Gluten free Karelian pies

Today I felt like doing some healthy (or fancy, or necessity, depends who you ask) stuff.
I decided to make gluten and lactose free Karelian pies, and not only, but have them for lunch with a cup of coconut milk, in the half shade of the patio.
They were good, they had a bit stronger taste and more rich color than rye, and they were sooo much more meticulous to make :(. The gluten in the white flour from "normal" pies is more forgiving and elastic, and the end result looks so much better than with gluten free flour...
However for those who can't eat gluten it is a fair deal.
However, the filling made with both almond and coconut milk were absolute gorgeous! I will seriously consider changing for coconut milk for our regular porridge.
Next, I will also experiment with other gluten free flour mixes for easier-to-work-with dough, milder taste and lighter color.

Ingredients
380 ml (1 1/2 cup) buckwheat flour
130 ml (1/2 cup) sweet white sorghum flour
200 ml water
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp sunflower oil

Porridge
0.4 l sushi or short grain rice (it should stick together not like the Basmati rice for example)
0.5 litre (2 cups) almond or coconut milk (head for them to Costco for a good price)
1 litre (4 cups) water
1/5 tsp salt

For brushing
1 dl sunflower oil
1 dl almond oil

Cook the rice in the water for ~10 min, then add the almond milk, season with salt and cook under lid over very low heat for additional ~25 min, until the rice is soft enough but not over boiled. It should be a quite soft, easy to spread. Stir occasionally.
Let it cool under the lid, meanwhile prepare the dough. It can be made the day before, to shorten your preparation time.

In a bowl mix the buckwheat flour with the salt, sorghum flour, and water. It should be a rather soft though, barely dry enough to separate from the walls of the bowl.
Knead them together, roll it in a ~5 cm (2 in) rod, and cut ~1 cm slices from the rod.
Roll the slices into small balls.
Half of the dough is enough to cut and roll at a time, or it will dry, and leave the dough you are not working with under a cloth all the time.
Now roll the small balls into circle-oval shapes (~10-12cm), quite thin, using a lot of buckwheat flour on and under not to stick to the table.
Place an oval shaped, flat scoop of rice in the middle (~7mm thick), leaving about 2 cm of though around the rice.
On the sides fold the dough on top of the rice, and start lifting with your finger the rest of the dough and kinda folding it on top of the rice towards the top. Turn and repeat with the other side until it looks BETTER like the ones on the picture. :D
Mix some oil with almond milk, about 2/3 oil - 1/3 almond milk.
Place the piirakka-s in the tray. Spread some oil-almond milk mixture on the piirakka, sides as well.
Bake them at 300 C, (550 F), for ~10 min on the top most rack, (or second top most), until bits on the top get a little golden-brown shade.
Meanwhile mix some more oil with almond milk, approximately half-half.
Remove the piirakka from the oven and spread the oil-almond milk mixture ALL OVER the piirakka, bottom, sides, top.
Place them under a cloth and let the piirakka soften.

Serve with chopped hard boiled eggs mixed with butter, scrambled eggs and many more...
We also placed a slice of ham & cheese on top, and let it in the oven for couple of minutes for the cheese to melt..
Enjoy!

OBS. Cut the dough slices depending how big pirrakka you want. I cut about 22-25 g / piece dough and got a generous half-palm sized piirakka, one, with topping, would definitely be enough for breakfast for the kids.

M'semen

Two days after the operation and I was already "starving" for some tidbits. Not sweet, as you might have guessed I'm not the biggest fun of sweet stuff, except the ones with yeast and just a little sugar :).
So, for 8th March I asked hubby to make lángos instead of buying me flowers. Recipe coming soon, promise. We had them with sour cream with LOT of garlic.. Yummm...
Today however, four days after the operation, I just couldn't hold myself back from some cooking/baking.
We had székely káposzta for dinner (another versatile Transylvanian goodie worth cooking, I'll try to write down a recipe for it soon), but after dinner I still wanted something fried, something like lángos, but different. "Sweet".
I decided to go for some m'semen with honey.
I'm not a frequent cooker of Arabic meals, but the m'semen stole my hart long, long time ago.
In Finland I made it differently, without yeast, mainly because I didn't find the right semolina flour, but also because that's the traditional one. However I have to say the ones with yeast are much, much lighter, and better.

Well, here not finding something is luckily not an issue, with so many nations living together you'll find basically everything, and I had my semolina waiting in the storage for a while..
And here it goes, the lovely layered m'semen with honey, and it's my absolute favorite accompanied by strong mint tea with honey (not so sweet as they serve it in the Arabic kitchen) and pine seeds. Watch the video for easier instructions and good music.

