Karelian Pastry – Karjalainen Piirakka

This is one of the “most Finnish” food you can find. The origins are in the region of Karjala in the North-East. Finland lost the war and lost a large part of Karjala to Russia. Many families had to leave their homestead and settled in other parts of the country. They brought with them this recipe and it became one of the landmarks of Finnish food.

It consists of a “shell” made from rye-flour and a filling. The rice filling you see in shops nowadays was for feast days only in the past like Christmas or weddings. Rice was too expensive, since for some reason rice refused to grow in Finland. The every-day Karjalainen pastry was made with cooked barley, something you are unlikely to see today. But there are many tasty filling variants. My favorite are the still warm potato and reindeer variants but try out what you like best.

Traditionally, egg-butter is put on top of it. Me being me, I prefer a thick slice of tasty cheese like musta-leima (a strong flavoured Finnish Edamer cheese) on top of the karjalainen rice pastry.

Ingredients:

For the “shell” (about 20-25 pieces):

2 dl Cold water

1 tsp salt

3 dl Rye flour

1 ½ dl Wheat flour

Filling (rice – the classical choice, which you can find in super markets:

4 dl Water

1 tsp salt

2 1/2 dl Short grain rice (if you really want to go classical take precooked barley grains)

9 dl Full fat milk

1 Small egg

Filling (potato - see picture above - my favorite):

1 kg potatoes

Water

3 dl Full fat milk

1 tsp Salt

50 g Butter

1 Small egg

,

Filling (carrot)

2 dl Water

1 1/2 dl Short grain rice1 tsp Salt8dl Full fat milk

500g Carrots

50 g Butter

For “glazing”: 50-100 g Melted butter, 1 dl Full fat milk

HINT: You can add 50-80 g of smoked reindeer finely cut to your favorite filling. It is not really traditional but tastes very good.

Instructions:

Shell: Mix all ingredients together and form a long “snake”, cut 20-25 equal pieces and form small balls. Flatten them with a rolling ping into an oval VERY thin form. Put some towel over the shells that are not “in usage”, they dry out very fast.

Filling – Rice/Barley: Cook the rice / barley in salted water and after a short while add the milk and cook till grains are soft. Let the rice cool and mix the egg underneath.

Filling – Potato: Peel and cook them in salted water. Mash them with 3 dl hot milk, add the butter. Let it cool and then add the egg.

Filling – Carrot: Add the rice to boiling salted water. When the water has been absorbed add the milk in small portions and let the rice soak it up. This will take about 30-40 minutes. Peel the carrots, cut them ins mall pieces and cook them in a little water soft. Mash the carrots and add the rice and butter. Let it cool.

Preparation: Put about 1 Tbsp of filling into each shell and tweak the rim of the shell. Do not overfill the shells.

Fold the long side over the filling so that the middle is still a 1-2 finger wide open. Then make a pinsetter move to the rim. Check out this video https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B_utlSZifT8 how to make the typical form.

Bake the pastry for about 250 C (as hot as your oven is able to do it) for about 12 minutes. After that glaze them generously with a melted-butter-milk-mix.