Burns Supper leftovers: Karelian pasties or karjalanpiirakat

Burns Supper 2007 left me not only with lots of leftover leeks that I had bought for the cock a leekie soup and ended up using in a savoury leek souffle. I also had some neeps & tatties left over (that's boiled and mashed turnips and potatoes for those of you who don't speak Scots; neeps and tatties are the traditional accompaniments for haggis:) The best way to use up those vegetable mashes, obviously, is to make karelian pasties or karelian pies. Yep, you've seen these Finnish goodies on this blog before - here, served with eggy butter. Karelian pasties are small rye-crusted pastries (usually)with rice porridge or potato mash filling, although carrot, carrot & potato, turnip & potato, carrot & rice, barley porridge, etc fillings are available, too. I usually simply buy them from a local supermarket, but they aren't so difficult to make. The crust is simple and inexpensive flour and water affair, the filling is simple and inexpensive, too. Yet, the resulting pasties are nothing less than delicious, especially with eggy butter or simply buttered and eaten with a slice of savoury ham, for instance.

Karelian pasties
(Karjala pirukad)



Dough:
200 ml cold water
1 tsp salt
250 ml rye flour
250 ml wheat flour

Potato and turnip filling:
500 grams potatoes
500 grams turnips
100 ml milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
15 grams butter
1 Tbsp wheat flour

For the dough, mix water, salt and flour by hand. Knead into a dough (you may need a bit more flour, the dough should be dry-ish and pliable), divide into dozen pieces. Press each dough piece into a ball, then flatten and roll into thin discs on a desktop dusted with rye flour. Keep the dough balls and rolled discs under a large piece of cling film to keep them moist.
Place a heaped tablespoon or two of your chosen filling (I've given a recipe for turnip & potato one here), and crinkle (?) the edges over the filling (see photo). You should be able to see the filling, as it's an open pastry!
Bake at 300°C for 15-20 minutes, until the pasties are slightly golden brown at edges.
Meanwhile, heat some milk and butter in a small saucepan, keep warm!
When the pasties are done, take them out of the oven, dip into the hot milk-and-butter mixture, drain and place in a bowl, covered with a clean kitchen towel. This is the only way to get moist and soft Karelian pasties.

For the filling, peel turnips and potatoes and boil separately until soft. Mash, add the milk, butter and flour, season with salt and sugar.

Waiter, there is something in my ... salmon kulebyaka

For the first round of Waiter, there is something in my ... ! I made Anthony Bourdain's boeuf bourgoingnon. For the second round of this new foodblogging event - in February focusing on pies and hosted by CookSister's Jeanne - I made something from the Russian cuisine: kulebyaka. Kulebyaka should have been on my 2007 list of foodie resolutions, as I had been thinking about making it for months, but somehow it slipped my mind when I wrote the post. But better late than never, and now was my chance to make that festive Russian pie. Kulebyaka is a high and oblong closed pie with different types of fillings. When looking for the perfect recipe, I came across kulebyakas stuffed with fish, mushrooms, meat, cabbage, even apples. Some recipes used puff pastry, some yeast pastry. I realised that it is the shape of the pie (enclosed, high, long) that distinguishes kulebyaka from a pirog (that's simply a 'pie' in Russian). However, to me kulebyaka has always meant - first and foremost - a fancy puff pastry pie filled with salmon and rice. At the end, puff pastry, sliced fresh salmon, rice, dill and dainty quail's eggs were my chosen ingredients. For those of you from the British Isles - think of Beef Wellington, just with salmon and rice instead of beef and mushrooms.

Salmon kulebyaka
(Lõhekulebjaaka)
Serves 6-8



500 grams puff pastry
500 grams salmon or trout fillet, thinly sliced
150 ml rice
12 quail's eggs
fresh dill, chopped
salt
freshly ground black pepper
lemon juice

(egg for brushing, black peppercorns for decorating)

Season the salmon slices with salt, pepper and lemon juice.
Cook the rice in salted water until al dente. Drain and cool.
Boil the quail's eggs in simmering water for 2-3 minutes, then cool quickly under cold running water. Peel and put aside.
Roll out the puff pastry.
Place the smaller pastry sheet on a baking tray. Cover with 1/2 of the rice, then dill and 1/2 of the salmon slices. Place the quail's eggs over the salmon.
Sprinkle with dill, then cover with the rest of the rice, top with salmon slices (see right) and sprinkle any leftover dill on top. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze or two of lemon juice.
Cover with the larger pastry sheet. Decorate with small cut-out fish figures (optional - I used black peppercorns for eyes:). Make a couple of insertions into the pastry with a sharp knife, so the steam can evaporate during cooking.
Brush with egg.
Bake at 200C for 20-30 minutes, until kulebyaka is golden brown.
Serve hot, either with a good bouillon (traditional way) or a dollop of mayonnaise.

