Pasha is a traditional Finnish Easter dish, especially in the eastern parts of the country. It was brought here by the Russian Orthodox church hundreds of years ago, and is eaten to celebrate the end of the lent. You may know pasha with a little different name - pascha, pashka, or something similar. Pasha or пасха is a Russian word for Easter, originally from a Hebrew word pesah. The transliteration from Cyrillic alphabets explains the small variations in the name.

Pasha is really energy rich food - its main ingredients are quark (milk curd), cream, butter, eggs and sugar. Dairy animals produce milk fats whether you use them or not, so after the lent you had a surplus of cream. It was then used to make pasha. I’m referring to the days when agriculture was the predominating livelihood :)

Traditionally pasha is made in wooden, pyramid-shaped molds. Since Easter is the biggest holy day of the Russian Orthodox church, the molds are often carved with religious symbols such as XB, short for Hristos voskrese (Христос воскресе) - Christ is Risen. The pyramid shape reminds of the Jews’ slavery in Egypt.

Pasha

250 g quark / curd cheese (in US, look for tvorog in Russian stores)
50 g butter
3 tbsp sugar
1 dl raisins
1/2 dl candied lemon zest (sukaatti, suckat)
1/2 dl crushed almonds
3 tbsp orange marmalade
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)
2 dl whipping cream

Unless you use Russian tvorog, put the quark or curd cheese in a coffee filter for 12 hours. During that time the liquid will separate which makes for a denser Pasha.

Mix sugar and butter until airy and smooth. In a separate bowl whip the cream. Add all the rest ingredients to the sugar and butter mixture, mix until smooth, and finally carefully add the whipped cream.

Pour the mixture in a double-layered coffee filter, and let stand in a fridge for 24 hours.

When 1-2 dl of liquid has dripped from the pasha in the fridge, tip it over on a plate and decorate with candied lemon zest and raisins.

Kulitsa is also a Russian Easter dish, which is often eaten with pasha. It is a sweet, buttery, and incredibly tasty loaf, which is sliced like bread and and topped with heaps of pasha.

I urge you to try this, it is absolutely delicious!

Kulitsa

(1 huge loaf or 2 smaller)

2 dl milk
25 g fresh yeast or equivalent amount of dry yeast
1/8 g saffron
1 tbsp cardamom
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1 dl sugar
2 tbsp candied lemon zest (sukaatti)
1 dl raisins
1/2 dl crushed almonds
7 dl all purpose flour
125 g butter

Make a dough (as you would for any bread/roll), and let it rise for 30 minutes. Make one or two round loaves on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper. Decorate with dough strips, candied lemon and raisins (make e.g. letters XB).

Heat the oven to 180 C (355 F), but don’t let the loaves rise for longer than it takes for the oven to heat, otherwise they will loose their shape.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Update

This is Anna’s version of the same recipe - the kulitsa is on the background but it’s really the star attraction here. Perfect for an artery-clogging Easter breakfast!

Lue Suomeksi ‘Pasha And Kulitsa - Eastern Easter Delicacies’(Hide…)

In Finland this delicacy is know as “lasimestarin silli”, direct translation being “glass master’s herring”. It is herring preserved in sugar and vinegar based liquid, and spiced with onions, carrots, horseradish and peppers. Pickled herring is enjoyed throughout the year, but especially during Christmas time.

I’ve always loved pickled herring, especially ABBA kesäsilli (summer herring) with new season potatoes. Many restaurants offer various, self made spiced and pickled herrings in their lunch buffets, but way too often I’ve found them to be slimy rather than delicious.

A week ago my mum gave me a small jar of self made lasimestarin silli for a pre-xmas present. I was really surprised, since as long as I can remember, she has bought all herring products from stores. When I opened the jar and carefully tasted the herring, I was astonished as it was super delicious. Today I called her and asked for the recipe. She had found it in Pirkka magazine, and told me that my grandmother used to make this herring each Christmas, but because mom didn’t like it when she was young, she didn’t carry on the tradition.

“Better late than never” I thought earlier today and headed to a grocery store to buy some herring fillets. Luckily I have been saving some used glass jars which made this ex tempore preserving session that much easier. You can use either whole fresh or salted herrings, but those have a ton of bones to be removed, or be a wimp like me and buy boneless, skinned fillets. Many herrings are very heavily salted and must be soaked before use.

