Thursday 28 February 2008

Polish millet dumplings

Polish: proso
Sudovian: prasan
Hausa: ge̋ṛő
Basque: artatxiki
Galician: paínzo
Bahasa Indonesia: jewawut
Pashto: غوښت
Sestwana: lebelebele
Dutch: gierst
Hungarian: köles

Millet is one of the oldest grains. Mentionend in the Bible, has been grown in India and Africa since prehistoric times and Arabs used to feed birds with millets grains. Today millet is consumed especially in Africa (by the way, if you know some original African recipes how to prepare millet, please let me know!) but worldwide people discover this old cereal again, cause it is gluten-free and easy in digestion. In Poland people prepare it on several ways, especially cooked in milk and served with cinnamon and apples or dried plums, baked with milk or cream and fruits, but sometimes cooked in broth à la risotto (since millet means proso, millet "risotto" is called prosotto) or just cooked like rice. I present you my millet Polish dumplings, kopytka z kaszy jaglanej. Brothers of Italian gnocchi, kopytka (which literally mean "little hooves") are eaten very often in Poland and also known in Belarus (named капытка). Kopytka are small potato and flour dumplings, cooked in water and often fried with breadcrumbs and butter. Potato is the main ingredient of this dish, in my recipe replaced by millet.

100 gr millet
1/2 cup milk
1 small egg
1/2 cup wheat flour + 1 tablespoon potato starch
1 teaspoon butter
salt (to taste) + a pinch of sugar
1 tablespoon breadcrumbs + 1 tablespoon butter

1. Put the millet on a sieve and pour boiled water on it. Immediately, put the sieve under cold running water and wash the grains. This step is very important to exclude the bitterness of millet

2. Combine drained millet with milk in a pyrex tray and bake for about 30 min in the oven (about 200C). Millet shpuld absorb all the milk and become a solid crackling layer

3. When millet is cool, grind it in meat grinder.

4. Combine millet cream with whisked egg, sieved flour and potato starch, butter, salt and sugar

5. Sprinkle your workplace with flour. Form a long roll, thick as thumb. Cut it in diamonds.

6. Boil broth (can be vegetable broth) or water with salt. Pour kopytka, and cook 10 min from the moment that the water boils again.

7. In a saucepan, heat butter with breadcrumbs and add cooked, drained kopytka (you can do it just before serving or even next day) and fry for a while. Each dumpling should be covered with golden breadcrumb sauce.

Tuesday 26 February 2008

Peruvian condensed milk dessert

Polish: westchnienie
German: Seufzer
Hebrew: אנחה
French: soupir
Mapunzugun: afküduamn
Guarani: ãho
Scots Gaelic: anail
Valencian: suspir
Danish: suk
Welsh: anadl

A sigh was what a Limenean lady used to do when her manjar blanco was ready, after stirring it constantly for some hours. Manjar blanco, the main ingredient of suspiro de limeña (Limenean lady's sigh) is one of the most important imngredients in Latin American pastry: serves as alfajores (special kind of cookies and cakes) filling, flavour of ice-creams, breakfast spread etc: I was in Chile once and manjar blanco was everywhere. Of Middle Eastern origin, not that laborious as kaymak, but still you need about 2 hours to prepare this dessert. But beware, you really have to love sweets! Even if extremely tasty, I couldn't eat even a half of my portion... My advice: enjoy your suspiro de limeña while drinking strong unsweetened coffee, just like Arabs do when gloating over their extremely sweet pastries ;) I forgot to say... Dedico este postre a mi amigo muy querido Pepe...!

see also: Polish milk pudding

1 cup condensed milk (sweetened)
1 cup evaporated milk (condensed but unsweetened)
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 glass oporto*
cinnamon

1. Combine two kinds of condensed milk in a saucepan. Simmer over a low heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 hours (until it becomes thick and golden). What you obtain is called manjar blanco



2. Take the manjar blanco off of the heat. Blend well with two yolks. Some people also add vanilla aroma and beat manjar with yolks over a saucepan with boiling water. When ready, pour the cream into glasses and cool in the fridge.