Here's a cross-section of the finished pie - I really liked the way those quail's eggs looked:

Smoked salmon & dill tartlets

Some ten days ago I had invited a friend of some friends and a young American colleague over for dinner. I wanted the dinner to be slightly Nordic in honour of our overseas guest, who was also a fish-eating vegetarian. The main dish was a beetroot and blue cheese risotto (beetroot qualifying as the 'Nordic' element there:), and we started the meal with small smoked salmon and dill tartlets. Dill is one of the most-loved and most-used herbs in Estonia, and as the country is surrounded by water on three sides, then fish is a suitably suitable main ingredient, too.

A note on smoked salmon. Here in Estonia, you can buy either hot-smoked salmon or cold-smoked salmon. When I moved to Scotland, I found it confusing when recipes just asked for 'smoked salmon' and didn't specify which type of smoked salmon they're talking about. Eventually I learned that 'smoked salmon' always indicates 'cold-smoked salmon' and 'hot-smoked salmon' always says so on the tin/packet..

Smoked salmon and dill tartlets
(Suitsulõhe-tillipirukad)
Source: BBC Good Food, July 2004
Serves 6



300 grams shortcrust pastry
150 grams cold-smoked salmon or trout
2 eggs
2 Tbsp chopped fresh dill
200 ml single cream
salt
freshly ground black pepper

To garnish:
dill sprigs and fresh lime or lemon wedges

Divide the pastry into six, roll into thin circles and line six individual Ø 10 cm pastry forms with them. Prick with a fork and put into a freezer for 15 minutes to reduce shrinking in the oven.
Pre-bake for 15 minutes at 200Celsius, until slightly golden. (If you prefer to blind bake your pastry cases, then cover with parchment paper and dried beans, bake for 10 minutes, then remove the paper&beans and bake for further 5 minutes).
Cut the smoked salmon into thin strips and lay on shortcrust cases.
Whisk the eggs with dill, add single cream and season with salt and pepper. Pour over salmon.
Bake for 15 minutes, until the filling has set and the tartlets are golden brown on top.
Serve at once, or wrap in foil and keep in the freezer. Defrost, and re-heat at 180Celsius for 4-6 minutes until warm.

Garnish with dill and citrus wedges.

Small Lebanese lamb 'pizzas' with pomegranate molasses and pomegranate seeds

Here's a recipe for some small lamb 'pizzas' that were on the table during yet another housewarming/welcome party back in December, alongside (though not necessarily simultaneously) with salmon & cream cheese canapés, grilled beetroot & suluguni cheese canapés (basically a non-rye bread no-goat cheese version of my contribution to the (in)famous Cheese Sandwich Day; Suluguni cheese was left over from hatchapuri), puff pastry sausage rolls with sesame seeds, small puff pastry & mushroom tartlettes, Molly's chocolate & nut blocks and raspberry marshmallows, among other things. These were really interesting - the pomegranate molasses adds a certain sweetness and depthness to the topping, and pomegranate seeds really make the dish sparkle. And believe me - cinnamon is the perfect pairing to the minced lamb..

The recipe is from one of the books by Sam & Sam Clark - the restaurateur couple I met in Edinburgh last March. It's a second dish from them on my blog in about a month or so - I also tried their chicpea salad with pomegranate seeds and saffron recently. Considering that I've bookmarked many other recipes, then the Clarks are probably going to make an appearance again soon:)

Small lamb 'pizzas' with pomegranate molasses & seeds
(Väikesed lambalihapirukad)
Adapted from Sam & Sam Clark's Casa Moro (p. 42, Flatbread with lamb, pine nuts & pomegranates)
Yields ca 40 small 'pizzas'



(On the top left corner you can see small salmon canapés that I first served on my birthday back in April; on the top right, small puff pastry sausage rolls with sesame seeds; at the centre at the far back, a bowl of wasabi peas)

The dough:
a batch of your favourite pizza dough or some other yeasted bread dough, using about 300 ml of liquid (I used half of the dough for my tiny mushroom pies)

The topping:
500 grams of lean lamb meat, ground
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4 Tbsp pomegranate molasses
50 ml water
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
peanuts

To garnish:
chopped fresh parsley
seeds from one large pomegranate

Prepare the yeast dough and let it rise according to your favourite recipe (or use half a batch of dough from here)

For the filling, grind the meat (I used the special food grinder attachment of the KitchenAid).
Heat the olive oil on a frying pan, add salt and onions and fry gently for about 7-8 minutes. Add the garlic, fry for another 3-4 minutes, until transluscent.
Add the minced lamb and cinnamon to the frying pan, increase the heat a little, and fry, stirring regularly, until the meat is browned.
Season with salt and pepper, add the pomegranate molasses and water and simmer, until water has evaporated. Remove from the heat.

