Finnish recipe
How to make Karelian pasties
Karjalanpiirakka
Karelia, in the east, now eaten all over Finland
Small open pasties with a thin, crinkled rye crust around a filling of creamy rice porridge. They are served warm with egg butter, a spread of butter mixed with chopped hard-boiled egg.
Ingredients
- 250 ml short-grain (pudding) rice
- 250 ml water
- 1 litre milk
- 1 teaspoon salt, plus 1 teaspoon for the dough
- 25 g butter
- 200 ml cold water, for the dough
- 300 g rye flour
- 100 g plain wheat flour
- For brushing: 50 g melted butter mixed with 100 ml hot milk
- For the egg butter: 100 g soft butter and 3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
Method
- For the filling, bring the water to the boil, add the rice and simmer until the water is absorbed. Add the milk and simmer very gently, stirring often, for 40 to 50 minutes, until thick. Stir in the salt and butter and let it cool.
- For the crust, mix the cold water, salt and both flours into a firm dough. Roll it into a log and cut it into 16 pieces.
- Heat the oven as high as it will go, ideally 275 °C, and line two trays with baking paper.
- On a floured surface, roll each piece very thin into an oval about 15 cm long.
- Spread about 2 tablespoons of rice porridge along the middle, leaving a border. Fold the edges over the filling and pinch them into small pleats, leaving the centre open.
- Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the edges have brown spots. Brush the hot pasties with the butter and milk, and cover them with a clean tea towel so the crust softens.
- Mix the soft butter with the chopped eggs and serve the pasties warm, with egg butter on top.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
Since 2003 the name karjalanpiirakka has been protected in the European Union as a Traditional Speciality Guaranteed, so pasties made another way must be sold under another name.
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