3. In the meanwhile make a syrup from sugar and lime juice. The original recipe claims for oporto* (but I drink no alcohol so I made the original version for my family but for my portion I just replaced oporto with juice from 1 lime and added few drops rum aroma. There was no differrence in consistency)

4. Beat egg whites. When stiff, pour warm syrup and beat until the meringue is cool. Pour over manjar blanco and sprinkle with cinnamon.





This is my contribution into oporto event :) hosted by Nysa. I am very glad to participate, even if I personally drink no alcohol and even don't eat it in desserts, but I decided, after mailing with Zorra, to translate my recipe into German. Please forgive me all my mistakes :) And try someday this delicious Peruvian dessert!


1 Glas evaporierte Milch (Kondensmilch ohne zusätzlichen Zucker)
1 Glas Kondensmilch, süss
2 Eier
1/3 Glas Zucker
1/4 Glas Portwein*
Zimt

Die beiden sorten Kondensmilch werden unter ständigen rühren in einen Topf erhitzt und bei niedriger Hitze köcheln gelassen. Nach 2 Stunden ungefähr erhalten sie goldene, dicke Creme das heisst manjar blanco. Die Eigelbe werden mit manjar blanco geschlagen. Die fertige Creme verteilen und erkalten lassen. Inzwischen, ein Syrup von Zucker und Portwein bereiten (*Portwein kann mit Zitronensaft und wenigen Tropfen Rumaroma ersetzt werden). Die Eiweiße steif schlagen und Zuckersyrup dazu geben. Weiter schlagen bis den "Baiser" gekühlt ist. Baiser auf manjar blanco Creme gießen und mit Zimt bestreuen.

Fertig! :)

Friday 22 February 2008

German grits pudding

Polish: kakao
Irish: cócó
Xhosa: ikoko
Yiddish: קאַקאַו
Lithuanian: kakava
Sestwana: khoukhou
Arabic: كاكاو
Japanese: ココア
Manx: coco
Serbian: какао

In Poland semolina porridge is considered baby food. In Germany Grießbrei is one of the most commonly eaten desserts. When I was studying at the German Baltic coast, it was normal to find semolina milk pudding with red berries sauce as the main dinner dish. Cocoa as the main ingredient was my own idea but the general proportions were based at many German culinary sites that I surfed through before preparing this pudding, that is why I include it to German recipes list. Pure vanilla version would be also tasty. But what surprises me the most is the way in which differrent nations serve semolina: Central Europeans, Arabs, Latin Americans... (p.s. Middle Eastern semolina desserts will appear soon, I promise!)

2 cups milk
2 tablespoons cocoa powder (add only one if you don't like your grits to have a strong chocolate taste)
1 tablespoon (or more, or less, just as you prefer) sugar or even better vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon butter
50 gr (about 3 tablespoons) semolina
a pinch of salt
1 egg yolk
coconut, shredded

1. Combine milk, cocoa and sugar to obtain cocoa drink. Try if it contains enough sugar and cocoa!

2. Cook cocoa drink with butter and a pinch of salt. Add semolina, stir and cook until boiling - until tht time semolina gets thicker.

3. Reduce the heat. Add yolk and stir constantly, until homogeneous. Don't boil anymore! Just sprinkle with coconut flakes and enjoy :)






Pora na polską wersję :) Po raz pierwszy od założenia bloga mam zamiar brać udział we wspólnym gotowaniu tematycznym! (chwilkę przedtem było o anyżku po angielku, a teraz o kakao po polsku; dzień debiutów!) Strasznie się cieszę na tę myśl. Miałam w zanadrzu przepis na czekoladową kaszkę mannę i czekoladowy pudding z tapioki. Zdecydowałam się na pierwszy z deserów, ale o tapioce jeszcze będzie u mnie mowa. Nawet jeśli nie wypróbujecie mojego przepisu, to mam nadzieję, że zainspiruję Was w jakikowliek sposób do upichcenia czegoś nowego :) Proporcje przygotowałam na podstawie wypadkowej kilku niemieckich stron kulinarnych. Niemcy bardzo często jedzą kaszkę mannę. Z ich przepisu wyszedł mi naprawdę pyszny deser; przedtem mój grysik zawsze był zbyt gęsty albo o prostu niesmaczny.

