random thoughts – Day 1,182 – (Monday) – karjalanpiirakat

The last night of Finnish language class had a super fun bonus lesson. We baked karjalanpiirakat (Karelian pasties). These are a traditional pastie from the region of Karelia that are eaten throughout Finland and the adjacent areas of Estonia and Russian Karelia. 

Karjalanpiirakat in process.

I have had the ingredients at home since the early remote days when I bought a Finnish cookbook and Amazon still had Pantry, their grocery dry goods division, and I found the rye flour there. For some reason, I imagined they were hard to make, and the cookbook doesn't have pictures, so I didn't even know what they are supposed to look like. 

We mixed the dry ingredients – rye flour, all purpose flour, and salt, mixed it with water, added oil, and mixed until it was the right consistency (like Play-doh). Then we made small balls which were rolled thin and stuffed with rice porridge. The edges were crimped, and they went into the oven. At 550 degrees, they take about 10 minutes. 

Once out of the oven, they were brushed with melted butter. This is done if they are going to be eaten soon, and skipped if they will be frozen. Our teacher told us they are often topped with egg butter (a mixture of hard boiled egg and melted butter), brie, or ham (or a combination). They can also be stuffed with mashed potato or turnip instead of rice.

Finished product!

It took less than an hour for the mixing, rolling, stuffing, crimping and getting them into the oven. Then we were at the table reviewing our homework. For the past two weeks, out of our class of seven, only two of us have been in class. The bright side is we had semi-private lessons for two weeks, and tonight, when we made the karjalanpiirakat, there were more for each of us to take home. 

And just like that, this class session was done, and we were walking out the door with containers full of delicious karjalanpiirakat. And the hands-on kitchen experience to make them.