The following recipe is based on the substitutions used by my mom, the biggest differences to the original recipe being the use of pre-spiced herring fillets and substituting white peppers for black peppers. I made a big batch - 1.5 kg of herring (almost 4 lbs) as I’m planning to give them away as little xmas presents. I’m going to Tallinn tomorrow with S where I’ll also meet Nami-Nami’s lovely Pille, and she was going to get one jar also until I remembered her hatred towards herrings :)

Glass Master’s Herring

Yields one big jar or two smaller ones

500 grams (1 lbs) herring fillets
3 red onions, thinly sliced
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
laurel leaves
2.5 cm (1″) horseradish, peeled and thinly sliced
a few dozen black peppers
1 dl (0.5 cups) sugar
1 dl (0.5 cups) white vinegar
2 dl (1 cup) water
optionally sodium benzoate and benzoic acid (E210 & E211) as preservatives

Mix sugar, vinegar and water and bring to boil. Let cool.

Boil the jars and lids to clean them thoroughly, or bake in 125°C (260°F) oven for 15+ minutes.

Peel onions, carrots and horseradish and slice them very thin. Rinse the herring fillets with running water and pat dry with tissue. Cut them in 2 cm slices (slightly less than 1″).

Fill the jars with the ingredients in layers, adding a few laurel leaves and a small handful of black peppers per jar. Top up with chilled sugar-vinegar solution. Mix the preservative (such as Atamon) in the liquid if you opt to use preservatives.

Shake the jars to remove any air bubbles. Store in a fridge.

If you are one of those tens of thousands of Finnish hunters who don’t know what to do with all that elk meat they’ve shot this season, read ahead. If you are like me and didn’t have the time to go hunting for the fifth year in a row, read ahead. If you just love venison, read ahead. Everybody else is also invited to enjoy the delicious texture and taste of elk!

A couple of days ago when I went to my butcher-de-facto Reinin Liha to buy some beef, I saw these über-beautiful elk shanks. Osso Buco made from beef, calf or goat is one of my all-time favorite dishes. The rich, hearty and meaty taste of the broth from hours of slow simmering of the marrow bones is difficult to beat. So when I saw the elk shanks I immediately knew I had to buy them and cook some elk buco!

In addition to being an excellent source of fresh meat, Reinin Liha is becoming one of my favorite sources of tasty recipes. This time the shanks were accompanied by an Elk Osso Buco recipe, courtesy of Chef Nicola Tanda. Unlike traditional osso buco recipes this uses very few spices but relies on the rich game taste of the elk meat. Juniper berries give the broth an elegant, faint trace of the resinous forests where the elk spent his time before ending up on my plate =)

Elk Osso Buco

Serves 2-4

For the Osso Buco:
6 slices of elk shanks, 3 cm (1”) thick
1 dl all purpose flour
2 tbsp butter
3 tbsp virgin olive oil
1 onion, chopped
8 juniper berries, crushed
salt, pepper to taste
2.5 dl (1 cup) dry white wine
5 dl (2 cups) beef broth
(Optional: brown Maizena)
(Optional: 2 cans of Heinz beans in tomato sauce)

For the Gremolata:
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp lemon zest
half bunch of fresh flat leave parsley

Mix salt and pepper to the flour on a flat plate and cover the shanks evenly with flour. Heat butter and oil in a heavy casserole and brown the shanks from both sides. It’s easier to do this in several batches.

Chop the onions and add in the pot with the shanks. Cook for a while and add more salt and pepper to taste. Crush the juniper berries and add to the pot. Add the wine and beef broth and bring to boil. Set temperature to low and simmer for 3-4 hours until the meat is tender and falls of the bone.

When the meat is done, remove from the pot and boil the broth until thick, and/or add brown Maizena until the broth is nice and thick. Add the meat back to the broth.

For the gremolata, zest the lemon, chop the garlic and parsley until very fine and mix carefully. Sprinkle on top of the osso buco.

Optional: Remove the bones but leave the marrow. Add two cans of beans in the broth and mix well. This way you don’t necessarily need additional rice or potatoes but have a nice standalone dish.

The November issue of Saveur had a tasty and interesting looking recipe titled “Coffee-Crusted Beef Tenderloin”. Because I’m dieting again and need to cook daily in order to know what I eat, a lean tenderloin recipe suited my needs perfectly. The ingredients called for coffee which I love, but also three kinds of chillies - guajillo, ancho and chipotle. In Finland it’s quite difficult to find anything else but Dutch/Israeli grown “green chillies” or “red chillies”. The packages never mention the exact type of the chilli(es) in question. For most people this is ok, as they only want to spice up their dishes a little bit, but a foodie like me could use the species name.

