Sometimes you plan to cook something for a very long time, but you keep putting it off and putting it off. Every time you remember a recipe, you think, well, that’s it, I’ll cook it now, and you put it off again until that long-awaited occasion finally appears. And this time it became such an occasion for me competition organized by Smilebooks, about which you can read in detail at Tanya's, and still have time to take part in it, since the deadline has been extended until May 27.
I didn’t think long about choosing a topic; Finland, of course!
Wickets
- these are small Karelian pies made from unleavened dough on rye flour, but since they are widely eaten and sold in Finland, I dedicated this recipe specifically to Finnish cuisine, to the country that I consider my second home. Moreover, wicket is one of the most common dishes included in the breakfast buffet menu. And breakfast, as you know, is one of the criteria for me when choosing a hotel; it should be varied, rich and tasty. So, don’t throw slippers at me, but wickets will be a Finnish dish today.
The very name “wicket” is Russian, and has nothing to do with a wicket or gate or door. It arose by chance, as a sound distortion of the Finnish “kalittoa”, “kalitt”, incomprehensible to Russians.
The Karelians themselves also call them “ryupittetu”, which means “wrinkled”, “gathered”, based on the appearance of their tucks, and “kalittoa” can be translated as “spread”, because the filling is, as it were, spread on a pancake, or skanets, from which a pie is made.
Thus, the name of these national pies is connected with how they are made, with the form of their preparation.
And this indicates the great antiquity of the gates. The fact that they are also prepared from unleavened dough indicates quite definitely that they existed among the Karelians long before the baptism of Rus', that is, they apparently arose in the 9th century, and perhaps earlier. However, despite its hoary antiquity, this product actually did not go beyond the national boundaries of Karelia until the 20th century, being considered “rustic” and “tasteless”, since information about its composition, frankly speaking, did not inspire gourmets at all: unleavened rye dough stuffed with pearl barley . In addition, after baking, the wickets become as hard as iron, and in order to eat them, they must be re-soaked. And this certainly did not fit into the minds of the Russian people, who were accustomed to the fact that pies from the oven are soft, fluffy, fragrant, pleasant and tasty products tantalizing with the smell of delicious filling, which after the oven fire no longer need any further processing.
There are several filling options. The proposal of Finnish chefs: use soft, pleasant, cultural fillings from “civilized” cereals - rice. It needs to be boiled. Then there were various variations on the theme of filling, and in the current understanding, the filling of the gates is by no means barley, but most often mashed potatoes or rice, although there are also more exotic options with the addition of various spices and dairy components.
In his book, V. Pokhlebkin gives a recipe for preparing this product in a form processed by Finnish, urban modern chefs. I will tell you about it, and give you the recipe I used.
Classic wicket recipe.
Rye flour - 1 cup
Wheat flour - 0.5 cups
Yogurt (or kefir) - 1 cup
Milk - 1 liter
Butter - 100 g
Eggs - 3-4 pcs
Cereals: pearl barley or rice - 1 cup (or potatoes - 4-5 large tubers)
Salt - 1 teaspoon
1. Preparing flour and dough.
You can use only one rye flour - it’s more “national”. However, you can add at least a third of wheat flour. It tastes better. Both types of flour must be mixed thoroughly and evenly, adding salt. In other words, first all dry, free-flowing powdery components are mixed. Mix and set aside in a separate bowl.
2. Preparation of cereals.
The national cereal for wickets is made only from barley, either pearl barley or barley. Pearl barley is very tasty if it is cooked correctly, but for this it needs to be cooked for at least 5 - 6 hours and in a special way, which is unacceptable for a modern urban person.
As for barley, it is not boiled, but soaked for 10 - 12 hours in yogurt with melted butter dissolved in it (50 - 75 grams). As a result, it becomes soft and sour, which gives the wickets a real national Karelian taste. Finnish version - boiled rice
In practice, in the 20th century, both in Karelia and Finland, they began to widely use cheaper, ubiquitous potatoes for filling wickets, making mashed potatoes from them and flavoring them with sour cream, butter and hard-boiled chopped eggs with onions to improve the taste. Exactly the same additives are added to the rice filling.
3. Preparing the dough.
Pour the yogurt into a deep bowl and carefully (gradually), adding the previously prepared flour mixture to it, knead the dough to the desired consistency. When the dough acquires such a consistency that it does not stick to your hands, you can begin to prepare the shell for the pies from it - the so-called skants.
