but the flavor of the strawberries was simply not rich enough. Maybe a hint of orange peel would have done it. Have to try that next time.

Freeze the summer

Now it's time. To store the strawberries for the long and dark winter. I bought 5 kilos of sunny summer energy in the form of Polka strawberries. Cleaned them, cut into half, put into small plastic bags, 2 table spoons of sugar and off to the freezer. My mom's generation says there are certain strawberry sorts that are more suitable for freezing than others, but I've noticed you should simply freeze the ones you think are the sweetest (Polka for me, please) and not care whether it's optimal for freezing. Just freeze them early enough when they're still tasty and stiff, that's the best way to avoid mushy and watery harvest.

And of course I had to taste a few. With Ekberg baguette, Schönberg's brie and some thai basil leaves from my very own balcony.

The best vegetables

Vegetables are absolutely delicious right now. In my opinion the top three vegetables of the season are:

1. Potato. I already wrote about new potatoes. Siikli is my favorite type.

2. Cucumber. Especially the ones that are grown on open field, avomaa, not in green house. The ones grown on open field are shorter and fatter, and you may want to peel them.

3. Onion. You don't need to peel them and you can eat the whole thing, also the green part.

Why these three? They just taste so different compared to the winter version of the very same vegetable.

Karelian rice pies

May I introduce a laborious, challenging and delicious classic: Karelian rice pies - traditional food that everybody likes.

This is how to make them:

First you need to cook the porridge. This may sound easy, but to me it's the hardest part. Cooking milk is just not my cup of tea.

For the porridge you need

3 dl porridge rice

3 dl water

1,5 l milk

1,5 tsp salt

The milk should be fatty milk, not skimmed. And the rice should be porridge rice, not basmati or jasmin rice.



Cook the water and rice for couple of minutes, the rice should suck all the water.

Add milk and salt. Cook for about 40 minutes. All the cook books say that you need to mix the boiling porridge every now and then, but I've noticed that no matter how much I mix, always at some point those brown burnt flakes start flowing in the porridge.





This is something the cook books don't teach you: just pick the largest burnt sucker flakes up from the kettle and don't tell anyone.



Once the porridge is done, let it cool. Or the next phase is so slow that the porridge probably cools down nicely on its own.

For the shell dough you need

4 dl rye flour
1 dl wheat flour
2 dl water
1 tsp salt

Mix the ingredients.



Roll a bar out of the dough. Cut the bar into 30 pieces.



Roll each of the dough piece into ball.





Roll the dough ball into flat, thin, round or oval flake having about 1 mm thickness. Use wheat flours if needed.



Pile up the dough shells on top of each other, about 10 for each pile.



Once all the shells are rolled, you can start filling the pies. Spread a nice junk of porridge on top of the shell.



Wrap the sides to the center of the pie.



Start pinching the dough into wrinkles.



First the other end, then flip it around...



...and continue with the rest of the pie, from center to the tip of the pie.

Put the pie on baking plate. You can lay the pies quite close to each other, they won't expand in the oven.

250 degrees celsius for 15 to 20 minutes, and they're done. But not ready yet.



Melt some butter and water.



Brush the pies with butter-water.



Let the pies cool slowly under a cloth (you might want to have a piece of paper between the pies and the cloth, you just brushed them with butter, remember).

Enjoy!

Kiss goodbye the low carb diet

The Finnish menu for the next two months: new potatoes, dill, butter and herring. And maybe some salmon and salad.

New potatoes are available already now. They're not yet at their peak in taste, but they surely are good, much better than the Swedish new potatoes. Cooking is the only way to prepare new potatoes. Don't even dream about making mashed potatoes, casseroles or fries out of the new summer potatoes - you'll end up having glue (been there done that). But really, cooking in lightly salted water with dill is the best and the only way.

Let's grill again, like we did last summer

I must admit I've never understood the difference between barbeque and grilling. So forgive me for mixing the terminology.

Grilling, as we call it, is quite popular way to cook in Finland in summer time. I believe the secret behind the popularity of grilling in Finland is the summer cottages: cooking outside on fire is the most convenient way of making food, since majority of summer cottages have traditionally been unelectrified.

Many prefer gas grills. Then there are those pallogrilli, ball grills, which run on coal. My personal favorite is anyway a masonry grill made of bricks, which run on wood. It takes time to burn the wood into suitable degree, but it's worth all the trouble.



My absolute favorite food to grill is grilled mushroom which are stuffed with blue cheese and wrapped into bacon. Yummy! Also sausage will do. I'm not a fan of grilled meat, I think it easily get dry and therefore I prefer the frying pan or parilla. Some are grilling fish too, but I prefer to have my fish smoked. Other good stuff for grilling are onions, peach halves, pineapple, tomatoes - actually any vegetable will do if you wrap it into foil and put some cream cheese into the package.




The grilling season is on. And it lasts until the independence day - December 6th that is.

Hydrogen and atom

If you're visiting CERN, hydrogen and atom most certainly refer to particles, maybe in the context of energy production. If you're visiting Lappeenranta, hydrogen (vety) and atom (atomi) are known as much bigger particles, loaded with energy.



Vety and atomi are grill delicacies from Lappeenranta. Vety is a meat pie filled with ham and boiled egg, and atomi is a meat pie equipped with either ham or egg.

This is how to make vety:



Have a newly baked meat pie from Kesämäen Leipomo, Kesämäki bakery. Any other meat pie (e.g. the one in the picture) is fake.



Cut the pie into half and heat it up in steam. Microwave oven won't do it.



Insert ham and egg after warming up the meat pie. The egg should be boiled - fried egg would be a sacrilege!



Wrap into paper (not into a napkin but into rustling paper) and eat while warm. Don't spoil with spices.

The hardest part for home-made hydrogens and atoms is the meat pie: Kesämäki bakery is the only producer for those. I was wandering in Stockmann Tapiola, and I knew I'm not gonna find the real thing, but I kind of expected to find something similarish - but no! There were only full corn meat pies and rye meat pies. I'm kind of happy that consumers are nowadays more health oriented, but come on! Who wants to have a healthy meat pie!?!

You'll get the only real hydrogens and atoms at a grill kiosk at Lappeenranta harbour or market place.