Sima - Mead for May Day

Mead (sima) is an essential part of May Day celebrations in Finland. Mead and homemade donuts! That's what a good May Day is made of. We also used to go marching with labor unions and leftist political party people on May Day. It is like our Labor Day. It also is the celebration day of all students. May Day is the celebration of spring. Everyone is outside, celebrating, on the streets and in the parks, there are picnics and general happiness in the air.

Mead is fermented so it needs to be prepared a week in advance. I am usually late so I have to leave it in room temperature for longer to be able to have it ready in 4 days. That is about the time I usually have when I realize that May Day is coming up. Like now. 

My parents used to make mead before every May Day. They used sugar, brown sugar, oranges, lemons, yeast and water. Usually I prepare it in the same way they did but this year I made also a honey version without cane sugar. It must be the more traditional way to make mead anyway. The Finnish word "sima" is a synonym for the nectar bees collect to make honey (mesi). We buy lovely raw honey locally from Klausesbees. 

In Finland mead is fermented so little that it doesn't really have alcohol, or the amount is very small so it is served even for children. My parents made the mead in a 10 liter plastic bucket and we drank it for days, if not weeks. They boiled the water, poured it on the sugar in the bucket, added sliced lemons and oranges and a tiny piece of fresh yeast. After a day they bottled it with a teaspoon of sugar and a few raisins and put it in the fridge. Usually around after a week the raisins had plumped up and were floating on top. That is how you knew the mead was ready. You looked at the raisins. I went every day to the fridge to look if the raisins were already floating on the top. It was very festive when you finally were able to taste the ready ferments and sparkly mead that tickled your tongue. There was not much alcohol at all but a lot of sugar left so it was sweet. Sweet and tasty. I loved to eat the raisins that had been soaking in the mead for days.

Honey mead (recipe is from Finnish beekeepers' association)

4 liters or 17 cups of water (almost 4 quarts) 

2 lemons (I used Meyer lemons from our tree)

14 oz honey (450 grams) 

1/5 tsp dry yeast

• Boil about 1/4 of the water and pour it on the honey with the rest of the water cold to achieve slightly warm water. The honey will melt in it easily and it will be around the right temperature for the yeast. Dry yeast needs the water to be 105-110 Fahrenheit for it to start doing its job. 
• Add sliced lemons. You can use oranges instead too if you like. Some people add the juice of the citrus fruit and some peel separately. My parents sliced the fruit so that is what I usually do too. If I am feeling very fancy, I squeeze the juice out and grate the peel and add them separately. 
• Cover the container with a napkin or cheese cloth and rubber band, or even a lid, and keep in room temperature for 24 hours. Bottle it and add a few raisins to each bottle. If you have plenty of time, put the bottles in the fridge at this point and sima should be ready in 7 days. If you need your sima to be ready sooner, leave the bottles in room temperature for three days. To avoid the bottles from exploding as the mead ferments, you may want to "burp" them once a day (just open the bottle and close it back up).
• You know your sima is ready when the raisins float on top. Serve with homemade donuts - wait, I have to start working on a paleo version of those.

To compare I made mead with the kind of recipe I grew up with. 

Sugar Mead

2 liters water (almost two quarts or 8.5 cups)

2/3 cups brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 lemon (or orange or half of both)

1/10 tsp dry yeast

Follow the method above. Enjoy your Finnish mead!

Finnish Salmon Soup

Fish soup is a very common food in Finland. It is often made with salmon, potatoes and milk and garnished with dill. If you don't have fish stock at hand you can use water only but homemade fish stock is easy to make and gives a delicious flavor to the soup. Stock made from fish bones and heads is also very nutritious, full of minerals and makes a great addition to a healthy diet.


How to make fish stock:

1. Get a few pounds of fish bones and heads from a fish store or the fish counter from a grocery store. You might have to call them ahead to reserve the bones as they sometimes just throw them away. You shouldn't be charged a lot for them.

2. Put the bones and heads in a big stock pot and fill with water. Add 1-2 bay leaves, a carrot and about 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar.

3. Bring to boil and let simmer lid on for at least a few hours or as long as 24 hours.

4. Strain the stock. You can collect the fish meat from the bones and add to the soup or eat as is later.

Salmon Soup

4.5 cups fish stock (some of it can be replaced with water)
1/2-1 cup full fat milk (I use coconut milk)
1 lb salmon, skin removed and cut in cubes
4-5 medium sized turnips (or potatoes if you are not avoiding night shades)
1 carrot
5 whole allspice
1 small clove of garlic
1 tsp salt
dill

Optional: you can saute some onions in a fat of your choice in the sauce pan before adding the stock.