Zatem włączając się do czekoladowego weekendu Bei z Mojej Kuchni: proponuję Wam moją czekoladową kaszkę mannę. Potrzebne będzie:

2 szklanki mleka
1 łyżki kakao (chyba że wolicie mniej czekoladowe)
1 łyżka cukru (zależy od Waszych upodobań: może wolicie mniej cukry, może więcej) albo lepiej cukru waniliowego
1 łyżka masła
50 gr (około 3 łyżki) kaszki manny
szczypta soli
1 żółtko
szczypta wiórków kokosowych

1. Wymieszajcie mleko z kakao i cukrem az otrzymacie kakao (koniecznie spróbujcie czy jest odpowiednio słodkie i odpowiednio czekoladowe)

2. Zagotujcie kakao z masłem i szczyptą soli. Dodajcie kaszkę, mieszając doprowadźcie do wrzenia. Kaszka zgęstnieje.

3. Zmniejszcie ogień do minimum. Dodajcie żółtko i mieszajcie aż masa będzie jednolita. Zdejmijcie z ognia - masa po dodaniu żółtka nie może się już zagotować! Udekorujcie wiórkami kokosowymi i... smacznego!

sweet banana balls

Polish: anyż gwiazdkowy
Vietnamese: Đại hồi
Catalan: badiana
Finnish: tähtianis
Norwegian: stjerneanis
Russian: Бадьян
Arabic: ينسون نجمي
Turkish: yıldız anason
Bahasa Melayu: bunga lawang
Chinese: 八角

My first association with star anise would be the best homemade remedy for refractory hacking cough: ground star anise seeds mixed with honey-dew. I feel this smell even now, when I think about it. But it works, and only that counts :) Back to star anise, inspired by Turkish toplar and Indian laddoo, I created my own sweet aniseed balls without sugar but still sweet and with a wonderful star anise fragrance.

see also: Turkish pumpkin balls
see also: Turkish carrot balls
see also: Brasilian sweet potato balls

1 medium banana (about 100 gr)
1/2 cup pistachios
1/2 cup hazelnuts (+ a handful more to fill)
1/2 teaspoon ground star anise seeds
1 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup crumbled biscuits (petit beurre) (+ a handful more to coat)
few drops lemon juice

1. Grind pistachios and hazelnuts, add star anise powder. Mix with the rest of dry ingredients

2. Mash banana and sprinkle with lemon juice to avoid its oxygenation and becoming brown. Blend with dry ingredients

3. Form little balls from the mass. Stuff each ball with a hazelnut. Coat with crumbled biscuits. Set in the fridge for 1 hour before eating.






I am so excited... This is my first contribution to global cooking and recipes sharing :) at Think Spice... Think Star Anise, hosted by Sunita from Sunita’s World.

Thursday 21 February 2008

Vegetables in batter

Polish: ciasto naleśnikowe
Bawarian: bachdoag
Italian: pastella
Swedish: frityrsmet
French: pâte à frire
Breton: toaz-fritañ
Basa Sunda: adonan
Finnish: friteeraustaikina
Hebrew: בלילה
Zulu: dumuza

The idea of frying vegetables in a batter was something that I heard about but never beloeved that could taste good. I learned how to do it and now each month I have to prepare (and consume :P) my beloved fried cauliflowers. The main idea of cooking and frying cauliflower in a batter came to me from an Egyptian family that I know, but I prepared the batter on my own. My mom adores this dish and, as you will see on the pics, you can fry anything. Just have a look:

1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
salt, cumin

1. prepare the batter: whisk egg with milk. When ready, blend with sifted flour and add salt and cumin to taste. The best thing you can do now is let your batter have some rest in the fridge. After 1 hour it tastes better.