4. Preparation of skants.
Skants can be made in two ways:
First. Roll out all the dough or half of it into one large sheet, as is done for homemade noodles, and then, placing a saucer (bottom up) with a diameter of 12 - 18 cm on it, circle it with the tip of a knife and cut out a pancake - “skanets” . (This is the Finnish method.) In this case, all the gates turn out the same, even, beautiful.
Second. Karelians act differently. They make a “sausage” out of the dough, the thickness between a sausage and a sausage, and cut off identical pieces from this “sausage”, each of which is rolled out separately into a skanetz. To prevent the skants from drying out while they are all made, they are usually stacked and covered with a large pan, protecting the dough from airing. The gates made from such skants are not the same, they are of different sizes, “clumsy”, and that is why they have a genuine folk connotation, rustic, homemade, and not a “pretentious” urban one.
5. Preparation and baking of gates.
The skants are laid out side by side on the table, and 1 - 2 spoons of filling are placed in the middle of each of them, and then the skants are pinched, but not tightly. Gates are open pies.
There are two ways of pinching:
1. Karelian. The edges of the skants are bent, partially covering the filling, at four or seven corners. That's why Dahl called them "quadrangular cheesecakes."
2. Finnish. The edges of the skants on two opposite sides around the filling are gathered into assemblies. The result is an open pie in the form of an ellipse (the dough is pinched tightly at the edges). The remaining uncovered part of the filling is brushed with sour cream and egg (yolk).
The wickets are baked over low or medium heat for about 10 - 15 minutes in the oven. Readiness will be noticeable only when the filling appears golden. The gates themselves will remain the same, they will neither increase in volume nor change in color. They will be hard to the touch, like tin.
6. Treatment of gates after baking.
Hot gates taken out of the oven are quickly greased with butter, the more, the better, and covered with a cloth.
7. How do wickets eat?
This seems like a strange question? Do you really need rules to eat? That's it. Because without applying the rules, wickets will seem tasteless, and those eaten according to all the rules will become perhaps your most favorite dish.
And they eat them like this:
Everyone sits around the table, each with an empty plate. In the middle of the table there is a deep bowl or tureen into which at least a liter or two of hot milk is poured, and then all the wickets prepared or planned for the meal are placed in this milk. 50 - 100 g of butter is often added to milk. From this butter-milk mixture, everyone (or the hostess) catches a wicket with a large wooden spoon, puts it on their plate and eats it.
The Finns cut them with a knife, eat them with a spoon, accompanied by milk, and pieces. Karelians, of course, eat with their hands, which they wipe each time on a napkin or towel lying nearby.
The wickets can be stored for two days, and each time they can be eaten hot, having previously been soaked in a boiling milk-cream mixture.
I made the gates according to this recipe:
2 cups rye flour
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp. salt
For filling:
6 small potatoes
1 egg
2 tbsp. butter
salt
To make the filling, boil the potatoes in salted water until tender and mash them into a puree. Add softened butter, whisked egg and salt. Mix.
Mix sour cream with milk. Sift flour with salt. Add sour cream to the flour, stirring constantly. Knead into a soft, elastic dough, adding a little more flour if necessary.
Wrap the dough in cling film and leave for 30 minutes. Then roll out the dough into a sausage, cut it into small pieces, roll each into a circle 1.5 mm thick.
Place 2 tbsp in the middle of the dough circle. mashed potatoes. Fold the edges slightly towards the middle and pinch. Do all the gates this way.
Place the pies on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake in an oven preheated to 200C for 20 minutes.
I used mashed potatoes mixed with Finnish grain cottage cheese for the filling, and sprinkled each wicket with a mixture of chopped coriander and cumin before baking. The pinching was also a little unauthentic; I think the shape of the pinching did not affect the taste. Instead of sour cream I used homemade yogurt. They are small in size, bite-sized and round in shape, so I also brought my share of creativity into the process of preparing the gates.
National Karelian cuisine is a kind of symbiosis of Old Russian cuisine and the cuisine of Northern Europe. In the restaurant menus you can find especially many similarities with the dishes of the closest neighbors of the Karelian Finns and Estonians.
A wicket is a kind of open small pie, like a cheesecake, often oblong, round or polygonal in shape. The filling for wickets is porridge, as well as potatoes or berries.
They say that such pies were made already in the 9th century, that is, even before the baptism of Rus'. Today, wickets are a popular type of baked goods not only in the north-west of Russia, but also in Finland and the Scandinavian countries, where wickets made everywhere are called “Karelian pies”.
