So by the heading of this post it is probably obvious that my attempt at making Finnish meat pastries failed the first time…and the second, though better…still have a long way to go on these (stay tuned for attempt #3). But, I wanted to give an overview of this recipe and see if anyone else has tried it and/or succeeded in making this very traditional Finnish meat pastry. I’ve had these in Finland often and could eat them until I puked. They are so good.
For my birthday my mom got me the book Finland Food & Cooking by Anja Hill. After initial browsing there was this one recipe I wanted to try from the beginning- Finnish Meat Pastry.
Here is the recipe, my comments follow
Finnish Meat Pasty – (Lihapiirakka)
INGREDIENTS
- 2 1/4 cups plain (all purpose) flour
- 2 tbsp unsalted (sweet) butter
- generous 1 cup curd cheese
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1 small celery stick, thinly sliced
- 1 1/4lb minced (ground) beef
- 6 hard boiled eggs, chopped
- 7oz cooked rice
- 1 tsp ground allspice
- pinch salt
- 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
- 1 egg
- beaten egg, to glaze
DIRECTIONS
- To make the pastry, put the flour in a bowl. Cut 1 cut unsalted butter into small pieces, add to the flour and run in until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Alternatively put the flour in a food processor, add the butter and, using a pulsating action, blend to form fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the curd cheese and form the dough into a ball. Leave to rest
- Melt the remaining butter in a pan, add the onion and celery and fry for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add the beef and fry, stirring occasionally, until browned
- Turn the mince mixture into a bowl. Stir in the hard-boiled eggs, rice, allspice, salt and pepper. Add the raw egg and mix to bind the mixture together
- Preheat the oven to 200 C/ 400 F/ Gas 6. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry into six 4in rounds. Brush the edges with water and place a tablespoonful of the filling in the center of each round. Fold the pastry over the filling to make a pastry and crimp the edges to seal the filling
- Place the pasties on a baking tray and brush with beaten egg to glaze. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm
Here are photos from the process of attempt #1 of making the Finnish pasties (excuse the quality, I took the photos with my phone.
1-The ball of the pastry (after step #1)
2- Browning the beef (after step #2)
3- mixture of meat, egg, rice, salt, pepper, allspice
4- filling the shells with the meat mixture
5- cooked pasties (final product)
6- inside look of finished pasty
MY COMMENTS
So, what went wrong? Well, these didn’t taste like anything, just crust. They smelled GREAT. I mean unbelievable. my boyfriend told me often during the entire process, “hmm, that smells good.” From the start they had great potential but something happened and they just didn’t turn out right. A few things might have happened. For starters, I think the recipe is off. It calls for 6 servings but I had TONS of the meat filling leftover. I mean tons!! But, I followed the recipe exactly and it called for six. Another thing that seemed off the whole time was the listing of ingredients. The book is setup to list both European and American conversions and they seemed off. Also needs tons more pepper, salt and more onion seasoning…. Potential but just not there.
The second attempt? Well, not so much a full attempt just utilizing more of the mixture into another batch of crust/shells. This time I made 14 of them out of the original recipe for the crust. Overall, we could at least taste something this time but it lacks a lot of taste. Oh, side note, before I forget…ketchup and these things were perfect (added the flavor that was missing).
Last question- curd cheese? What the heck do people use for this? My boyfriend and I have tried to figure this out for years- what is the American translation of this? Someone please advise?
If anyone else attempts this and they turn out good, please let me know! A good start but a long way to go. Gonna send in a request from Finland to see what we’re missing here.
2 comments
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July 23, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Brian
Huge fan of the pasty. Up on the range we added potatoes & carrots, and sometimes rutabagga–the last one being more particular to Finns. This vegetable-heavy take may be more of a “cornish” pasty. It’s quite possibly my favorite food (it’s between that and porchetta/porketta).
As far as curd cheese goes, i’m a little unsure. If thats the same as cheese curds, you’re in luck! Your vicinity to Wisconsin means that nearby, if not at one of the big stores around here, you can snag curds right off the shelf. They’re small, irregular lumps, and I think they’re mostly sold with the idea that folks’ll deep fry them.
My wife found a recipe for a large meat pie (lihamurekepiiras) in one of our old cookbooks. it was similar, but added mushrooms & parsley, and it recommended gruyere (or swiss or cheddar), which turned out to be really, really good (after we added salt).
have a great time in Duluth
I so should have quit my summer job sooner…
March 3, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Warren
I am half American and half Norwegian – I can totally relate to eating these pasties so much it makes you sick. My mom used to make them for the various Scandinavian summer festivals on the west coast, even though Finland isn’t technically part of Scandinavia and we are not Finnish at all, hehe. She had the same problem with finding the right cheese curd ingredient in the US. The cheese is really an important flavor enhancing ingredient, at least in her recipe. If you can’t find cheese curd – you could try to improvise. I’ve used cottage cheese mixed with ricotta and added it to the filling to compensate. Another twist is to use soured cream either in the pastry or filling. There are lots of recipes out there, many use rice and other things, but I think if it is deep and addictive flavor your after, then a rich cheese mix or sour cream really adds depth to the taste. (also to one’s midsection, hehe)