Karelian pies (karjalanpiirakka)
Karelian pies are a traditional Finnish dish. Originally, created in the Karelia region, the recipe has spread all over Finland and also in Finland’s neighboring countries, including Estonia. It is an open pie made of rye-wheat flour with a thin base, which can be filled with different ingredients. Initially, barley porridge was used as a filling, later potatoes buckwheat porridge, turnip, rice, millet or carrots. Today, perhaps the most traditional fillings are rice porridge and a mixture of rice porridge with cooked and grated carrots. In Finland, it is common to eat Karelian pies, which, in addition to the filling, are also covered with egg butter (munavoi), which is spread in thick layer to already baked and cooled pies.
It was also considered to name Karelian pies the national dish of Finland, but rye bread won the voting. This is a very nice and crispy pie, which is not very difficult to make. As the pie cools and stands, the crust becomes a little softer, remaining just as delicious.
Preparation time: 45-60 minutes preparation of fillings and dough, 15 min of baking
Level: Medium
Quantity: 14 Karelian pies
Ingredients:
Dough:
200 g of rye flour
100 g wheat flour
5 g of sea salt
About 150 ml of water
30 g of melted butter
Rice porridge filling:
200 g of porridge rice or long grain rice
700 ml of milk
50 g of butter
Sea salt for seasoning
Rice porridge-carrot filling:
500 g of carrots
1/3 of the amount of prepared rice porridge
Sea salt for seasoning
Egg Butter:
6 eggs
150 g room temperature butter
Sea salt for seasoning
A little black pepper if desired
100 g of melted butter for greasing the pies
Preparation:
- Prepare the dough. Mix together rye and wheat flour, water, salt and melted butter.
- Knead the dough lightly. The dough is quite sticky when liquid, add flour if necessary until the dough has the consistency of pliable clay. Make a ball out of the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator to wait for your next step.
- Prepare rice porridge and boil carrots. Peel the carrots if necessary, just boil them in water, add a little salt and boil them until they are soft.
- Prepare rice porridge. Mix the rice, milk and a little salt and butter together and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the rice is soft.
- To prepare the rice porridge-carrot filling, coarsely grate the carrots and mix half with the rice porridge.
- Form a cylinder of dough and cut it into 14 pieces of the equal size. Roll the pieces of dough into ovals about 2 mm thick.
- Place a large spoonful of filling in the center of each oval. Fold the edge of the dough so that an open pocket is formed. Start from the edges, fold the edges between your fingers in a form of wave. Fold the dough after every 3-4 cm so that an open pocket is formed which containes the filling. Place the ready folded Karelian pie on a baking pan lined with baking paper.
- Bake at maximum heat, ideally at 300 degrees C for about 15 minutes until the filling begins to brown very lightly in places. It is very important to use highest temperature possible. This method results in crispy and delicious pies.
Ready!!
