Food Project 2.0

In 2012, when I was living in England, I saw the film Julie & Julia and decided to start a similar cooking project to shake up my kitchen repertoire. However, instead of cooking through a cookery book one recipe per day like Amy Adams's character Julie Powell did, I made a slightly less ambitious pledge to cook something new at least once a week. I did have a day job after all. And to make sure I kept at it, I blogged everything (here, in Finnish). The project was what I hoped it would be: it made me think outside my usual veg box, so to speak, try new ingredients, methods and pairings. This was made slightly easier by the fact that I was living in a country that offered different produce and meat options from my native Finland.

Some experiments were disasters, of course, like empanadas that became one giant empanada & strudel hybrid, or prune marmalade that turned out so foul it ended up filling the bin rather than the traditional Finnish Christmas pastries (joulutorttu) it was intended for. Then again some instantly became firm favourites and are now some of my go-to recipes, like baked lemon cheesecake and roasted vegetable & harissa couscous. I also came to appreciate British food a lot more and am now eager to serve game pie, braised pig's cheeks and Guinness bread to anyone who visits. I mastered new skills like making my own pasta and boning a rabbit. But, this is going to sound so cheesy, what's more important, I learnt a lot about myself. There, I said it, cheesy or not. It's true, though.

As many of my friends know, I can be a tad impatient, and that's not a good thing in the kitchen. (I can just hear my partner saying: ”If by 'a tad' you mean 'so frickin'' you're right.”) I have now had to admit that having all your ingredients prepared and measured, the pots, pans and utensils ready and table tops tidied is going to make the whole experience of cooking so much easier, more stress-free and enjoyable. I have also learnt that the old adage ”Good things come to those who wait” holds true in the kitchen: how much better is a soffritto you've been patiently shifting in a pan over a gentle heat for 30 minutes than the acrid, slightly burnt mush you get if you rush it over high heat in 10 minutes or less. I just hope I can apply some of the newly-learnt patience in other areas of my life, too.

As the project was such a personal success, I thought I'd start Project 2.0 but I needed a guiding principle, something to narrow down the search for recipes. I thought about concentrating on things I struggle with like classic sauces (you know, béarnaise, beurre blanc, etc.), desserts or offal, but that that could end up with both me and my partner A. eating dry food, B. becoming really fat or C. having a serious iron-surplus (offal other than liver is difficult to come by in Finland). I also considered focusing on food of a particular geographical area, perhaps Southeast Asia or Africa but that would be a bit impractical as it would necessitate a trip to an ethnic food store nearly every time I cooked ”a project meal”.

Then it hit me: why not cook Finnish food? It always saddens me when I see or hear Finns dissing their own culinary heritage. Sure, it may not be as colourful as Italian kitchen, as abundant in fresh produce year round as... well, in any other country that's even a bit further south than Finland, or as exotic as Asian or African. Although, ”exotic” is relevant, which many of us forget sometimes. What's mundane to us can be exotic to someone from, say, India. I also suspect many Finns who consider Finnish food boring and tasteless think of bland school lunches* or the endless potatoes and gravy they had as kids. I believe – actually, I know – there's a lot more to it. Taste-wise, I think the key is to invest in good-quality ingredients, to buy seasonal produce (don't make a strawberry layer cake in January or mashed potatoes in June) and make sure you're preparing it right (don't expect a cheaper cut of meat to be ready in a flash). In terms of making it look appealing, well, as we live in a cold climate a lot of our traditional food is the kind that's meant to stick to your ribs: one-pot stews or just meat and potatoes in one form or another. Also, due to the short growing season, we tend to eat a lot of root vegetables because they keep well. But it can be presented in a nice way, I think. That's what I aim to prove, anyway.