2. Cook vegetables until soft (I recommend cauliflowers, but also broccoli, carots, turnips, corn, I even saw once fried long green peppers, first stuffed with some dlicious filling and then fried in batter -> see the pictures below to get the inspiration :P)

3. Dip vegetable slices in the batter using two forks and fry.

CAULIFLOWERS:


CARROTS:


CORN (with and without parsley green):


TURNIPS:


CALAMARI:


few cauliflowers and lots of batter? ...COULIFLOWER PANCAKE:


Serve with any sauce/dip/cream you like, be it tahini, tarator, hummus, babaganoug, mayonnaise & kethup sauce or anything. Recipes for the sauces will appear soon.

Sunday 17 February 2008

Polish milk pudding

Polish: deser
Chinese: 甜品
Breton: dibenn-pred
Estonian: magustoit
Saami: maŋŋeborramuš
Hindi: मिठाई
Albanian: ëmbëlsirë
Galician: sobremesa
Xhosa: isimuncumuncu
Afrikaans: nagereg

There is no nice winter snowy evening without a good dessert :) I was skimming through my old cookbooks searching for something original. This book, "Kuchnia domowa" by Zofia Zawistowska, is older than me and was edited in communistic Poland. Therecipes given there require only simple ingredients and the effects are surprising. Take a look at this "snowy" eggs and milk dessert. Tastes really good and looks amazing. here you are, Polish snowy cream, krem ze śniegiem!

see also: Peruvian condensed milk dessert

2 cups milk
3 eggs
vanilla stick
5 tablespoons sugar
a pinch of cinnamon

1. Wash eggs and carefully divide yolks from whites

2. Beat whites. When ready, add 2 tablespoons sugar. Cook milk. When boiling, cook in them walnut-size balls that you make from beaten whites, using two spoons. Don't be afraid: when you cook white, they become twice or thrice bigger, but when you take them off and drain, they re-size again. Cook beaten whites balls for about 2 minutes, but not all of them at once: they need to swim :) Their consistency will be a bit marshmallow-like



3. Drain cooked whites and let cool.

4. Beat yolks with the rest of sugar (3 tablespoons) and vanilla that you tool from the stick. When homogeneous, take a pan with boiling water and beat yolks again, over the steam. Slowly add milk (yes, the milk from cooking whites) and blend until it becomes thick. pour into bowls, sprinkle with cinnamon and cover with cooked whites. Serve still warm or cooled.



French spinach balls

Polish: szpinak
portuguese: espinafre
Dutsch: spinazie
Gujarati: પાલક
Persian: اسفناج
Guarani: ka’anaite
Russian: Шпинат
Greek: σπανάκι
Korean: 시금치
Luxemburgian: Päinetsch
Basque: ziazerba
Irish: spionáiste

I really adore spinach. I took this recipe from an old Polish cookbook with French recipes ("Kuchnia francuska na co dzień i od święta" by Barbara Buczma and Bożena Bonik). I don't know if this recipe is something popular between French cooks and housewives, but tastes good and contains no meat. I modified the recipe a bit cause my mum always tells that when using breadcrumbs instead of flour, many dishes taste better and softer. If you like spinach, you should try those curd-spinach balls (epinards au fromage blanc)

500 gr frozen spinach
500 gr curd
30 gr breadcrumbs
100 gr grated cheese (Edamer, Cheddar...)
1 egg
nutmeg, salt, pepper
some flour

1. Make sure there is no whey in your curd (drain it if you have to).

2. Heat spinach (I did it in microwave, you can heat it in a pan) and drain

3. Blend curd with spinach, breadcrumbs, egg, grated cheese. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste. Leave in the frinde for about 1 hour

4. Form walnut-size balls from curd dough and coat them with flour



5. Cook them in boiling water about 3 minutes, until they emerge from the water. Drain. Now you can eat them cooked (like I did) or bake in greased pyrex tray, sprinkled with 100 gr ground cheese and morsels of butter. I think the second option is even better cause the cheese inside the balls will melt just the cheese on the top. But surely the first option is low-fat.