Anyhow, the quest for correct chillies gave me an excuse to spend my lunch hour wandering around the specialty food stores in Helsinki. After a frustrating search I had to settle for those dang “Dutch red chillies” which were the closest thing to mirasol (fresh version of guajillo). Anchos are made by drying poblanos, which are round, green chillies about the size of a golf ball. They are not very hot, but used to add mild heat. The closest thing to poblanos I was able to find was a basket full of habaneros. As many of you know, they are really, really hot. Since I was also lacking chipotles (I only have Chipotle Tabasco), I decided to go for the habaneros as well. This ended up being a good decision for the dish, but not so much for S :D

Because of the lack of proper chillies I had to modify the recipe to use the ingredients I was able to find. I used four stemmed seeded red chillies, half a habanero and a lot of chipotle tabasco for the sauce. During the whole preparation I used disposable gloves, and when the sauce was boiling on the stove the fumes actually made my lungs feel weird. This is why I found it really odd when S came home and tasted the sauce. She didn’t find it hot at all, and ended up eating it by the spoonful. By then I felt stupid for wearing the gloves while handling those “hot” habaneros, and decided to cook the other 1.5 habaneros with the tenderloin in the oven. We even took a tiny bite of the habaneros before cooking, and they didn’t taste that hot. When everything was ready, I kindly offered S one of the cooked habaneros, and she happily accepted - you know, baked bell peppers are super good too… Well, 30 seconds later she came back to the kitchen, desperately looking for milk. And then the uncontrollable drooling started. I was too afraid to take pictures, but you can get a pretty good idea by taking a look at this guy :D

Without further ado, the original recipe from Saveur (the beef itself wasn’t hot at all!):

Coffee-Crusted Beef Tenderloin

Serves 6

1 beef tenderloin, about 1.5 kg (3 lbs)
4 guajillo chillies, stemmed and seeded
2 ancho chillies, stemmed and seeded
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
2.5 dl (1 cup) water
2 chipotle chillies in adobo
1/2 small white onion
2 tbsp light brown sugar
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
3/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
3 tbsp finely ground coffee
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Toast 4 the guajillo and ancho chillies over medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Soak in 2.5 dl (1 cup) of warm water until soft, about 30 minutes.

Purée chillies, the soaking water, garlic, chipotles in adobo and the onion until smooth. Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan and simmer until thickened, about 30 minutes. Add sugar, vinegar, 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Simmer for another 15 minutes or until thickened. Let cool.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F).

Rub the tenderloin with olive oil, salt and pepper. Brush all over with the sauce saving the remainder for another use. Mix the coffee, cocoa powder and ground cinnamon together, and roll the tenderloin in the mixture until completely covered. Let the tenderloin sit for 30 minutes in room temperature.

Roast the tenderloin for 10 minutes, then lover the temperature to 105°C (225°F), and continue roasting until the internal temperature from the thickest part reaches 58°C (135°F).

Let rest for 15 minutes. Slice and serve.

Anna invited S and I for a coffee today and asked me to bring something. Initially I was planning to go there empty handed as Anna always has plenty of super good food prepared, but a couple of hours before the coffee time I started feel bad and began looking for a quick and simple recipe.

I started dieting again a few days ago, but at the same time have been craving to bake something chocolaty and preferably gooey - with these simple preconditions chocolate brownies were an easy choice. Unfortunately the recipe I chose has so many calories I didn’t even dare to calculate the calories per serving. Probably pretty close to a Big Mac :D
Stephanie Jaworski’s Joyofbaking.com has been a good source of baking recipes, and after a quick comparison between her and Nigella’s brownie recipes (picture below) I decided to go with Stephanie’s - only because her recipe called for double the amount of chocolate :)

This recipe calls for A LOT of chocolate - each ready brownie square contains about 45 grams (1 2/3 oz) of it plus tons of butter and sugar. Perfect comfort food, but super bad for the belly. I highly discourage you to try this recipe ;)

I made a grand mistake with my batch: I forgot to fold the hazelnuts and white chocolate chips into the batter. I realized it the minute I put the cake into the oven, but was too bummed to take it out and try to mix them in. The good thing is that now I have a bona fide reason to bake another cake!

Chocolate Brownies

serves 16

650 g (23 oz) 70% chocolate, e.g. Fazer Premium Block 70%
225 g (8 oz) unsalted butter
6 free range eggs, room temperature
500 g (18 oz) granulated sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
210 g (1.5 cups) all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
100 g (3.5 oz) hazelnuts, coarsely crushed
100 g (3.5 oz) white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 175°C (347°F). Cover a lasagna pan with parchment paper.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a pot which is sitting in a bigger pot with boiling water. You can expedite this by pre-melting the butter in a microwave. Mix the butter and chocolate to a smooth paste and set aside.

Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together.

Crush the hazelnuts coarsely and fry them on a pan for a couple of minutes until fragrant.

Cream the eggs and sugar until very light, 5-10 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and fold in the butter-chocolate mixture. Fold in the flour mixture, and then the hazelnuts and white chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the center of the cake.