When you are ready to start baking, then roll the dough thinly (ca 4 mm) on a slightly floured worktop. Cut out small circles ca 5-6 cm in diametre (I used a smallish drinking glass for that). Place them on a parchment-paper covered baking sheet.
Place a scant spoonful of lamb filling on each dough disc, pressing down gently. Sprinkle with pine nuts.
Bake at 230C for 10 minutes or until they're cooked and golden on edges.
Transfer to a metal rack to cool, then sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and lots of chopped parsley to serve.

Seenepirukad or hundred tiny mushroom pies

There's a young man in Argentina who knows the perfect pronounciation for two Estonian words. One of them is 'sünnipäevakringel' and the other is 'seenepirukad'. The first is a large sweet yeast kringel served for birthdays, and the other means 'mushroom pies/pierogi'. He really liked both of them, so he made a special effort and learned these two words, enabling him to ask for them. That's quite an accomplishment, as it's not the easiest language to master, apparently..

This Argentine guy said that these remind him of empanadas. I don't know about that - these are as Estonian to me as you can get. You can make one large pie (in which case you call it 'seenepirukas', of course:) or medium-sized ones. I like to make them small (as you could figure from the title of this post), so you could finish them in two-three bites. That's a lot of extra work, as small dough circles are more fiddly to fill and pinch (and as you can see from the picture, I could still improve my pinch-the-edges-technique, even after all these years). The soft yeast dough encases a flavoursome and salty mushroom filling, which I simply adore..

The picture below is taken in early November (I mentioned making these during my apple cake season) . I've made them a few times since. Most recently I served them at a party last Thursday, when I used half of the dough for small Turkish lamb and pomegranate 'pizzas' - I'll write about these scrumptious things soon..

And yes, you need to knead this dough. I know that every self-respecting food blogger has recently been at least trying to make the new wonderbread that you don't have to knead. I haven't and as I find kneading dough rather relaxing, I doubt if I will..

Seenepirukad or wild mushroom pies, Estonian style
(Seenepirukad pärmitainast)
Adapted from Eesti rahvatoite by Silvia Kalvik (1981)



Dough:
500 ml lukewarm milk
25 grams fresh yeast
a generous pinch of sugar
1 tsp salt
2 to 3 Tbsp butter, softened
1.2 to 1.5 litres plain flour

Filling:
300-400 ml chopped mushrooms (if using salted mushrooms, then soak first)
1 Tbsp butter
1 small onion, minced
sour cream
salt
dill, either fresh or dried

First make the dough. Crumble the fresh yeast into a large warm bowl, add the sugar and let it stand for 5 minutes, stirring through, until the yeast 'melts'. Add milk, salt, most of the flour and stir until combined. Knead in the soft butter, adding more flour, if necessary. Knead for 5-10 minutes, depending on your patience. You should end up with a soft dough that doesn't stick too much onto your hands. Cover the bowl with a cling film and leave to double in size in a warm draught-free place. That should take about an hour. (If you're not ready to bake after an hour, then knock the dough back when it has rised and leave to rise again for a bit more).

For the filling, chop the mushrooms finely and fry in melted butter together with the chopped onions for about 5 minutes. Cool, add some sour cream to combine (a Tbsp or two is enough, you don't want the filling to be too wet). Season with salt - the amount depends on whether you're using fresh or salted mushrooms - and lots of dill.

When ready to bake, then take about a third of the dough at a time, and roll it out on a floured tabletop until about 3 mm thick. Cut out small circles (I use a 5 cm glass), put about a teaspoonful of filling in the middle*, and pinch the edges firmly together, so you have half-moon shaped pies.

Put onto a baking sheet, brush with egg and bake at 200C for 15 minutes, until the pies are lovely golden brown. Transfer to a metal rack to cool. If you prefer your pierogi really soft, then cover with a clean towel to keep the moisture in the pies.

* If you have some mushroom filling left over, then add some extra sour cream and use as a salad on crostini or vol-au-vents or on rye bread.

Some onion recipes at Nami-nami

I'm a great fan of onions, so I was sad to realise that I missed the one-off Onion Day organised by Zorra of 1 x umrühren bitte. I was away in Denmark when she announced the event, hence the delay. However, until I write another proper blog-post, I leave you with two of my favourite onion recipes from the recipe archives:

In January 2006 I wrote about Nigella Lawson's upside down red onion pie, which I had spiked up with some crumbled Irish Cashel blue cheese. A wonderful, heartwarming and successful recipe, like pretty much everything I've tried from the books of the Domestic Goddess.

In March I posted a recipe for stuffed red onions with feta cheese and wild mushrooms, a simplified version of Paul Gayler's recipe for Greek stuffed onions in a feta cheese custard (I skipped the custard bit and changed the stuffing a little).

