Week 32 - Finnish

The first thing I thought of when the Week 32 challenge came up as Finnish was Karelian pie (also known as Karjalanpiirakka). The only time we'd ever had Finnish food before was at Nordic Bakery in London, where we tried out Finnish-style cinnamon buns and rice-filled Karelian pies, so I wondered if I'd be able to replicate that at home. I found a recipe on Saimaa Life and decided to start there.

I took the original recipe and halved it, and then converted it from metric. The ingredients for our version of the Karelian pies were:

for the rice:

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- 1/2 cup Arborio rice ($1.25)

- 2.5 cups whole milk ($0.75)

- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

for the dough/finished products:

- 1 cup of rye flour (plus extra to flour the board)* ($3)

- 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour (plus extra to flour the board) ($0.10)

- 1/2 cup water ($0)

- a few grinds of salt ($0.02)

- 2 tbsp of butter, melted ($0.18)

* The price estimates for the rye flour and all-purpose flour actually represent double the amount listed here because I had to make the dough twice. More on that later...

We ate the pies with a package of smoked salmon ($6.49) and some grape tomatoes ($3.49; doubt that's a traditional accompaniment, but since everything else was new to B, I wanted to include something he would definitely like). The total came out to about $15.30, but 42% of that was smoked salmon, kind of a premium ingredient.

The first step in making the pies was to make the porridge, which had to be chilled before being added to the dough. Other than using too big of a pot and starting later than I planned (which made me concerned that there wouldn't be enough chilling time, but it will soon become apparent that was not an issue), this step went smoothly. To make the porridge:

- Boil the water.

- Add the rice, and cook until the water is absorbed. [This happened very quickly.]

- Add the milk, and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

- Reduce heat to low and simmer until all the milk is absorbed, about 1-1.5 hours, stirring periodically.

- Season with a little bit of salt.

- Cool and then put in the fridge to chill for a few hours (or however long you have).

After letting the porridge sit in the fridge for about 30-45 minutes, I went to go start on the dough. The directions in the recipe said to stir the flour and salt into the water and then knead the dough until it was solid. Usually, I mix the water into the flour instead of the other way around, but went to follow the recipe. Let's just say it did not go well. It was so wet and sticky, and no matter how much flour I added, it just didn't get any better. (I was also having deja vu, because the exact same thing happened with arepas earlier in the week, but at least those were salvageable.) Eventually, I gave up and started over. I hate, hate, hate throwing out food, but there was no way that dough was going to turn into pies (or anything at all).

The second time, I drizzled the water slowly into the flour little by little, mixing as I went along, and didn't use the entire 1/2 cup of water. It still came out a little too sticky and wet and stuck to the rolling pin, so I needed to use a lot of flour on the board. I tried to make them all the same size, but there was no consistency so we had all different shapes for our pies.

The part I was most worried about before making this actually was the step that went the smoothest, making pinched sides. Unfortunately, at this part in making the pies, I'm at a loss for what happened next. I never finished writing the post at the time, and I can't find my notes. (It was almost 4 months ago. If I find them, maybe I'll update this post.) If I remember correctly, I baked them for about 10-15 minutes until the tops of the rice started to look golden, and then took them out and brushed them with melted butter. I don't remember the temperature, which isn't great for repeating this experiment, since that could be where things went wrong.

The exterior shells of the pies were tough and dry. Did I bake them too long? Did I roll them out too thin? Did I mess up when making the dough? Did I knead it too much? Not sure, but they were hard to bite, and I felt like I was tearing the dough with my teeth with more force than should have been necessary. I only gave B the inside rice part, and after a while, ended up discarding some of the shells and eating mostly rice myself. The rice part tasted really good though, so at least we had something good for dinner to go with our smoked salmon and tomatoes. I want to try this again sometime, maybe for the Finland part of AtWCC, and hopefully it goes better next time.