A meal with wickets in Karelia resembles a kind of family ritual. A large bowl filled with hot milk and butter is placed in the middle of the table. All pies are placed in a bowl and soaked in the creamy mixture. After the pies have become soft, they are taken by the hostess, who places them on the plates of everyone present, according to seniority. They eat this dish only with their hands. My friend, who introduced me to these pies, told me that in their family it was customary to “bathe” the pies in melted butter and then wash them down with hot milk.
Does not require the use of expensive products. But despite this, these pies turn out to be very filling and tasty. You can cook them with different fillings. We will tell you how to make wickets with potatoes, cottage cheese and rice porridge.
Step-by-step recipe for Karelian gates (how are they made?)
There are several options for preparing such baked goods. Some people make wickets based on rye flour, while others additionally use wheat flour. It should also be noted that the dough for such pies can be kneaded with water, kefir or yogurt.
So, to prepare delicious Karelian products we will need:
- medium fat kefir - 1 full glass;
- baking soda - a few pinches;
- sifted wheat flour - 1 full glass;
- rye flour - 1 full glass;
- fine table salt - 1 dessert spoon in the dough and the same amount in the filling;
- potato tubers - 5 pcs. (For filling);
- butter - about 50 g (for filling);
- milk of maximum fat content - about 100 ml (for filling);
- medium chicken egg - 1 pc. (For filling).
Preparation of kefir dough
The presented recipe for Karelian wickets is good to use if you want to cook something very tasty and quick.
First you need to knead the dough. Medium-fat kefir is heated a little over the fire, and then baking soda is quenched in it. After this, sifted wheat and rye flour is gradually added to the drink. By intensively mixing all the ingredients with your hands, you get a fairly thick dough (should not stick to your fingers). To ensure it reaches the desired consistency, wrap it in cling film and leave at room temperature for 20-30 minutes.
Preparing potato filling
The recipe for Karelian wickets with potatoes is very popular among chefs. These pies turn out very tasty and filling. Before you shape them, you should prepare the filling. To do this, potato tubers are peeled, and then placed in boiling salted water and cooked for 30 minutes.
After the vegetables become soft, drain all the broth from them and then add a chicken egg, melted butter and hot milk. All ingredients are thoroughly mashed with a masher until an airy and homogeneous puree without lumps is formed.
We create Karelian products
How should Karelian pies (wickets) be formed? The recipe for such products requires the use of a large cutting board and rolling pin. The finished dough is divided into equal pieces, sprinkled with flour and rolled into thin flat cakes. After this, warm mashed potatoes are placed in the center of the products and pressed down thoroughly with a spoon. Next, the edges of the cake are beautifully folded inward, forming an oval pie with an open top.
Baking pies with potatoes in the oven
After all the pies are formed, they are placed on a baking sheet with baking paper.
It should be noted that the presented recipe for Karelian gates involves the use of not only the above ingredients, but also other products intended for lubricating semi-finished products. To do this, beat the chicken egg well with a fork, and then add a few large spoons of sour cream. All the pies are greased with the resulting mixture and immediately put into the oven.
It is advisable to bake such products at a temperature of 200 degrees for 25 minutes. After the gates become rosy, they are taken out and greased with fresh butter while hot.
Making delicious Karelian pies with sweet cottage cheese
Now you know the recipe for Karelian wickets made from rye flour with potatoes. If you want to get sweet products for tea, we recommend preparing them using cottage cheese. But first things first.
So, the recipe for Karelian wickets with cottage cheese involves the use of:
Making rye dough
How should Karelian gates be made? Homemade recipes for such products may involve the use of completely different products. To prepare the dough, we decided to use yogurt. It is heated a little over low heat (until warm), and then a little soda, wheat and rye flour are added.
After mixing all the ingredients, you get a fairly thick dough. It is placed in a plastic bag and kept in this state for about half an hour.
Preparing the curd filling
The sweet filling for Karelian pies is easy and simple to prepare. The fatty coarse-grained cottage cheese is placed in a large bowl, and then coarse sugar, vanillin and beaten eggs are added. All products are thoroughly mixed until a homogeneous mass is obtained. If you wish, you can additionally add steamed seedless raisins to this filling.
Form and bake in the oven
How are Karelian wickets made from rye flour? The recipes for such products are quite similar to each other. The prepared dough is divided into equal pieces and then rolled into thin flat cakes. Then 1-2 large spoons of curd filling are placed in their center. After this, the free edges are beautifully wrapped inward, forming an even semicircular pie.