And soon I'll write about my Danish hostmum's bacon and onion quiche that I became to love while spending almost a year in the little town of Svendborg. Here's a sneak preview:


UPDATE 30.11.2006: Zorra was kind enough to include me in the Onion Day round-up. Read here for a full report - there are 40 onion recipes!

Copycat: Johanna's Roasted Pumpkin Quiche with Blue Cheese

Just before the annual pumpkinfest, Halloween, Johanna posted a recipe for pumpkin quiche with blue cheese and thyme that looked absolutely delicious. So beautifully orange-fleshed and creamy-textured that I simply had to give this quiche a go. I did. So should you. Everybody liked it, and I will certainly pick up another wedge of pumpkin soon.



The only departure from Johanna's recipe was that I used my own shortcrust pastry instead of shop-bought, consisting of 250 ml plain flour, 90 grams butter, a pinch of salt, 1 tsp of dried French herbs and 3 Tbsp of cold water. We sadly don't have butternut squash readily available in Estonia, which explains why my quiche looks like a pale cousin of Johanna's deep orange-yellow quiche. Oh, and I didn't have fresh thyme, but thought the dry herbs in the crust kind of compensate for this. It certainly tasted delicious.

Childhood nostalgy: tiny cheesy mouthfuls

When I was still young and beautiful, that is in 1980s, schoolkids in Estonia had their own newspaper, called 'Säde' or 'Spark'. I even have vague memories of attending their young correspondents’ school, where we were taught how to write newspaper articles. As it happened, I never became a journalist after all. The few pieces I’ve written for newspapers are outnumbered by academic articles, and I’m not sure how helpful my early journalism masterclasses have been.

However, the newspaper had a section called 'Kati köök' or 'Cathy’s kitchen', which published easy and childfriendly recipes. One of them was for small cheesy mouthfuls called 'küprukad'. There’s no such word in Estonian, really, it’s a combination of 'küpsised' (alias cookies) and 'pirukad' (alias pirogi). I guess the editor couldn’t decide which ones these cheesy mouthfuls are. I remember making these on quite a few occasions back then...

I made them again a short while ago. Cannot really give a recipe, as it uses a special pancake mixture from Estonia (flour, sugar, milk powder, whey powder, baking soda, citric acid, salt, egg powder) and I have no clue what would be the equivalent brand abroad. But you mix 500 ml of pancake mixture, 250 grams of butter and 250 grams of ricotta or quark into a dough, and after resting in a fridge, you divide it into 3, roll each into a thin circle and divide into 16 sectors. You then put a piece of cheese onto the wider end and roll each into a small crescent. And then bake them golden in the oven.


I like the way how the cheese disappears into the thin air, sorry, into the surrounding dough (as well as escaping the pastries, of course) (look at the last picture here to see what I mean).

Küprukate retsept

NB! Proper blogging - i.e. with nice pictures and delicious recipes - will resume in a fortnight or so. For the last few weeks I've been staying with various friends in Edinburgh, and haven't cooked at all (cutting tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese into chunks doesn't count as cooking, neither does microwaving soups, I'm afraid). Two more weeks to go before my big move, and I cannot wait to start cooking & blogging properly again:)

Spot the difference: filo tartlets with beetroot and cheese(s)

A recipe for elegant and surprisingly uncomplicated filo tartlets with beetroot and three different types of cheese. I know there are some foodbloggers who have declared their dislike of beetroot, but I really think this vegetable deserves a place on our tables. It is low in calories, high in minerals (Ca, Mg, Ph, K) and vitamins, it helps digestion, has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties and is generally good for you. And it tastes lovely. I've had several recipes on this blog using this vegetable - beetroot & goat's cheese sandwiches, beetroot & garlic salad, beetroot & feta salad. Hey - I even managed to incorporate beetroot into my Paper Chef pudding entry! I'm already looking forward to eating lots and lots of bortsch during the coming winter back home in Estonia.

Back to the tartlets now. The filling of these beetroot tartlets are inspired by a recipe I spotted in the first book by a young Estonian model & food writer (there's a combo, eh:), Anni Arro, called Salatid, pirukad, suupisted (or 'Salads, pies and nibbles'). Since making beetroot & goat's cheese sandwiches in February, I had been thinking of using the same ingredients again. Anni provided a lovely recipe for a puff pastry tart with beetroot & feta, where the beetroot had been marinated in balsamic vinegar. I used this idea for the filling of these dainty filo tartlets. I made 36 tartlets using three types of cheese - feta (as in Anni's recipe), goat cheese (as in my sandwich) and blue cheese. I liked the strongly-flavoured blue cheese tartlets most. And for canape queens - these would also work well when made in mini muffin tins.

And yes, I'm no longer intimidated by filo dough. Thanks, K!

