What are we making today?
Finland, oh Finland, you land of snow and sauna and home to some of the most socially awkward people I’ve ever met. And yet, you are the happiest. We should all learn from the Finns and enjoy some Karjalanpaisti while sweating communally in the nude before plunging into an icy lake.
Finnish cuisine is both dense and fresh, relying on game like salmon and reindeer, pickled stuff like herring and cabbage, and fresh forage like lingonberries and mushrooms. As much as I personally relish in pickled fish 🐟, I was ecstatic and slightly suspicious to find that the national dish was a simple meat stew. Karjalanpaisti, or Karelian hot pot, has less ingredients than I have brain cells, give or take 10 depending on the day. Half of those ingredients were water, pepper, and salt, so I was genuinely concerned that this was going to be pretty lame. I was wrong!
Tell me more about Karjalanpaisti please
The base of the stew is big chunks of meat, but at least 2 kinds for flavor. I went with 1/3 beef and 2/3 pork, because pork is really cheap here 😌. Lamb is also an option but I’m saving my lamb budget for the Middle East.
Then you quarter some onions, carrots, and smack a few cloves of garlic and throw them into the pot with the meat. Salt, pepper, water. Okay. Then the two heavy-lifters with the flavor: bay leaves and allspice berries. The allspice berries were interesting, it’s a spice I usually associate with Latin or Levant cuisine, but the warm spice really rounds out the stew after hours of stewing, and the berries get soft that you don’t have to worry about cracking a molar on them.
So that’s it. Simmer for a bit, skim off the impurities, and then put your dutch oven in the oven (ovenception) for 3 hours and let your house fill with delicious meat smell. Note, this is strictly a fall or winter recipe. Our apartment got real hot and steamy.
Okay, what about the accoutrements?
Finland is potato Europe, not tomato Europe. And indeed, we made the best mashed potatoes of my life to nestle gently beside the stew, like a pillowy cloud. The secret is an obscene amount of butter (like 1:1 lol), and if you really hate yourself and want an amazing arm workout, mash your potatoes painstakingly through a sieve. It gets the potatoes amazingly creamy without being gluey. It will take forever. Halfway through you’ll question all your life decisions but you’re too committed at that point. I think it’s worth it. Jaden does not. Agree to disagree.
Rye bread is also a staple, and if you’re a good baker and have access to rye flour, make some! I found some pre-sliced German rye at a Xhangoli and washed my hands of it. As we’ll find out throughout this series, I am not a good baker, and even if I was I wouldn’t waste my time on rye because it ranks very low on the bread scale for me. I will say that the dense nuttiness did go well with everything in this meal, but the next time I am obliged to buy and eat rye it’s gonna be for Sweden or Latvia. Not recreationally.
Lingonberries are the tart lil goobers that help cut through all the richness of Finnish food. Since I forgot to grab a jar of lingonberry jam the last time we were at IKEA in Greece, cranberries did the trick. I whipped up a batch of cranberry sauce, but if you don’t have time for that, premade or sour cherry jam works as well. Or, you can risk it all and go berry-picking in a forest nearby and hope they’re the edible little red berries not the death little red berries. This is a disclaimer that I’m not responsible if that’s the route you choose. ☠️
Lastly, pickle some cucumbers! It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s dill-icious. Sorry. Here’s the recipe. God, I’m glad no one’s going to read this except me.
Is Finnish food worth making?
Surprisingly, yes! It took such minimal effort to make a massive pot of stew that has fed us happily for a week. And, it really was superb. After hours in the oven, all the meat was tender and fell apart just if you looked at it. Both of us agreed that it reminded us all together of an American turkey dinner crossed with a pot roast; deeply comforting and filling.
There’s another Finnish dish called Karjalanpiirakka that I’d love to make sometime, it’s a rye crust pastry filled with rice porridge and often topped with an egg butter? I don’t know, but I feel like it could fuel me through the endless winter. And it seems more achievable than Poronkäristys (sauteed reindeer). Next time, Finland. 🇫🇮
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