1. Measure the stock to a big enough sauce pan and bring to boil.

2. Chop the potatoes and carrots and add them to the stock as well as the whole allspice berries and chopped garlic.

3. Let simmer for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes and carrots are easily pierced with a fork.

4. Add the fish, salt, milk and chopped dill. The fish takes only a few minutes until it is ready. Check one fish piece to make sure it is cooked.

Check out more great recipes from Phoenix Helix Autoimmune Paleo Recipe Roundtable.

Finnish Rice Porridge (Pudding) With Blueberry Sauce (Gluten and Dairy Free)

In Finland rice porridge is eaten as a traditional Christmas morning food but also throughout the year as a breakfast. It is eaten with some cinnamon and sugar or with for instance a sauce made of blueberries and thickened with potato starch or some other starch. This food does not follow autoimmune or paleo protocols I have been posting recently about but it is gluten free and dairy free. I am posting this because I am often asked for this recipe and my kids still eat some rice. The blueberry sauce in this post I thickened with arrowroot starch to avoid night shades.

Rice Porridge (Riisipuuro)

1 cup white short grain rice such as arborio or sushi rice (in Finland they sell it as "porridge rice"!)
1 cup water
1 cup full fat coconut milk + 4 cups water
1 tsp sea salt

1. Add 1 cup of water and 1 cup of rice to a big sauce pan. Boil for 5 minutes.

2. Add coconut milk and rest of the water.

3. Bring to boil stirring from time to time. Keep an eye that it doesn't boil over and make a mess of your stove top (I hate cleaning it so I try to be careful!).

4. Simmer on low for an hour mixing it a few times so it won't burn. If you soak the rice before hand, the cooking time will be shorter.

5. Add salt. Serve with cinnamon and (maple) sugar or blueberry sauce.

TIP: Make it in the oven: Use a fat of your choice to grease a big enough oven pan. Add all ingredients to the pan, mix and cook in 350 F for three hours. My mom used to make this overnight on very low heat.

Blueberry sauce (Mustikkakeitto)

2 cups frozen wild blueberries
4 cups water
3 tbsp arrowroot starch (an other starch would work too, in my pre-AIP life I used potato starch)
3 tbsp maple sugar

1. Measure all ingredients and add them a sauce pan.

2. Bring to boil stirring it constantly. When the first bubbles appear remove from heat. It should have thickened by now. Let cool down. It is best served cold with the warm porridge.

Oxtail Soup

I like oxtail soup because I like the idea that nothing is wasted if an animal is killed for our nourishment. It is also the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. Even my selective seven year old said that he would like to eat it every day. In Finland oxtail soup is made traditionally from root vegetables and onions. I have added also some greens or cabbage and I like to add some ginger to bring flavor. Here is my slow cooker ox tail soup recipe. I eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner when I have it at hand.

Ox tail soup

One ox tail, in pieces (if you'd have a whole tail, cut the tail in pieces from the joints)
Fat of your choice, I use lard or coconut oil
A carrot
Two turnips
One small rutabaga
A teaspoon of grated fresh ginger
One clove of garlic
A bunch of collard greens or kale of white cabbage
A zucchini or yellow squash
Salt
2 Bay leaves
Some fresh parsley
A couple of quarts of broth (or if you don't have broth at hand like I didn't today, I put in enough water and a couple of beef bones cut in half)
3 tbsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
(a few peppercorns)

1. Chop the vegetables.

2. Melt the fat on a frying pan and brown the ox tail pieces and root vegetables.

3. Put all ingredients in the slow cooker and cook on low overnight or 8-10 hours (talk about a tasty breakfast waiting for you in the morning!) or until the meat falls off the bone.

4. Fish out all the bones and tail pieces. Let them cool. (Fish out also the bay leaves and peppercorns if you want.) In the meanwhile puree the veggies with an immersion blender or press them through a strain. Or leave them as is especially if you have cut them really small.

5. Remove the meat from the tail bones and chop in pieces and add to the soup.

6. If you want to remove fat from the soup, stick it in the fridge and peel the fat from the top when it has cooled down and the fat is a solid layer on the top.

Check out this coconut oil giveaway too!

More autoimmune paleo friendly recipes, check out this roundtable where this post was published too.