Filo tartlets with beetroot and cheese
Makes 36


(Click on the photo to enlarge. Starting from the left: tartlets with blue cheese, tartlets with feta, tartlets with soft goat cheese)

6 filo sheets
olive oil, for brushing

5-6 small to medium boiled beetroots, quartered and sliced
2 shallots, chopped finely
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Maldon sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
fresh thyme leaves

Cheese of your choice:
blue cheese (I used Dolcelatte)
goat cheese
feta cheese

For the beetroot filling:
Mix beetroot and onion, season with salt and pepper. Add thyme, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, mix lightly and put aside.
Lightly oil a 12-hole muffin tray.
Work with one filo sheet at a time, keeping the rest covered to keep them from drying.
Working from the shorter end, brush 1/3 of the filo sheet with olive oil, then fold over, brush with olive oil again, and fold the last third over. You'll end up with three layers.
Cut into 6 squares, press each three-layered square into a muffin pan hole.
Do the same with the next filo sheet to fill the other six muffin holes.
Now spoon a scant Tbsp or less of beetroot filling into each filo basket. Don't overfill them, as filo baskets are quite fragile!
Dot a piece or two of cheese of your choice on top. (I sprinkled some dried oregano on the feta-filled tartlets).
Bake at 200 C for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese has melted and filo is golden brown.
Gently remove the tartlets from muffin tray and leave to cool on a metal rack.
Repeat the process with the other 4 filo sheets, alternating the cheese, if you wish.

PS These can be made a day in advance. Keep covered in the fridge, and heat gently in the oven just before serving.

UPDATE: 13.8.2006 - I made another batch of these, to take along as a snack to the "Film Festival Under the Stars" at The Mound, Edinburgh, last night. I used my 24-hole mini muffin tin, and cut each folded filo sheet into 15 squares. That yielded 90 mini tartlets with beetroot and blue cheese - all savoured while watching Breakfast at Tiffany's and Diamonds are Forever under the dark August sky. To drink: a free Ginger Grouse: The Famous Grouse Finest Scotch Whisky with fresh lime and lengthened with Fentiman's Ginger Beer. Mmmmmm....

Inspired by Paris: smoked salmon and spinach quiche

On our first morning in Paris back in May, K. and I stopped for breakfast at Bread & Roses near Jardin du Luxembourg. It is a boulangerie-cum-café, selling a wide range of fresh bread & pastries as well as having couple of tables in its front section for a more leisurely break. It was quite busy with French-speaking locals, which was an encouraging sign. As it was almost noon by that time, I needed something much more substantial than just a coffee and a croissant to wake me up, so I opted for a smoked salmon and spinach quiche instead. It was a wise choice - the quiche was tasty and filling, and carried me through until our late night 'hotel picnic' of various goodies from La Grande Epicerie de Paris later that night.

I recreated a similar quiche a few weeks later in Edinburgh, to take along for an impromtu office lunch with some colleagues in Stirling (alongside Clotilde's chocolate & ginger tartlets; both went down well). I was very pleased with the result, so I'm sharing the recipe with you here.

On my next trip to Paris (soon, I hope:), I'll make sure to try Bread & Roses' fresh raspberry & basil macaroons, as so kindly recommended by Philippe Tailleur, owner of the boulangerie, in his comment left on my blog.

Smoked salmon and spinach quiche
(Spinati-suitsulõhepirukas)
Serves 6



Pastry:
3oo ml plain flour, sifted
100 grams butter
a pinch of salt
2-3 Tbsp cold water

Filling:
150 grams sliced smoked salmon
300 grams fresh spinach, washed & drained
3 large eggs
300 ml sour cream or creme fraiche
0.5 tsp ground white pepper
0.5 tsp salt
100 grams grated cheese (Cheddar, Gruyere, ...)

For the pastry, mix flour and salt in the bowl, add cold cubed butter and mix with a knife until you have fine crumbs. Add cold water, little by little (you may not need it all) and bring the pastry quickly together with your hands. Roll on a slightly floured worktop and line a 20-23 cm tin with the pastry. Put into the freezer for about 15 minutes (this reduces the shrinkage while baking).
Pierce the pastry with a fork at some places, and bake at 200C for 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is golden.

Meanwhile, rinse the spinach carefully, drain just lightly and put into a large pre-heated saucepan for a few minutes. Heat, until the spinach wilts, then quickly refresh under cold water and drain very thoroughly. Chop finely.
Mix chopped spinach with chopped salmon, grated cheese, eggs, sour cream and season with salt and pepper. Pour into the pre-baked pastry case and continue baking for 30-40 minutes, until the filling is set and the quiche is nicely golden brown on top.

Serve hot with a green salad, or take along to a picnic when cool.