Internationally, I don't think Finnish food has a bad rep, because it barely has a rep. Our PR department should be sacked, actually. I suspect (and I can't produce any studies or statistics right off the bat) that we have been curing salmon, baking cinnamon buns and making crispy bread as long as the Swedes have but our dear neighbour has been better at selling it to the outside world. There are exceptions, of course, and things do change, slowly. Our domestic restaurant scene has seen some great restaurants emerging in the last couple of years focusing on Finnish food, for example. One truly inspiring story is that of Satokausikalenteri (”Harvest calendar”). It started when this one guy got frustrated over the fact that supermarkets made it so difficult to shop seasonally. They focused on competing with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables but ignored their natural seasons. Customers ended up with tough and tasteless fruit and innutritious vegetables. He started collecting data on the natural growing and harvest seasons of fruit and vegetables, both domestic and international, for his and his family's use. The idea spread like wildfire among their friends and acquaintances and when they made the calendar public in 2013, it became an instant success. Now available in both hardcopy and smartphone app, it is used by thousands of Finns who have suddenly noticed that certain fruits are more delicious and easier to peel when you buy them at their peak. Even the biggest grocery store chains have taken notice and are now creating produce sections where the seasonal stuff can be more easily identified and purchased.

Thus I begin my ambitious journey through my own culinary heritage, aided by local shops, butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, my own humble balcony herb garden (yet to be created, of course: there's still snow on the ground) and the recipes from my family and other countrymen and with an aim to prove that Finnish food can be both delicious and attractive.

I'll start with a firm favourite the recipe of which I copied from my mum's recipe book when I moved away from home back in the late 90's. The great thing about this delicious pie is that you can use the base with the seasonal fruit of your choice. I've topped it with bilberries and quark, a classic Finnish combination, but you could use apple slices and cinnamon in the autumn or rhubarb in the spring, for example. Nothing grows in Finland at the moment but bilberries are picked in late summer and autumn and they freeze beautifully. I didn't pick mine, I'm ashamed to admit, but bought a big box at the market in the autumn, bagged them and popped them in the freezer. An important note: bilberries are not the same as blueberries although you can substitute them with blueberries. The two are closely related but bilberry, which grows wild in shrubs in Finland, is more acidic and the flesh is gorgeous dark purple, black almost, and it stains everything it touches. Marvelous stuff. Anyways, here goes.

BILBERRY & QUARK PIE (MUSTIKKARAHKAPIIRAKKA)

Ingredients

Pie mix:

3 dl piimä (substitute with kefir or natural yogurt)

2 dl sugar

100 g melted butter (In Finland, we usually use salted butter)

4 dl wheat flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (may be substituted with vanilla extract)

Berries:

2-3 dl bilberries or blueberries (frozen or fresh; if using frozen, don't defrost them first)

1 tablespoon of potato starch (corn starch should work too) You need this to absorb excess moisture from the berries, otherwise the crust will be soggy.

Quark:

250 g quark

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 egg

+ 1 tablespoon butter & some breadcrumbs to line the dish

1. In a bowl, mix together the kefir (or yogurt, if using that) and sugar with a spoon or a plastic/silicone spatula.

2. Add the melted but slightly cooled butter and mix.

3. If you are using a liquid vanilla extract, add that now and mix.

4. Combine the flour and bicarb and mix in the kefir & sugar mix in batches. If you were using a powdered vanilla product like vanilla sugar, add that to the flour before mixing with the kefir & sugar. Set aside.

5. Add the potato starch into the berries and mix. Set aside.

6. Soften the quark in a bowl with a spoon and then add the sugar and the egg and mix until smooth. Set aside.

7. Grease the pie dish (at least 27 cm in diameter) and line with breadcrumbs to avoid sticking.

8. Pour the pie mix in the dish and spread it so it covers the bottom of the dish. No need to be very precise: it will even out in the oven.

9. Pour the blueberries on top in an even layer.

10. Spoon dollops of quark mix on the blueberries. No need to spread as it will melt and even out in the oven. It won't cover the entire surface but the mottled finish is what you want.

11. Bake in 175-200 degrees Celsius, mid-height, for about 20-30 minutes. The baking time depends on the oven so keep monitoring the pie. For bilberry pie, slower baking is better as it will ensure that despite the juicy berries the bottom will be cooked through and yet the surface won't burn. Keep baking until the bits of pie crust showing around the edges are golden brown. The quark will still be a bit jiggly when you take it out but it will set as it cools. Leave to cool completely. I prefer it fridge temperature, but room temperature is fine, too.