Valentine’s Day and Finnish Cooking in Ada, Ohio, US

This post includes recipes for Finnish style Karelia stew (Finnish meat sauce) and Laskiaispulla (Finnish sweet buns) and couple photos of my Valentine’s Day in Ohio, USA.

We had super cold weather here in Ada during weekend. And when I say “cold” the temperature can be okay but when you combine it with really windy weather it’s everything but warm. Feels like -24 Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit)

… Luckily I bought this awesome jacket from NYC so I’m not freezing to death. 🙂

… You can also stay warm by drinking skinny vanilla lattes in university’s cafeteria, NoM

My friend tried their sushi in NoM. Not too good, if you have eaten good sushi before.

After sushi and latte we went to buy some groceries for today’s dinner we decided to cook Finnish buns (laskiaispullat) and Karelia stew (karjalanpaisti) together in her place. It’s a tradition to eat those in the middle of February.

Karelia stew

 

2 pounds of beef pieces (or 1 pound of beef and 1 pork)

4 carrots

2 onions

some bay leafs

about 10-20 black peppers

salt

1. Warm oven to 350 Fahrenheit (175 Celsius)
2. Put meat pieces, sliced carrots and onion pieces into a big pot. Cover them with water and add bay leafs, pepper and salt
3. Let them stay in oven at least 2 hours, the more the better. We let them stay there 4,5 hours.
4. Serve with mashed potatoes

Laskiaispullat (Finnish Sweet Buns with Cream and Jam)

Dough

2,5 cups (5-6dl) skim milk

2 eggs

0,5tsbn vanilla flavor

0,5cup sugar

(3tsbn kaardemumma (Finnish spice))

2 bags dry yeast

about 5-6cups (13 dl) flour

1,5oz (50g) butter

¼ cup (0,5dl) canola oil

Filling

Strawberry Jam

Whipped Cream

Almond pieces

 

1. Mix milk, eggs, vanilla, sugar and kaardemumma.
2. Mix about 2 cups of flour with yeast and add them to milk. Mix.
3. Melt the butter and add it and oil to dough
4. Let the dough stay in warm place about 30 minutes, warm the oven to 450 Fahrenheit (225 Celsius)
5. Add the rest of the flour and mix them with hands. Knead until the dough is uniform, smooth and soft.
6. Share the dough to 12 equal pieces and roll them ball shaped buns. Place them on baking sheet.
7. Brush the buns with egg
8. Bake them in oven about 8-15 minutes; they should get little golden brown color
9. Let the buns cool about 15 minutes and fill them with jam, cream and almonds

Waiting the Karelian Stew getting ready = Wine and some movies from Netflix

My friend’s kitchen + living room combination = Dangerous bar? Haha 😀