Bread & Roses
7, rue de Fleurus
Paris (6ème)
Tél: 01 42 22 06 06
Website

A magic mushroom quiche

Let me make something clear. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life, nor tried any other substances that might be considered illegal in some countries (moderate consumption of alcohol is luckily legal in my part of the world). So obviously this is not a quiche of magic mushrooms. But last week one of my regular readers emailed me and said that s/he is feeling a bit low and a magic mushroom quiche might cheer him/her up. And a very dear friend of mine, T. refuses to eat mushrooms, unless they are of the abovementioned kind. So I thought that by calling my mushroom quiche a magic one might just cheer A. up and might have tricked T. to eat the quiche had he been around.

And, to be fair, I thought there was something harrypotteresque about those black trumpet chantarelle mushrooms I used anyway. Don't you think so? (Click on the photo to enlarge).

The recipe is loosely based on a mushroom and blue cheese quiche recipe from Valio that I've tried many times successfully. As I had some nice mushrooms* on hand this time, I didn't want to overshadow their earthy-musky flavour, so I omitted the blue cheese. I also incorporated the tarragon (usually in the filling) into the pie crust this time. Just like with pizza doughs, I find that seasoning the pie crust gives a small, but necessary lift to the whole dish.

A magic mushroom quiche
Serves 6-8



Pie crust:
100 grams butter
200 ml plain flour
1 tsp dried tarragon
0.25 tsp salt
2-3 Tbsp cold water

Filling:
200 grams fresh black trumpet chantarelles
1 medium onion (I used a large banana shallot)
2 Tbsp butter
a generous handful of fresh parsley
3 eggs, whisked
150 ml sour cream
salt
crushed black pepper

Mix the butter, tarragon, salt and flour with a knife until you get coarse crumbs, then add the cold water and mix the dough together. Let it cool in a fridge for about 20 minutes, then roll out and line a 22 cm pie dish with the pastry. Prick with a fork, then put into the freezer for 20 minutes (this reduces the need for blind baking, as the pastry will shrink only very little).
Pre-bake at 200°C for 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is light golden brown.

Meanwhile, make the filling. Clean the mushrooms thoroughly (if possible at all, avoid rinsing them and use a damp kitchen roll or brush), chop into smaller pieces.
Mince the onion. Heat the butter in a saucepan, add the onion and fry gently for about 10 minutes, until onion starts to soften.
Add the mushrooms and sauté until some of the liquid evaporates (trumpet chantarelles are very dry anyway, but this may be necessary for button mushrooms).
Cool the mushroom and onion mixture.
Add the eggs, sour cream, finely chopped parsley. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the filling into the pre-baked pastry crust and bake for another 20-30 minutes, until the filling has set.

Cut into slices and serve with a salad.



* After complaining about the non-availability of wild mushrooms in Edinburgh, I've now discovered a small shop, Clarks Speciality Foods, in Bruntsfield, that sells various wild mushrooms at reasonable price. A new mushroom stock is brought in every Friday - straight from Paris markets apparently - and they try to vary the choice of mushrooms. So far I've bought pied bleu mushrooms and these black trumpet chantarelles. I'll be back for more soon.

Clarks Speciality Foods
202 Bruntsfield Place
Edinburgh EH10 4DF
Telephone: 0131 656 0500

An upside down onion pie

Yet another recipe from Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. It is cold and windy in Edinburgh these days, and I needed something heartwarming and comforting to eat last night. Being a proud recent owner of a tarte tatin dish, I thought to use my new kitchenware for something savoury. I remembered Nigella's recipe for "Supper Onion Pie" that I had bookmarked a while ago, and that's what I cooked. I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter, except that I used some Dutch cheese instead of Cheddar, brought by a kind visitor from Amsterdam a few weeks ago. And whereas Nigella sprinkles the same cheese on the onions as well, I used a lovely Irish blue cheese Cachel Blue instead, as I thought - rightly - that a strong-flavoured cheese would work very well with the sweet onions.

Another definite keeper that would be really lovely as a light vegetarian supper.

Upside down red onion pie
(Pahupidi sibulapirukas)
Very slightly adapted from How To Be A Domestic Goddess
Serves 6



For the onion layer:
4-5 medium red onions
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 heaped Tbsp butter
0.5 tsp dried thyme
salt
pepper
50 grams of blue cheese

For the cheesy scone dough:
250 grams plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
100 grams grated cheese
100 ml milk
50 grams melted butter
1 tsp English mustard
1 large egg, beaten

Peel the onions, cut into half and then each half into 4-5 segments, depending on the size. Heat oil and butter in a non-stick or thick-bottomed saucepan and sweat the onions for 20-30 minutes on a low heat, stirring regularly to prevent sticking, until the onions are soft and slightly golden on edges.

