Mokkapalat, coffee brownies Finnish-style

These are the brownies that most Finns know ever since their mum made them (or at least those of my generation ;) : Mokkapalat! The bottom is very airy and the topping is wonderful containing real coffee.

Ingredients (quantities for a small oven):

-for the bottom:
3,3 dl wheat flour
3 eggs
2 dl sugar
1,3 dl milk
130 g butter or margarine
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1,3 teaspoon vanilla sugar

-for the topping:
2/3 package icing sugar
30 g butter or margarine
3-4 tablespoons coffee
1 tablespoon cacao powder
2 teaspoons vanilline sugar

Preparation:
Melt the butter meant for the bottom of the cake. Let it cool down for a while. Add the eggs and the sugar into a bowl and mix them with a mixer until they will have obtained a foamy composition. Take another bowl where you mix the rest of the dry ingredients together.

Take turns mixing gradually the milk and the dry ingredients to the egg-sugar foam. When you are done, mix the previously melted margarine into the foam.

Add baking paper on an oven plate and pour the foam on the oven plate evenly. Bake it on 200'c for around 15 minutes.

Melt the butter or margarine meant for the topping. Mix all the other ingredients together. At the end add the melted butter and mix. Spread the topping all over the cake, and don't be too slow or make pauses, because the topping is likely to become stiff soon.

If you like, decorate the cake with sprinkles.

Finnish-syle hamburgers with vegetarian steaks

This hamburger is inspired by Hesburger, which is Finland's biggest native fast food chain. They have got hamburgers with rye bread, and I remember them, but they don't yet have a rye bread vegetarian hamburger. I created one myself! They turned out so yummy, especially yummy for my Finnish taste. The vegetarian steaks I used I made with this recipe, but you can just as well buy ready made veggie steaks.

Ingredients (x2):
Two loaves of rye bread cut in two halves (in Finland for example Puikulat and Ruispalat work well)
butter
2 veggie steaks
2 slices of cheese
1 tomato
a small part of a bell pepper
salad leaves
ketchup
mayo
black pepper
salt
oregano

Preparation:
spread butter on the breads. Add a slice of cheese on two of the bread halves. Put the breads into the oven along with the vegetarian steaks (since they need to be heated too). Remove the breads from the oven when the cheese will have melted. You may need to keep the steaks in the oven somewhat longer.

Place the breads that have a layer of cheese on separate plates. Stuff first some salad on these breads. Then add mayonnaise evenly on the whole bread. Take the heated steaks and cut them into halves. Place the two halves next to each other on the bread, looking like two consecutive full moons. Now it's time to add a bit of ketchup. Then, cut the tomatoes into slices and lay 2-3 slices of tomato on each bread. At the end add some bell pepper that you have cut into thin sticks. Dust a bit of pepper, salt and oregano over the creations before topping them with the top half of bread. You may desire to serve these hamburgers wrapped into paper in order to make eating easier and more enjoyable!

Vegetable steaks

Nothing keeps you from making vegetable balls instead of steaks with this recipe!

Ingredients (x3):
150 g potatoes
½ or 1 egg
40 g emmenthal cheese
½ bag of deep frozen vegetables including cauliflower, broccoli and carrot
bread crumbs
salt
black pepper
nutmeg
olive oil

Preparation:
Cut the potatoes into pieces. Cook all the vegetables in a pan in salted water on heavy heat for some 10 minutes. When cooked, pour the water off and let the vegetables cool down and release stem for a while. After a few minutes mash the ingredients as if you were mashing potatoes, but don't mash them very fine. Add the cut cheese, the pepper, the salt and the nutmeg. Add the egg (keep in mind that the entire egg may not be necessary) and bread crumbs, until you get an easily manageable dough. Taste the dough to judge if you need to adjust more spices.

Spray some more bread crumbs on your cutting board. Form steaks out of the dough in your palms, dipping the steaks in bread crumbs. Pour olive oil on a frying pan and fry the steaks on rather high heat. Turn them around frequently and keep on frying them until they will have obtained a golden/brownish colour.

You can serve the steaks with for example potatoes or rice and a sauce (The sauce I used in the picture below was made by me ouf of butter, flour, milk, cheese, basil and lemon juice). If you don't mind it being more fast food kind, serving them with rice, mayo and ketchup is also a good idea.