I served my epinards au fromage blanc with stewed chicory...


...and the most simple bechamel sauce

Thursday 14 February 2008

Georgian stuffed flatbread

Polish: Gruzja
Georgian: საქართველო
Old Prussian: Grozėjė
Udmurt: Грузия
Abkhazian: Қырҭтәыла Аҳәынҭқарра
Aramaic: ܓܘܪܓܝܐ
Chuvash: Грузи
Ossetic: Гуырдзыстон
Kashubian: Grëzóńskô
Kurdish: Gurcistan
Nahuatl: Xeorxitlān

I would like to write so much about Georgia, its population, language, monuments, cuisine, fascinating history. This country absolutely fascinates me. Eastern Georgians were called Iberians by ancient Greeks, so Georgia has something to do with my studies :) I had not many chances to try original Georgian food, but once, in Nuremberg, I bought delicious suluguni cheese in a Russian shop, and other time, a friend gave me churchkhela, sweet grape and nuts sausage, to try. From the webpages I surfed through I learned that Georgians eat a lot of nuts, eggplants, plums and drink wine. Khachapuri (ხაჭაპური), which means cheese bread, is considered breakfast dish. I compared several recipes and made my own khachapuri. After eating it, I loved Georgia even more

1 cup milk
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons oil
salt
400 g flour (about)
250 gr cheese (the original recipe requires Georgian suluguni cheese, which I didn't have, so I used feta + bryndza + mozzarella)
1 tablespoon sour cream

1. Whisk one egg with milk, oil and salt (I also added 1 teaspoon dried garlic, but I just love this taste)

2. Add flour and knead. I can not tell the exact measurement, but about 400 grams: so much until you have a rollable dough but still soft. Let stand for about 15 minutes, in the meanwhile prepare the filling

3. Whisk second egg with sour cream, add grated cheese



4. Divide dough and filling into portions. I made three: one fried in a pan, one baked and one boat-shaped, baked, from the rest of my dough.

5. Roll one portion of the dough into a circle. Cover the middle of the circle with cheese and leave the edges without cheese. If you want, cut the edges as I did - it may result easier to close them. Now gather the edges together and close them so that no cheese gets off. Form a nice plain bread.







6. Now you can fry the bread in the oil from both sides or bake in oven. Not bad would be frying them first and after that baking for some 10 minutes. I fried my first bread and the filling was still unstable and flow out, so I baked it 10 minutes more in the oven (filling should not be fluid!), and I baked the second one.





7. If you want to make a boat-shaped khachapuri called adjaruli khachapuri, take one portion of the dough, form a boat, make some place inside to put the filling: cover it with cheese and put one more egg on the cheese layer, but don't break the yolk. Put a bit of butter on the egg and bake.



Aronia milkshake

Polish: aronia
Upper Sorbian: slowčinowa aronija
Latvian: aronijas
German: Apfelbeeren
Danish: surbær
Swedish: aronior
Welsh: aeron tagu
Russian: арония
Ukrainian: горобина чорноплідна
Icelandic: logalauf

Chokeberry may cause a sensation of choking because of its bitter taste. That is why people freeze them before eating. Despite of this inconvenience (even after freezing they are not sweet), it is worth eating to make heart stronger. My grandmum has a whole field of chokeberries. She makes preserves. Chokeberry cake or muffins must be a good idea, too. I made chokeberry milkshake.

1 cup milk
1 cup strawberry ice cream
1/2 cup chokeberries
sugar to taste

1. Cook chokeberries in 1/2 cup water for about 10 minutes. Drain and blend with milk. Rub through a sieve and sweeten if you need to.