Season with salt, pepper and thyme, and layer at the bottom of a deep pie dish. I buttered the dish slightly before adding the onions, then sprinkled with some Blue Cachel cheese.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and grated cheese in a bowl. In another bowl mix the melted butter, milk, mustard and egg. Mix the contents of the two bowls with a wooden spoon. Dip the mixture onto a cutting board, form into a fat disc the size of the pie dish and transfer onto the onions.

Bake at 180-200˚C for about 30 minutes, until the scone dough is golden and baked. Let it cool for 5 minutes, then cover with a serving dish and carefully flip over.

Serve hot or warm with HP Sauce or brown sauce (as recommended by Nigella herself) or with a dollop of sour cream (as I did).

Note for next time: maybe try with small shallots, left whole?

UPDATE: T. Carter over at Lifechanges ... Delayed got inspired and made a red onion upside down pie as well.

A simple cheesy tart

My Japanese friend Ryoko came over for a light supper and a DVD last night, and I made a simple cheese tart with the Dorset Pastry puff pastry in my freezer (Ingredients: organic flour, organic butter, water, organic eggs and sea salt).

I prebaked the puff pastry in a hot oven - not entirely happy how the edges broke slightly - and covered with slices of courgettes and tomatoes. Then I crumbled over some Roquefort cheese, drizzled the tart with some olive oil and seasoned with black pepper and Maldon sea salt and a sprinkling of sweet marjoram:



I put it back into hot oven for another 25 minutes or so:



The resulting tart was rather nice. I liked the fact that it didn't require any egg/cream mixture to bind the filling - which made the meal much lighter (if you can say that about a puff pastry tart, of course:)

For dessert we had some chocolate eclairs that Ryoko brought along, as well as some strawberries and honeydew melon. The dessert was consumed in front of the telly, watching Wong Kar-Wai's 2046. Whereas the 'prequel' In the Mood for Love is one of my all-time very favourite movies (saw it in the cinema several times, the soundtrack is one of my staple background CDs and got the DVD with all the extra features as soon as it was out), I still haven't made my mind up about this one yet. Too confusing, this travelling back-and-forth between 1960s and 2046. I guess I must watch it again..

Meanwhile, have to think of something to do with that big chunk of Brie now that I bought for the tart yesterday and didn't use...

Brie juustu piruka retsept

UPDATE 12 September 2005:
This post was mentioned as one of the Posts of the Week over at Too Many Chefs (THANK YOU, BARRETT!), together with a cheeky link to my Estonian site. You may have noticed that I provide a non-comprehensible link (i.e. in Estonian to an Estonian-language site) at the end of some of my posts. This is to make life easier for my few Estonian readers, especially my Mum (who speaks no English, but pops by occasionally to make sure I've been eating properly) and my sister (who speaks some English but would never try to cook something following English-language instructions). If there is a recipe to share, it's included in my post in lingua franca of foodbloggers, English.

Cheesy Spinach Mini Quiches

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I prepared two mouthfuls for the Paper Chef #8 Holiday Edition, which this time around asked for Cheddar cheese, olives, spinach and either cream or potatoes.

My entry for the competition was Potato Shortcrust cases with Cheddar cheese, topped with garlicky spinach and olive filling. But the other mouthful I prepared was also delicious, and I share the recipe with you here. It’s a slightly modified version of pienet pinaattipiirakat from the web-edition of a Finnish recipe magazine Herkkutori, published by one of their supermarket chains, K-Market.

Here’s what I did:

Cheesy spinach pies
(Väikesed spinatipirukad)

The cheesy crusts:
125 g butter
2.5 dl plain flour
0.25 tsp salt
1 dl grated cheese*
0.5 dl cold water

Mix flour, salt and grated cheese with soft butter. Add the water and mix into a dough. Roll the pastry thinly and cut out 24 smaller or 12 larger rounds (depending on the size of your muffin tins - I prepared 24 mini pies). Press them into muffin tins and put into the fridge for 15 minutes.**

Creamy spinach filling:
250 g fresh spinach
1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp plain flour
1-2 dl single cream
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp black pepper

Wash the spinach carefully, remove thicker stalks and heat in a pan until spinach has wilted. Rinse quickly under cold water, drain thoroughly and choproughly.
Heat the oil in a pan, add the chopped spinach. Heat for a couple of minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon.
Then add the flour and cook for about 5 minutes.
Add the cream and sesame seeds, season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often, until the spinach mixture has thickened a little.

Meanwhile, put the cheesy pastry cases into a preheated 200˚C oven and bake for 15 minutes.

Put the creamy spinach filling into the half-baked cheesy pastry cases (sprinkle with some more grated cheese, if you wish) and continue baking for another 15 minutes, until the filling is slightly set.

To incorporate the olives required for the Paper Chef #8 Holiday Edition, I spread some tapenade on half of the pastry cases before adding the creamy spinach filling, which added a nice salty touch to the pastries, but they're nice without this addition as well.

