Dill Beef – Tillilihaa

According to one of the largest tabloids in Finland, this 80ties school food was voted the most hated. School food was always under financial pressure and therefore often the quality suffered and sauces were stretched with potato starch. Another obstacle with this dish is that many Finns believe dill is a spice that goes with fish, not with meat.

In general, this is not a bad dish, if properly made i.e. no lumps of flour in the thickened sauce and cooked long enough. It has this sweet-sour balance which divides people. I found a recipe in a cookbook from 1946 “Kotiruoka” but opted then for a slightly more modern version which included onion and carrot.

The older versions of Tillilihaa use lamb, newer ones utilize beef. The oldes recipe I found was from Cajsa Warg 1755 and used lamb. Tillilihaa was also one of the everyday food items canned, so that working women could still put the traditional food on the table after work.

If you want to have fun with Finnish language and why foreigners often struggle with it, consider that most foreigners don’t really hear the difference between tilli (till), tili (account) and tiili (brick).

Ingredients:

600 g Beef loin or shoulder

1 Medium Carrot

1 Medium Onion or small leek

Dill stalks

1 tsp salt/1 l water

1 tsp White pepper

Pinch of allspice (piment)

Sauce:

5 dl Meat broth

2–3 Tbsp Wheat flour

1 tsp sugar

1–2 Tbsp Vinegar or lemon juice 

Salt

White pepper

Chopped dill

Instructions:

1. Clean the surface of the meat if necessary. Place the meat in a pot of cold water. There should be enough water to cover the meat.

2. Heat to boiling point. Skim off the foam that forms with a slotted spoon, else the dish will taste bitter. Continue simmer the dish (lid on). Peel and chop the vegetables and add to the broth with the dill sprigs. Season with salt and white pepper. Let the soup simmer gently, covered, for about 2 hours. Check if the beef is really soft afterwards.

3. Remove the cooked meat from the broth, let it cool for a while and cut into cubes. Strain the broth and puree the vegetables into the broth if desired.

4. Mix the flour with a bit of water and thicken the broth (add the mix slowly to the broth and stir all the time, you don’t want lumps). Adjust taste with salt, pepper, sugar, and vinegar.

5. Add the meat cubes and warm the whole dish up again. Be careful, since it is already thickened, it easily burns. Finally, add the chopped dill.

   
   

Serve with boiled potatoes.