Tagliatelle with mushrooms and gorgonzola in the oven

This was my improvisation for lunch today. It came out perfect!

Ingredients (x2):
1 clove of garlic
160 g table mushrooms
200 g tagliatelle
olive oil
½ dl cream
some milk
basil
salvia
black pepper
salt
80 g gorgonzola cheese

Preparation:
Cook the tagliatelle in lightly salted water. While the pasta is cooking, start preparing the sauce. Cut half of the mushrooms into pieces of approximately 1,5 cm in diameter. Put the other half of the mushrooms into a mixer. Pour a bit of olive oil on the mushrooms that are going to be mixed and add a bit of salvia and basil. Mix until all the mushrooms have stopped looking like mushrooms.

On a pan, heat the chopped clove of garlic with olive oil and let it gain a more golden colour. Add the mushrooms cubes on the pan and fry them on high heat for about 6 minutes. Then add the other half of the mushrooms that you mixed with the mixer, the "paté". Add salt and black pepper. Keep on frying for at least 5 more minutes. Then significantly lower the heat and pour the cream on the pan accompanied with a bit of milk. Let the sauce cook while mixing it for most of the time.

When the tagliatelle are ready, pour the water off them. Add the sauce into the pan with tagliatelle and mix them well together. Check that the amount of spices is right. Pour the dish into an oven plate. Cut pieces of the gorgonzola and place them over the whole surface of the pasta.

Bake the dish in the oven at 180'c for some 7 minutes.

Rosolli

This mix of vegetables, called rosolli, belongs to the Finnish Christmas as tightly as ham.
It is usually combined with other Christmas food.
Some people like to prepare a creamy sauce for rosolli but I prefer to skip that.

Ingredients (x2):
1 beetroot or two if smaller
some white vinegar
1 big carrot
1-2 cooked potatoes
1 pickled cucumber
½ red onion
½ apple
a pinch of black pepper

Preparation:
Cut the vegetables into cubes. Put the cubed beetroot, apple and red onion into a glass and pour some vinegar on them, and mix. After a while pour the vinegar off.
Lay the vegetables on a plate separately or, alternatively, mix them together (in that case the beetroot will colour the whole rosolli red).
Dust some black pepper over the vegetables.

Fusilli with tomato&soy sauce, roasted pine nuts and minced rucola

I prepared this for lunch yesterday and it really made my day!

Ingredients (x2):
160 g fusilli
70 g grinded soy
1 small onion
1 clove garlic
2 tomatoes
1 tablespoon white winegar
50 g pine nuts
30 g fresh rucola
salt
pepper
olive oil
parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Roast the pine nuts on a frying pan if they are not readily roasted.

Chop the garlic and the onion finely. Peel the tomatoes and remove their insides, and then cut them into cubes. Pour some olive oil on a pan and add the garlic. Heat it on relatively high heat until the garlic has gained some colour, and then add the onion. Remember to mix. Soon after lower the heat a bit and add the grinded soy and the winegar, and dust some salt and pepper on it. Mix the soy frequently and let it gain a bit darker colour. Next, add the cubes of tomatoes on the pan. Keep a medium heat and mix the sauce in 5-7 minutes every once in a while.

Cook the fusilli in salted water.

Rinse the rucola and stuff it into a mixer. Add a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Mince the rucola with the mixer.

Pour the water off the pasta. Mix the soy&tomato sauce and pine nuts with the pasta and then (separately) add the minced rucola. Turn the pasta around a bit so that the rucola spreads more evenly. Add grated parmesan cheese on top.

Tunaballs

Here's a really nice Saturday lunch recipe for tunafish balls. I tend to eat them with potatoes and a lemon-ish sauce.

Ingredients (x3-4):
2 cans of tunafish
1 small onion
250 g bread
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of olive oil
bread crumbs
salt
pepper
more olive oil for frying

Preparation:
Open the cans of tuna and press the water off the tunafish. Put the tuna into a bowl. Tear the bread into small pieces with your hands and mix it together with the tuna. Add into the mix the eggs, olive oil, salt, pepper and the finely chopped onion. Mix well. Add some bread crumbs if the dough is still too soft to handle. Spread bread crumbs on the working surface and start to form balls out of the dough with your hands. Roll the balls in bread crumbs.

At the end fry the balls in olive oil until they have gained a bit of colour. Serve them warm.