Recipes

Hey...hungry ?....

Rosolli is a kind of vegetable salad we eat for starters at the Christmas meal.
It is usually eaten with small slices of marinated herring or marinated baltic herring. This is what you need:

3 beetroot
4 carrots
3 potatoes
1 large pickled cucumber (gherkin)
2 apples
1 onion
1/2 tsp salt
a pinch of white pepper

Salad dressing:

2 dl whipping cream
2 tsp vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
a couple of drops of beetroot juice, if you want pink dressing

1. Cook the vegetables in their skin on the previous day.
2. Peel the vegetables an cut them in very small cubes; chop the onion.
3. Mix all the vegetables together and season with salt and white pepper.
4. Add the vinegar into the cream and whip it: season with salt and sugar.
5. Serve the salad and the dressing separately. Tastes delicious with marinated herring!

For the Christmas meal it is a common and very old tradition to eat ham (which has been slowly roasted in the oven overnight) accompanied by a creamed casserole.
The ham is garnished with prunes and boiled peas, and on top of the casseroles we pour a little bit of the juice that has come out of the ham in the oven (there are usually litres of it, especially if the ham is a very big one, 10-14 kilos). This juice is very greasy but also very delicious! We usually put the extra meat juice in the freezer and use it later for soups and other dishes.

Rutabaga (swede) casserole

1 kg rutabaga
2 dl cream
(1 dl cooking liquid)
1/2 dl breadcrumbs
1/2 dl syrup
1 egg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tbsp salt

Topping : breadcrubs, butter

1. Wash and peel the rutabaga and cut into pieces.
2. Cook the rutabaga pieces in water until soft.
3. Drain off the water, but save 1 dl.
4. Mash the rutabaga pieces into a soft puree.
5. Add the breadcrumbs, spices, syrup, egg and cream.
6. If the mixture is too thick, add some cooking liquid.
7. Grease an oven proof beautiful bowl and pour the mixture in it.
8. Decorate the surface with a tablespoon and drop small knobs of butter on top and sprinkle with breadcrumbs.
9. Bake in the oven at 175 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours.

Mashed potato casserole

1 kg potatoes
25 g butter
1/2 tbsp salt
3 dl milk
1 tbsp wheat flour
a pinch of ground nutmeg

Topping : knobs of butter

1. Wash and peel potatoes an boil them until soft.
2. Drain off the water and mash thoroughly.
3. Add the butter and wheat flour.
4. Cover with a lid an leave to malt in room temperature overnight.
5. The following day add the milk, salt and ground nutmeg and whisk until soft and even.
6. Grease an ovenproof beautifl dish and pour the puree in.
7. Decorate the surface with a fork and drop some pieces of butter on top.
8. Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 1 1/2 h

Gingerbread

150g sugar
150g butter
2 eggs
125 g syrup
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp clove powder
500g wheat flower
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Cook up syrup and spices, add butter and beat until the mixture is cool. Whisk eggs and sugar. Pour the egg mixture whisking all the time. Add the wheat flour with soda and stir well. Let the dough set in the refrigerator. Roll oput into a thin sheet, cut up onto moonshape or the sh of a star, heart,...
Bake in the oven at 180 degrees for about 10 mn.
You can decorate the cookies withj an icing : 1 dl of sugar and 2 tsp of water or egg white. You can also make a gingerbread house and decorate it with the icing and colourful sweets.

Porridge
Here in Finland, we eat rice porridge on Christmas morning. Some people eat porridge with cinnamon sugar, milk and some others eat it with raisins and "plum soup". We "hide" an almond in the porridge. People eat rice porridge very much, because the one who gets the almond makes a wish !

This is how you make it :

2.5 dl water
7.5 dl milk
1.5 dl porridge rice
1 tsp salt

Boil the water. Add the rice and stir. Add the milk and stir. Simmer the porridge about 40 mn. Add the salt.

By Arttu and Tuomas, 8b.

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