Ingredients (makes 10 m'semen)
2 cups flour (bread flour)
2 cups semolina flour
1.5 tsp salt
1 tsp instant yeast
~ 2 cups lukewarm water, you'll need a bit less than the full 2 cups, add it slowly

1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup oil

In a larger bowl mix the dry ingredients, and start adding the water until the dough clings together but it still feels sticky. Should be a soft, light dough.
Knead it for 5-10 minutes, knead it well together in a smooth dough. You'll feel how it softens under your fingers while the flour absorbs the water.
Let ir rise for 30 minutes, it will grow to ~double size.

Melt 1/3 cup butter, add 1/3 cup oil.
Roll a bit the dough and pull 10, about same size, balls apart. Flatten and fold to make the layers.
Use the melted butter-oil mix to oil the table, and, with oily hands, start flattening the balls until they are so thin that they start to ravel.

Then fold them from the sides towards the middle in three (or four), to make a streak. Fold both ends towards the middle, and then fold the half streak in two (basically fold in 3 again, starting from the two ends). Flatten it a bit and you'll get nice squares. Between each folding oil your hands or even the dough. It is advisable to have oily layers (don't add to much though or you'll find it difficult to fold) as they will separate nicely the dough layers and they will look gorgeous.

With oily hands start flattening the squares until you get squares of a size of a small plate.

Heat a pan, sprinkle with the butter/oil mix leftover and start frying the m'semen like you fry palacsinta (crepes). The pan should be hot enough to make the m'semen grow nicely, however not too hot to burn too fast. I adjusted my heater to somewhere between half and 2/3rd capacity.

They need very short frying, maybe about 1 min/side, or less.

Enjoy while still warm/fresh with honey, maple syrup and mint tea.
Hubby, who has even less of a sweet tooth than I do, had them as is.

Karjalanpiirakka - Karelian pies

Piirakka is one of the things we kinda got accustomed to in Finland and now we are missing them. They are not the top of gourmet, but a very good and filling snack instead of bread for a change. They suit very well a cocktail party with some add on and fresh salad. 
With a light crumbled egg on top is a perfect breakfast (traditionally hard boiled eggs mashed with butter, salt and pepper), and I will definitely make some variations tomorrow, but for now here are only the piirakka's..
Bad side: too much time to prepare, good side: freeze half of the portion and warm them up in the oven any time with butter (and ham and cheese) on top. Works perfectly fine.

Ingredients (makes ~20-25 half palm sized piirakka) time to make ~2 hours
380 ml rye flour
120 ml all purpose flour
200 ml water
2 tbsp oil
1/4 tsp salt

250-300 g (2-2.5 sticks) of butter for baking
extra milk for brushing

Rice porridge filling
0.4 l sushi or short grain rice(it should stick together not like the Basmati rice for example)
0.5 litre (2 cups) milk
1 litre (4 cups) water
1/5 tsp salt (adjust if needed, should be a salty rather than neutral taste)

Serving
scrambled eggs
ham, ham & heese
"munavoi" - alias hard boiled eggs coarsely mashed with butter, salt and pepper to taste 

Cook the rice in the water for ~10 min, then add the milk, season with salt and cook under lid over very low heat for additional ~25-35 min, until the rice is soft enough but not over boiled. It should be soft, easy to spread.
Let it cool under the lid, meanwhile prepare the dough.
In a bowl mix the rye flour with the salt, white flour, and water. It should be a rather soft though, barely dry enough to separate from the walls of the bowl.
Knead them together, roll it in a ~5 cm (2 in) rod, and cut ~1cm slices from the rod.
Roll the slices into small balls.
Half of the dough is enough to cut and roll at a time, or it will dry, and leave the dough you are not working with under a cloth all the time.
Now roll the small balls into circle-oval shapes (~10-12cm), quite thin, using a lot of flour on to and under not to stick to the table.
Place an oval shaped, flat scoop of rice in the middle (~7mm thick), leaving about 2 cm of though around the rice.
On the sides fold the dough on top of the rice,  and start lifting with your finger the rest of the dough and kinda folding it on top of the rice towards the top. Turn and repeat with the other side until it looks like the ones on the picture.
Place the piirakka-s in the tray. Melt some butter and spread on the piirakka, sides as well.
Bake them at 300 C, (550 F), for ~10 min on the top most rack, (or second top most), until bits on the top get a little golden-brown shade.
Meanwhile melt some more butter and mix with milk, approximately 2/3rd butter - 1/3 milk.
Remove the piirakka from the oven and spread the butter-milk mixture ALL OVER the piirakka, bottom, sides, top.
Place them under a cloth and let the piirakka soften.