2. Blend with ice cream and... consume :)



Wednesday 13 February 2008

Egyptian fried eggplant

Polish: bakłażan
Maldivian: ބަށި
Ilokano: tarong
Vietnamese: CPà tيm
Armenian: րադենջան
Slovenian: jajčevec
Romanian: vânătă
Malagasy: baranjely
Georgian: ბადრიჯანი
Corsican: malinzana

Did you ever wonder why is eggplant actually called... eggplant? Well, the ancient eggplants were not violet and long, but white and egg-shaped. You can find white eggy aubergines until today, but not here in the heart of Europe. In Poland, until XIX century, eggplants and tomatoes were considered nothing but decorative garden plants! My poor grand-grand-grand-grandparents, they never tried delicious fried aubergines! I spied on this recipe from an Egyptian so I consider it Egyptian, but I guess باذنجان مقلي can be served anywhere where eggplants popular are. Egyptians serve them with koshary and fried yellow peppers. Recipes for those dishes will appear soon, I promise!

aubergine (-s)
salt
cumin
lemon juice (vinegar)
garlic cloves

1. Cut eggplants in 0,5cm - 1cm slices. Sprinkle with salt and leave for 30 minutes

2. They are ready when drops of water appears on its surface



3. Fry eggplants (oil has to be really hot) from both sides until golden

4. Prepare the sauce: combine lemon juice (vinegar) with salt, kammun and chopped garlic cloves (proportions to taste)

5. Deep each slice in lemon juice sauce and leave on a plate.



Thursday 7 February 2008

Quince preserves

Polish: pigwa
Arabic: سفرجل
Bosnian: dunja
Rapanui: tuava
Ukrainian: Айва́
Romani: गुदुईन
Sardinian: tidongia
Welsh: cwins
Flemish: kweepeer
Upper sorbian: prawy kwětlowc
Spanish: membrillo

Quince. A fuit with so much meaning. May have preceded apple culture. It was a ritual offering at ancient Greek weddings and an important ingredient in Roman cookbooks. In Portuguese quince is called marmelo and marmelada was just cooked quince ith sugar, which was the beloved sweet of Christoph Columbus. In Spain this dessert is called dulce de membrillo and it is eaten as an appetizer with salty cheese. In Poland and Germany preparing above mentioned "quince bread" is always related with preparing quince jelly. Both at once. I even made ice cream and sorbet. I am gonna show you how. But I had no big quinces so I used baby quinces.



quinces (1 pan full of quince chunks)
sugar
2:1 preserve sugar (with pectin)

1. Cut quinces into chunks, don't peel, don't throw the seeds. Put into a saucepan.

2. Add so much water just to cover fruits. Cook until they are soft (check with fork)

3. Drain fruits (don't throw the resting juice!) and rub through a sieve

4. Cook quince puree with sugar (give as much sugar as much quince puree you obtained). The longer you cook, the darker will be your quince bread.

5. Pour the mass into a plain tray. Some people dry it in opened oven, but I think it is better to let it cool in a tray without baking. When cooled, cut in pieces and eat with slices of salty (especially sheep and goat) cheese or sprinkle with sugar and just eat sweet





6. Cover the sieve with a linen towel. Drain the juice, it has to be clear. Now you can prepare sorbet, ice cream or jelly.

To make a jelly, cook the juice with 2:1 pectin sugar (two portions of juice with one portion of sugar). Scald your jars and close jelly inside.



To make a sorbet, sweeten the juice to taste and freeze



To make ice cream, take 1/2 cup quince bread, 1 cup yoghurt and 1 cup milk. Combine and freeze.



To make a quick refreshing drink, combine 1 tablespoon quince jelly with a cup of water.

