Tapenadea, karjalanpiirakoita, suolasarvia and Finnish bread

This is just an evening snack. It takes some time to make, but it is worth it. The black stuff on the white bread is Greek tapenade, olive paste. In the local Lidl there was Finnish bread, or that`s what the name was. It is quite OK, a bit similar to the all time classic ruispalat. I just put some caviar paste, mätitahna, anchovy, parsley ans a lemon slice on top to make a salty piece.  The Carelian pies, Karjalanpiirakka with egg butter is a real classic and my favorite is the salty croissants, suolasarvet, where you actually do not so much taste salt than butter. It is butter dough, great.

Tapenade is made like this. Take a jar of Greek black olives and if they have pits, remove them. There should be 1-1.5 dl of olives.  Squeeze three garlic cloves and juice out of 1-2 lemons, better may be two, add to the olives. Add a spice measure (1 ml) of black pepper and 2 spice measures of salt. Chop two anchovies to very small pieces and add. Chop a lot of parsley leaves, maybe 1 dl, and add.  Add 3 table spoons of capers. Put all these to a mixer. You have to add olive oil to get the mixer do anything, so add slowly 3-4 table spoons of olive oil so that the paste is suitable to be spread on a bread. Cool the paste in the refrigerator.  Spread on baguette.

For Karjalanpiirakka I decided to mix some wheat flour as from only rye flour they get a bit hard. So, cook rice porridge: 2 dl porridge rice, 1 l of milk, 1 tea spoon of salt, 1 table spoon of olive oil, or without oil. It cooks some 40 min. Let the porridge cool, which is easy if it is winter and the porridge can be put outside. You do not eat these pies if it is very hot outside anyway. Then make the dough. 4 dl of rye flour, 2 dl wheat flour, 3 dl cold water, 1.5 tea spoon of salt, 1.5 table spoon of oil. They mix to to dough that is quite easy to knead.  Put the dough to the refrigerator for some time  as rye flour is sticky. Meanwhile you can cook 4 eggs for 12 min, put to cold water for a while to get the shell out easily, chop with a knife, add some 150 g of butter and mix. The dough and porridge should be cool enough by now. Make a long baguette out of the dough, cut to three pieces, cut each piece to 5 equal parts and roll each part to a ball. Use flour quite freely so that the balls are not sticky. Take 5 balls and put the rest to the refrigerator.  From each ball make a round disc of some 18 cm diameter. Some make oval discs, but a round one is better.  You have to flip the disc over several times and use lots of flour, as rye is sticky. Move the disc often while flattening it. You can put four discs at the time to an oven plate and you need two oven plates, so that is 8. There will be 15 pies. Take porridge and divide it to 15 parts, that is to three, then take one fifth from each part and spread it with two spoons on a disc. Flatten the rice so that it is not all in the middle. There must be rice under the dough also. Then with thumbs and index fingers of both hands you push the sides of the pie to the middle to get the shape. Move these pies closer to each other, then make the remaining 7 pies. Four fit to the oven plates, three somewhere else. Fill these with rice and move closer, so in one plate you get 8 pies, in the other 7. Next melt some butter and add some milk, let the milk boil. Take a brush and paint all pies with this mixture, otherwise the dough becomes hard. Warm the oven to 250 Celsius. Bake in the oven about 20 min.

egg butter
the shape of the Carelian pie

Salty croissants, suolasarvet, are easy. Mix to 7.5 dl wheat flour and 200 g of butter so that the dough is like grains. Warm 2.5 dl of milk to hand temperature, mix 30 g of yeast to the milk, add 1 tea spoon of salt and 1 tea spoon of sugar to the milk. Mix the milk and the flour-butter mixture fast and well with a spoon. Divide the dough into three parts and form them into balls in hands. Flatten each ball into a 25 cm diameter disc. Cut each disc into 8 sectors. Roll each sector into a horn, like a croissant. Paint the croissants with an egg, both yellow and white part mixed together. There is yeast, so let the croissants raise for about one hour. Warm the oven to 225 Celsius and bake for 10-15 min, until the egg is nicely yellow.

suolasarvet

 

 

 

 

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