Finnish Lamb and Cabbage Stew with Cranberries (grain free, dairy free, paleo, AIP)

This is a very traditional Finnish recipe. I got the inspiration to this from a cook book from 1910. I made it in a slow cooker but included also instructions for making it on the stove top. You could also cook it low and covered in the oven. I can imagine this being served in Finland with boiled and peeled potatoes but I have left them out because we are not eating night shades right now.

Lamb and cabbage stew (Lammaskaali)

1 head of white cabbage
2 lbs lamb shoulder (with bones)
1 tbsp lard, coconut oil or fat of your choice, optional
2 tbsp sea salt
2 bay leaves
Fresh or dried marjoram
water
OPTIONAL: 10 whole allspice berries (leave out if you are on AIP and haven't introduced fruit/berry/seed based spices back yet)

1. Cut the cabbage in eight sections. Remove the hard center.
2. Cut the lamb in chunks or steaks and break the bones if necessary.
3. If you wish, brown the meat slightly in lard or other fat in a cast iron frying pan. Remove the meat from the pan and add some water in it. Bring to boil and save the broth for the stew. (Tthis step can be skipped too.)
4. Arrange the meat, cabbage wedges and spices in layers in a slow cooker crock or a pot.
5. Add the liquid from the frying pan to the pot or the crock and just enough water to prevent the stew from burning. Check during cooking if water needs to be added.
6. Cover and simmer for 3-4 hours on the stove in the pot or cook on low in the slow cooker for about 8 hours. You can remove the bones and cut the meat in bite size pieces before serving but it is not necessary.
7. Serve with crushed cranberries.

Crushed Cranberries (Karpalosurvos)

Cranberries, fresh or frozen
Raw honey

Crush cranberries with a potato masher or a vegetable stomper (or pulse a few times in a blender) and add honey to taste. No need to thaw them if they are frozen. The crushed cranberries will keep in the fridge in a jar for a while. If you happen to have freshly picked lingonberries, feel free to replace the cranberries with those. :)

PS. I have a one gallon coconut oil giveaway in my blog! Check it out!
PS2. For more paleo and autoimmune paleo recipes, check out Phoenix Helix AIP round table where this recipe appears as well.

Finnish Spinach Pancakes (Autoimmune) Paleo Style (Kids' Favorites and They Are Vegan Too!)

I grew up in Finland eating spinach pancakes with lingonberry preserves. We ate also blood pancakes (also with lingonberries) and carrot pancakes. And regular pancakes of course. They were all made with wheat flour, milk and eggs. We can't eat any of those now so we have created all kinds of different versions of gluten free, grain free and vegan spinach pancakes.

I decided to try adding a handful of spinach to the plantain pancake recipe and pulsed the blender a few times. As the spinach changed the consistency, to hold it together I added a couple of tablespoons of arrowroot starch. That's all. Below in the photo you can see the results. 

We eat our spinach pancakes with unsweetened apple sauce. If we ate sugar we would eat them with lingon preserves from Ikea... Mmmm. I wish I could get some plain lingonberries from somewhere, anyone know how I could get my hands on some? I like them without any sweetener, just crushed. They last in the fridge like that for a long time too.

Finnish cabbage casserole (gluten free, dairy free, egg free)

Cabbage casserole is one of my favorite traditional Finnish foods and I make it often. It is especially good with IKEA's lingonberry preserves. You could also eat it with crushed cranberries.

1 big of 2 small heads of cabbage
1 lb ground meat
1-2 carrots
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tbsp molasses (can be left out too if you avoid sugar)
water, stock or bone broth
(gluten free bread crumbs and Earth Balance soy free spread)

Shred the cabbage and carrots and boil them in water until soft. In the meanwhile, fry the meat. Mix the meat and spices with the cabbage in the pot and pour the mixture in an oiled baking pan. Pour some stock, broth or water in (you can add some later if it loos too dry). If you want, top it with bread crumbs and a a couple of spoonfuls of Earth Balance. Bake in 350 F for 2 hours. Add water/broth if needed.

Cloudberry caramel cake (lakka-kinuskikääretorttu)

I baked this delicious thing for an international potluck at my son's Montessori school. It is a variation from a Finnish popular cake, a rolled cake. It is super fast and easy to make. It is called Kääretorttu (rolled tart, a rolled cake). I don't have a photo, but by clicking this link you will see pictures of the cake roll.