Carefully placing all the semi-finished products on a baking sheet with baking paper, they are generously greased with melted butter. After this, the Karelian pies are sent to the oven and baked for half an hour.
As soon as the gates are browned, they are taken out and lubricated again, but with fresh butter.
Making delicious wickets with rice porridge
If you cannot get your child to eat rice porridge, then we suggest serving it a little differently. Using this dish as a filling for pies, no child will be able to refuse it.
So, to implement the recipe we need:
Knead the dough
The dough for such wickets is kneaded easily and simply. Soda, as well as rye and wheat flour are added to warm drinking water. By mixing the ingredients, you get a thick dough, which is kept in cling film for about 30 minutes.
Preparing the rice filling
To prepare rice porridge, the cereals are carefully sorted and washed. Next, it is placed in boiling fat milk, coarse sugar and salt are added, and then cooked over low heat for about 35 minutes. As a result of such actions, thick and crumbly rice porridge is obtained. Add butter to it, mix thoroughly and leave covered for ¼ hour.
We form and bake products
Karelian wickets with rice porridge should be formed in exactly the same way as was presented in the two previous recipes. After the semi-finished products are ready, they are laid out on a baking sheet and greased with butter. Next, all products are sent to the oven and baked for 23-27 minutes. During this time, the Karelian wickets should brown and be completely cooked.
How and with what to present it to the table?
It is advisable to serve Karelian wickets with potatoes, cottage cheese or rice porridge only when warm. They are beautifully laid out on a flat dish, greased with butter and presented to family members along with a glass of hot and sweet tea.
The cuisine of the country of “a thousand lakes”, Finland, is not one of the most popular in the world, but its rye wickets (carols, presnushki) are loved by many people. The chefs are not famous, there are not a large number of cookbooks, and many people associate the country itself only with permafrost and frost. Reindeer and Santa Claus do not always attract visitors seeking sun and sea. Seekers of new experiences also rarely come here, because the cuisine is too poor - fish, potatoes, cloudberries, venison, but it is still worth taking a closer look at it.
The cuisine is not complicated; preparing Karelian wickets is easy. This is due both to the climate prevailing in this part of Europe (no olive groves, coconuts, etc.) and to the history of the northern country. Not caressed by the sun, she is modest with her dishes. All desserts and sweets, preparations, pickles, preserves were influenced by Swedish and Russian cooking, but the cuisine cannot be called poor. Where else can you find ice cream with tar, garlic, salmyaki, wonderful cloudberry desserts and open pies with potato filling?
Karelian wickets (Finnish: carjalanpiirakat) is a traditional Finnish dish originating from the area around Lake Ladoga.
Until 1940, the territory was part of Finland. After the war, the dish gained recognition among other nations. It is a flat, open pie made from unleavened rye flour filled with rice, barley, cottage cheese, mushrooms, various cereals and potatoes.
You can fill the original baskets with other fillings (carrots, pumpkin, cheese and even pudding), but then they will no longer be gates. Since 2003, the name has been patented and belongs only to pies with traditional fillings, although sweet pastries filled with various berries and fruits are also very tasty. Where the name came from is now unknown to anyone, but it has nothing to do with the gate. Most likely, the word takes its roots from the Finnish “kalittoa”, which was made even before the baptism of Rus'. Karelians call them “ryupittetu” (translated as wrinkled or ruffled, due to the characteristic frill along the edges making them look like cakes).
Finns serve with egg fudge and milk. The traditional recipe is rye wickets with potatoes. Prepared from milk, butter and new potatoes (perunapiirakat), seasoned with salt (without cottage cheese and onions). They taste best when served hot. Finns love Karelian pies. They can be found in almost every grocery store. Many consider them unique and specific only to Finland. This is confirmed by the fact that in 2003 the EU included them in the list of regional products.
Wicket recipe
This is a simple, delicious, traditional appetizer. Rye flour can be replaced with bran flour. It is important that the filling is not dry. If you immerse the finished desserts in melted butter, they will turn out rosy and crispy. Reheated pies will be delicious even the next day.
Ingredients
For 35-40 pies:
- 500 g wholemeal rye flour (type 2000);
- 300 g wheat flour;
- 2 tsp salt;
- 250-280 ml of water.