Polish (Silesian) poppyseed pudding

Polish: mak
Sudovian: mākē
Valencian: rosella
Sardinian: pabauri
Sanskrit: खस्खसवृक्षं
Persian: خشخاش
Guarani: ka’amonge
Macedonian: Мак
Upper Sorbian: mak
Aragonese: ababol
Basque: mitxoleta

Christmas time is over. Carnival is over. Even Ash Wednesday is over. But I think about poppyseed desserts still and already miss them. Why do Poles love Christmas so much? Because we eat tons of poppyseed this period, which makes us feel good and very happy. People prepare poppy with whipped cream and pasta, poppy with cooked wheat grains and raisins, poppy mass with little crunchy fried cakes or makowiec, twist cake with poppy filling. My family loves poppy not only in December. We made another poppy dessert some days ago. after New Year. Here it is: Silesian makiełka

800 gr poppyseed
1/2 - 1 cup honey (depends how sweet you would like to have your dessert)
1 cup raisins, dried dates chopped, dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, almonds
1 challah or sweet yeast bun
1 cup whipped cream (or more)



1. Begin in the evening the day before eating. Pour poppyseed in a bowl and cover with 1 liter boiling water. Poppyseed have to be covered all. Cover the bowl with a plate, seeds should drink all or most of the water until the next day.

2. Grate drained poppy twice or better thrice in the grating machine.



3. Add honey and whipped cream to poppy cream, stir. Slice challah.

4. Prepare a big nice bowl. Put carefully some slices of challah on the bottom to cover it completely, this is the first layer. Cover challah with poppy cream, sprinkle with a handful of dried fruits and nuts. Continue until all the ingredients are over, the last layer should be dried fruits and nuts.

5. Let cool for about 5 hours (or the whole night) in the fridge, so that challah becomes soft. Some people use water instead of whipped cream, and their poppy mass is a bit loose and challah soaks with poppy layer perfectly, but with whipped cream it is much more tasty!



Finnish rutabaga cake

Polish: żyto
Old Prussian: rogē
Sudovian: rugīs
Quechua: sintinu
Latvian: rudzi
Luxemburgian: Kar
Galician: centeo
Serbian: раж
Slovenian: rž
English: rye
Georgian: ჭვავი

When my sister brought me 2 huge rutabagas, I surfed through all the possible recipes that I could only find in the net, in many languages, especially from Scandinavia. I like the taste of rutabaga, a mix of sweet, spicy and nutty. This great pumpkin-coloured vegetable tastes like turnip and smells like horseradish. I found a recipe how to make Finnish-Karelian Lanttukukko, rutabaga rye pie. Thanks to Varislintu from UniLang who translated the recipe for me! :)

750 ml water
40 ml (about 1 1/2 cup) rye flour
50 g fresh yeast
5 cups flour (wheat)
3-4 tbspoons salt
1 big rutabaga
1 teaspoon sugar
1 kg ground meat
a handful of parsley
1 big onion
2 teaspoons salt, a bit of pepper
butter to grease the pie

1. Mix yeast in warm water. Add rye flour until it is porridge consistency. Leave for an hour.

2. Slice rutabaga (I peel vegetables after cooking) and cook in salted and sugared water until soft (about 20 min).

3. Add flour (about 5 cups or until the dough doesn't stick to the bowl) and 3-4 tbspoons salt to the yeast dough and knead. Cover with towel and let rise in a warm place.

4. Chop onion finely, fry with meat, add 2 tspoons salt, pepper and chooped parsley.

5. When the dough is grown twice, sprinkle your workplace with rye flour and knead again. Pin it out. Now you can make the original rutabaga pie which has a pie shape, or follow my idea of rolling the dough like a twist-cake (strudel). Fill with rutabaga slices and meat, roll. Bake in 250C for about 1 hour (until golden). Grease the top with butter.







The original recipe wants you to wrap the pie in greaseproof aper, newspaper and plastic bag and rest 3 hours in room temperature until soften. I just ate it :)

I don't know if the final result should look like this. My Lanttukukko looks like stuffed bread :) And guess what? I made this dough again, to make delicious breakfast bread rolls :)