Cloudberry caramel roll
gluten free, dairy free, corn free, soy free, egg free

1 cup potato or tapioca starch
1/3 cup superfine rice flour (or starch or some other gluten free flour)
2 tsp baking powder (gluten and corn free)
1 tsp vanilla extract (gluten free)
3/4 cup coconut crystals or sugar
3/4 cup and 2 tbsp milk alternative
2 tbsp vegetable oil

Line an inch deep baking sheet with parchment paper. Oil the paper. Pour the dough on it and bake in oven in 435 F for 8 to 10 minutes. Let it sit for a bit and then spread good stuff on it. I used caramel sauce (recipe below) and cloudberry jam from IKEA. A traditional and delicious way to stuff it would be whipped cream (or rice whipped cream from Wholefoods Market) and fresh strawberries...

Caramel sauce

1 1/3 cups water or (alternative) milk
1/2 cup coconut crystals or sugar
1/4 cup agave/coconut nectar
4 tbsp potato starch
3 tbsp coconut oil

Put all ingredients except the oil in a pan and mix while getting it to boil. Turn off the stove and add the oil. Mix until blended. Spread on a cake or pour in molds to make candies (you might have to use actual sugar to get the candies to harden, but I am not sure).

Happy Independence Day Finland! Gluten free cake and yet another pie.

Today it is Finland's 93rd Independence Day. We celebrated it yesterday along with my husband's 35th birthday. We had friends over and served Karelian pastries, Strawberry cream cake and blueberry pie.

In Finland you can't get fresh strawberries in December (a benefit you have in California, although the strawberries might have been Mexican) so it felt slightly absurd to have the cake topped with fresh strawberries this time of the year. But the strawberries looked almost like little elf hats so it turned out to be very appropriate for December. We made the cake gluten free since my son has wheat allergy. Here is the recipe.

Gluten Free Traditional Finnish Birthday Cake

1 cup (we used a coffee mug as a measurement for all ingredients) eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour (we used gluten free potato starch)

To moisture the baked cake:
apple juice or pineapple juice

Filling:
whipped cream, quark (rahka), strawberries, bananas...

My filling:
whipped cream (whipped yourself of course, not from a spray bottle :))
quark (can be bought from Wholefoods or make yourself, see the blueberry recipe below for a link)
frozen thawed mashed strawberries
mashed bananas
stevia to sweeten
vanilla extract

Topping:
whipped cream (again, whip it yourself for best results)
fresh strawberries

Whisk the sugar and eggs to white hard foam with an electric mixer (might take 15 minutes with so many eggs), gently mix in the potato starch through a strainer to avoid lumps. Pour in a round cake pan you previously buttered (we put also some gluten free bread crumbs to avoid sticking) and bake in 390 F for 30 minutes of until the cake is golden brown.

Let the cake cool down, cut in half horizontally to make two layers. Moisture the bottom part with a 1/4 cup or so unsweetened apple/pineapple etc. juice, spread the juice with a spoon evenly. Add filling that could be anything like whipped cream and mashed/sliced bananas or strawberries (I mixed together the ingredients above in the ingredient list's filling part), add top layer of the cake and moisture it like the bottom part.

Top with whipped cream and strawberries.


Gluten Free Blueberry Pie

A stick of butter
8 oz of quark (can be bought from wholefoods 4.49 a jar... or make yourself follow this link, I have also substituted it sometimes with thick greek yoghurt or ricotta cheese)
A generous cup of flours (I used gluten free all-purpose flour)

Topping I used:
About half a liter frozen wild blueberries (Trader Joes, half a package or a bit more)
2-3 tbsp potato or corn starch
Half a cup of sugar or other sweetener
Mix the topping ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Dough: Mix everything together (first quark and butter, then flour), put it in a baking dish, top with the topping - use also for other kinds of pies, salty or sweet and bake in 390 F for 30 minutes or until it looks ready.

Mailordering dairy cultures.

Especially now when pregnant (Yay! 23 weeks!) I am missing Finnish Viili, a cultured dairy product a little bit like yoghurt but nothing like it anyway. I found a website in the US from where you can order fresh cultures, also for viili! What a lucky day. I will order some soon, it is now too hot (95F/35C tomorrow) for mailordering fresh dairy cultures. Here is a link to the Gem cultures. More about viili in Wikipedia. I will let you know how making my own viili goes.

Gem cultures sells also sour dough rye bread starter. We brought that with us from Finland, a 15 year old starter and we use it to make our own sourdough rye bread weekly. My husband bakes it so I guess I can't say "we" ;) The bread has only the starter, organic rye flour and water. It is good!