THE HERITAGE OF GRANNIE

Can you imagine anything more mouthwatering than the smell of freshly baked bread?
Grannie's bread was the first real gourmet experience of my childhood. The bread was almost too hot to hold in your fingers, but I couldn't wait. It was fun to watch how butter melted on top of the warm bread and how the holes of the bread sucked it in a blink of the eye. The crust made scrunchy sounds with every bite and the taste was irresistible. I was instantly addicted.

To Finns bread made out of rye is the same as croissants to French. In Finland school lunch is served in the school cafeteria and it is free of charge. Menu varies, but every meal includes crisp bread and milk. Therefore, rye crisp bread is the everyday bread children first learn to eat at school and an essential part of Finnish army meals as well. In the army crisp bread has earned witty nick names like "plywood" or "bomb proof", and the soldiers might find it hard to believe that the exported Finn-crisp is very popular outside of the country borders.

Just about every Finnish village has its own bread. In Grannie's childhood bread had a luxurious status. Bread was almost sacred and highly respected; one should never leave a knife in top of the bread, nor run while holding a piece of bread. It is, even today, customary to bring salt and rye bread to a new home at the first visit. Salt and bread represent prosperity, and should never run out.

Grannie lived quite simple and traditional farm life; milked cows twice a day and cooked delicious everyday gourmet for a huge household. Once a week she warmed the wood burning oven and baked bread; dark rye bread and white barley bread, crisp bread and karjalanpiirakka-rice pies. Grannie talked to the cows as to her best friends, and let us youngsters in on the secret of baking gourmet breads and pastries. Her legacy lives in every dough we make, that is the most delicious fortune one can ever inherit.


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NÄKKILEIPÄ, CRISP BREAD
500 milliliter (5 dl) water, +42 degrees of Celsius
6 g dry yeast
1/2 tablespoon fluid honey
350g (5dl) rye flour
235g (3 1/2dl) wheat flour
100g (1 1/2dl) wholemeal flour
100g (1 1/2dl) crushed rye
1/2 -1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon crushed cumin seeds
1/2 tablespoon crushed fennel seeds

Warm the water to 42 degrees of Celsius, use thermometer or feel it with your hand, 42 degrees is a bit warmer than your hand.
Mix honey with water.

Measure all the dry ingredients in a large bowl, make a well in the centre, pour in the water. Stir in the flour to form a stiff dough. Knead the dough for couple of minutes, put it back to the bowl and cover with tea towel. Leave to rise for 20 minutes.

Pick a golfball size piece of dough and, on a lightly floured work surface, roll out each piece to form a round, 15 centimeters (6 inches) across. Trim the edges with a sharp knife to look even and round. Make a hole in a center with a small drinking class. Prick the crisp breads with a fork.

Bake breads in oven of 225 degrees of Celsius (425 Fahrenheit) for 10-15 minutes. Let the crisp bread cool on top of a wired wrack. Repeat until no dough is left. In case the bread is not hard enough, lower the heat of the oven to 100 degrees of Celsius (220 Fahrenheit) and return it into the oven for extra 5 minutes.

Serve the cooled crisp bread with smoked salmon, gravad lax, or butter and smoked ham.

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PERUNARIESKA, POTATO FLAT BREAD

6 large potatoes
130-200 g (2-3 dl) barley flour
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt

Peel and boil the potatoes until soft, then mash the potatoes.

Mix well potato mash, flour, eggs and salt.

Cover the baking tray with baking paper, tap the dough on the baking tray, into 8 small or 4 larger flatbreads. Brick the breads with a fork and bake in an oven of 250 degrees of Celsius (500 degrees of Fahrenheit) about 15 minutes, until the surface turns lightly brown.

Serve flatbreads oven warm with butter (that melts so beautifully in top of the warm bread) or cooled as ordinary bread.


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KARJALANPIIRAKAT /KARELIAN RICE PASTRIES

filling
1000 milliliters (1l) milk
220 g rice (2dl)
1 teaspoon salt

dough
100 milliliters (1dl) water
1 teaspoon salt
70 g (1dl) wheat flour
105 g (1 1/2dl) rye flour

glase
1 part melted butter
1 part water

egg-butter
2 hardly boiled eggs
200 g butter of room temperature

Bring milk to boil, add rice and cook in a moderate heat stirring every once in a while, until the mixture becomes thick. Season with salt and set aside to cool.

Mix water, salt and flours in a bowl. Knead until smooth.

Roll dough into tube (sausage shape) and cut it into 1 1/2 cm wide pieces. First roll the pieces in your palms into a ball shape, then flatten them, sprinkle rye flour in between the flat rounds, and cover with plastic wrap to prevent of drying.

One at the time, on a well floured working surface, roll the pieces of dough with a rolling pin to a thin, round base. Take tablespoon full of rice and spread it onto the pastry base in an oval shape. Lift the edges up and make a crinkled pattern by pinching the edge of the dough with your fingertips.

Arrange the ready pastries on a baking tray and bake them in a hot oven of 250-300 degrees of Celsius (500 Fahrenheit) for 15-20 minutes.

Brush the pastries with the water-butter mixture right after taking them out of the oven. Serve with the egg-butter. (Hard-boil the eggs, let cool and remove the shell. Dice eggs, mix together with the butter of room temperature, keep in a fridge until needed).

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