* I used Cheddar cheese, but I believe this recipe would work better with some slightly less crumbly cheese, as my pastry cases ended up almost too flaky. The original recipe suggested Emmental cheese and I'd go for this next time.

** It is crucial to do the rolling first and cooling later. Absent-mindedly I put the pastry into fridge before attempting to roll it and badly hurt myself, when the dough refused to bend under the rolling pin – which I then, under my full body weight, ‘pressed’ onto my fingers. Ouch. Just shows you how differently potato and cheese shortcrust pastries work, as the potato shortcrust pastry was very malleable and easy to roll when taken out of fridge, whereas the cheesy shortcrust pastry hardened too much.

Paper Chef # 8: Potato shortcrust cases with Cheddar cheese, topped with garlicky spinach and olive filling

This is my first ever blogging event, so I'm quite excited about it. Hosted by Tomatilla!, the ingredients included spinach, olives, cheddar cheese and choice of either potatoes or cream (read more about the requirements here). The judge is Sarah of the delicious life.
I like cheese. I love spinach. Olives are new in my kitchen, but I almost like them a lot already. Potatoes (together with rye bread) are the founding blocks of my native cuisine. How to combine these all?

Good question. I searched my Nami-nami retseptikogu for ideas (sorry, that's in Estonian!). I went through various Mediterranean cookbooks (spinach and olives automatically say 'Greece' to me, can't help it). I glanced at my pile of cookery magazines. Got several ideas, and after some tweaking of recipes came up with two canapes: Potato shortcrust cases with cheese, topped with spinach-olive stuffing and Cheesy shortcrust canapes with spinach and cream filling. My entry to the Paper Chef # 8 Holiday Edition is the first one. I really-really liked this one, though I hope to write about the other - also very tasty - mouthful in the near future.

Canapes with Spinach and Olive Stuffing

This one combines potatoes, spinach, olives and cheese - I've stuffed potato-shortcrust pastry cases with some cheese, and then topped with a garlicky spinach and olive filling.

I started by making a potato-shortcrust pastry - a recipe I've had for ages and which is lovely for making small savoury pastries:

(Kartuli-muretainas)



200 g potatoes (about a size of a not-too-large baking potato)
125 g butter
200 g plain flour
pinch of salt

Peel the potato and cut into chunks. Cook in a slightly salted water until soft, then drain and mash with a fork. (You could use cold leftover potatoes, in which case you should grate them).
Mix with flour, salt and butter, until you get a soft and malleable dough.
Put the fridge for half an hour, then roll out to about 3-4 mm thickness between two sheets of cling film.
Cut into small circles of about ø 5-6 cm and press them into small muffin tins (I used a 24-whole mini muffin tin).
Crumble small pieces of greaseproof paper into small balls and put into the muffin tins (this will keep the crusts from rising too much).
Bake in a 200-220˚C oven until the edges are golden brown. Then take out of the oven and remove the paper balls. Put back into the oven and bake for another 5 minutes or so, until the bases of potato shortcrust cases are baked as well.
This can be made up do a day before.

The garlicky spinach and olive filling is inspired by a recipe from Epicurious, which I changed only a little:

250 g fresh spinach
large dash of olive oil
2-3 garlic cloves
1 dl pitted Kalamata olives
0.5 dl toasted pine nuts
a squeeze or two of lemon juice
salt and pepper

Wash the spinach thoroughly (I found a ladybird in my Tesco-bought spinach!), remove stalks and drain. Put into a big wok or frying pan, and heat until spinach has just wilted. Rinse spinach under cold water, then squeeze out as much liquid as possible and chop coarsely.
Heat some olive oil in the pan, add the spinach, garlic (I used 2 bullets of Very Garlicky Company's easy garlic again) and olives (I used so-called Greek style black olives that I pitted beforehand). Fry gently for 2-3 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, until garlic is soft. Now add the toasted pinenuts, a squeeze of lemon juice and season with salt and pepper.
Put some grated cheddar cheese into pre-baked cases (you can reheat the cases gently in the oven, if you prefer). I used about 100 grams of Pilgrims Choice's Vintage Extra Mature Cheddar cheese, though any strong cheese would do and blue cheese should be nice as well.
Divide the hot garlicky spinach and olive filling between potato-shortcrust cases (the heat of the spinach filling melts the cheddar cheese nicely).

Voila! Start nibbling.



The Paper Chef entry/entree is on the left - glossy green and black:) The lighter green canape on the right is the cheesy shortcrust case with tapenade, creamy spinach and some more cheddar cheese.

UPDATE: My first ever Paper Chef entry was awarded a Golden Tomatilla for Best Performance by Potatoes in a Supporting Role. Thank you, Sarah!!!