Rice filling (for 20-25 pcs.):
- 300 g sticky rice;
- 600 ml water;
- 1 l and 200 ml milk 3.2%;
- 2 tsp salt.
Potato filling (for 10-15 pcs.):
- 700 g potatoes;
- 300 g of double-grated cottage cheese;
- 1 large onion;
- 2 tbsp. l. rapeseed or other oil;
- 2 tbsp. l. milk;
- salt pepper.
Machanka sauce: butter - 50 g, milk - 100 ml.
To prepare the rice filling, boil water in a thick-bottomed bowl. Cook the rice over low heat until it has absorbed all the liquid. Pour milk and cook over low heat for 25-30 minutes, remembering to stir. Turn off the heat, add salt, stir and leave to cool. The filling should have the consistency of pudding. It can be prepared the day before and stored in the refrigerator.
Potato filling: Peel, wash and boil the potatoes in lightly salted water. Drain the water and beat thoroughly with a potato whisk, cool. Fry the diced onion in oil until golden brown. Add grated cottage cheese, fried onions, milk, salt, pepper, softened butter to the potatoes and mix thoroughly.
Sift the rye and wheat flour onto a pastry board (add the rye flour bran remaining in the sieve to the sifted flour). Knead the dough, add salt and 250 ml of water. If the dough is too dry, dilute with the remaining water, sprinkle with rye flour if it is very sticky. Knead for 10-15 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic. Roll the dough into a ball, wrap tightly with food foil and leave in a cool place for 30-40 minutes.
Place the dough on a floured board and divide into 2 parts. Wrap one in cling film and roll out the other. Divide the layer into 15-20 parts (the more parts, the smaller the gate). Roll each part into a thin oval layer of 10-15 cm. Cover the resulting plates with a damp cloth or cling film. Do the same with the second part of the dough.
Place the filling (1-1.5 tbsp) on each piece, leaving 1 cm around the edges. Shape the edges by squeezing the dough to create a distinctive frill.
Place the finished products on a baking sheet lined with baking paper (cover with a cloth so that the finished wickets do not dry out while you fill the rest of the dough). Bake in an oven preheated to 240°C for 10-15 minutes.
Make a machanka mixture to soak them. Heat the milk, dissolve the butter in it, mix thoroughly. Using a silicone brush, carefully brush the baked and hot pies with the mixture, place on a kitchen rack and cover with a cloth for 2-3 minutes.
Karelian wickets with potatoes step by step
The version with mashed potatoes is also delicious. Required basic components:
- 1 cup rye flour;
- 1 cup wheat flour;
- 240 ml yogurt;
- table soda - 1 pinch;
- sea salt to taste;
- fat sour cream - 2 tbsp. l.
Kneading dough
The recipe for this dough product is very simple. To prepare rye dough for wickets:
- pour the curdled milk into a bowl, heat it a little, dissolve the baking soda in it;
- add sea salt, full-fat sour cream, rye and wheat flour;
- knead for 15-20 minutes;
- wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 40 minutes.
Baking a wicket requires the use of the following products:
- fresh potato tubers - 6 pcs;
- butter - 85 g;
- egg - 2 pcs. (one for greasing a vessel formed from dough);
- salt, ground and ground black pepper (to taste);
- 1 tbsp. milk.
Prepare the necessary ingredients and start cooking.
Steps for preparing the filling
Pies with potato filling are more nutritious and tastier than similar pies with rice porridge. Thinly peel the skins of the potatoes and boil in salted water. Drain and immediately add butter, hot milk and 1 egg.
Grind well. If necessary, season the finished filling with black pepper.
Shaping the dish
Karyalanpirakati is easy to make. Step-by-step recipe for making wickets in the oven:
- Preheat the oven to 240-250°C.
- Roll out the dough pieces thinly.
- Put 1.5 tbsp. potato filling.
- Pinch the edges of the base, leaving the vegetable filling exposed.
- Place the formed products on a baking sheet.
- Brush the products with beaten egg to make them more beautiful and rosy.
- Place in the oven. Bake for 13-17 minutes. They will take on a fixed, permanent shape.
Karelian fresh bread is served warm with herbal tea. To make the dish more appetizing and beautiful, the hot product is greased with softened butter.
When cold days come, these small buns with oblong, polygonal or round shapes with various fillings melt in your mouth. Thin, crispy dough and divine aroma are in perfect harmony with a cup of coffee and a fireplace. Nutritious, healthy and delicious, they have little in common with traditional Russian pies.
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