Serve with chopped hard boiled eggs mixed with butter, scrambled eggs and many more...
We also placed a slice of ham & cheese on top, and let it in the oven for couple of minutes for the cheese to melt..
Enjoy!

OBS.
Cut the dough slices depending how big pirrakka you want. I cut about 22-25 g / piece dough and got half of a palm sized piirakka. Not the cutest cocktail piirakka :D, but at least no need to eat too many, 2-3 will have your tummy full.

Zakuszka - Aivar, but not quite

This is the "sacred" vegetable spread that, again, sneaked into the Transylvanian Hungarian kitchen from the Romanian kitchen, but originates somewhere in the Balkan, former Yugoslavia. Please don't make me break down from which country in the modern Europe's map, I have absolutely no clue will it be Serbia, or Croatia, or whatever.. If they know it at all :). Anyway, the Romanians in the south happily incorporated it into their kitchen with roasted egg plant. I've seen it confused with the egg plant spread, but if you see in the recipe mayonnaise, you can be sure it is not the zakuszka.

From there was just one door away to get incorporated into the Transylvanian Hungarian kitchen, you can bet with slight modifications, or not so slight, as it is made in three variations:  the original eggplant, with cooked beans, and with mushrooms.
Not a surprise, first of all the Hungarian kitchen has lots of bean based meals, and the Transylvanian forests are full of mushrooms...Plus, Egg plants is not something that grows originally in Transylvania.
Some make mixed versions adding both egg plant and beans.

I learned that the name zakuszka in Slavic doesn't mean any specific meal, it is rather translated as "little cold bite", a buffet meal, an entree, a starter.. Well, it is true, it is a cold bread-spread bite :), served as a snack, breakfast, or starter.
There is NO such as BEST zakuszka recipe, everybody tries a new recipe when sounds promising, and has their preference when it comes to beans, egg plants or mushrooms. Some add even a 1 kg of cooked, pureed carrots (not us..). I like all the variations... OK, if I have to confess my favorite is the one with beans, but just gimme any :D.
One secret is to have everything minced (except the beans and mushrooms) fine or nubbly (again a personal choice) and cooked on low fire for very long time until the flavors mature nicely together.
The one below is the recipe from which I like the most the zakuszka (made by my mother in low). Don't ask from where it comes from, it is one of the many circulated among the women in our village :).

Ingredients
2 kg (4.4 pounds) paprika, kapia (capia?) paprika, (you can use pimento peppers or red bell peppers) - believe me or not, this is such a varied meal that you can add 3 kg (6.6 pounds) paprika as well if wanted (I have heard even of 5 kg but I wouldn't try, that's more like the aivar, and is not really appealing)
1 kg (2.2 pounds) onions
1 kg (2.2 pounds) tomato, or 0.5 litre (2 cups) fresh tomato juice (some like it more sour, if you too, add up to 1 liter tomato juice)

To give the taste:
1 kg (2.2 pounds) of smaller white or pinto beans, or 1-2 kg (2.2 - 4.4 pounds) egg plant (up to you, really) or 1 kg (2.2 pounds) mushroom
salt, ~2tsp (add gradually and adjust the taste, depends what salt you use..)
pepper, as much as you like, add at least 1 flat tsp
bay leaves, ~5-7 pcs
1 liter (4 cups) sunflower oil (I suppose you can use olive oil as well, I just don't like the taste of olive oil in Hungarian meals 'cause that's not what I got used to)
1-2 chili paprika, optional

Serving
fresh bread

Needs some preparations for all your ingredients, and about 3-4 hours of your time.. *Sigh*..
Now let's take the ingredients one by one..
Tomatoes: drop the tomatoes in hot water for couple of minutes and peal them. Cut into cubes and start sauteing until the texture of the tomato is more like a pure. My Grandma didn't like the seeds, so she ran the tomato pure through a tool dedicated for the purpose, but you can use a sieve. Or just sticking to ready tomato sauce is also a good idea :).
Beans: boil the beans, if you chose to add beans. Some like the beans pureed (for me it is too pasty..), others whole. You choose :). The best are the "firstling" (??) beans, we called them "zsengés paszuly".
Mushrooms: you need to saute the mushrooms in some oil, if you chose to add mushrooms for 2-3 min.
Peppers & egg plants: At the same time start to roast the peppers and the egg plants (if you chose to add egg plants) on a grill, until you can peal them easily. The egg plants especially should be quite black, and might look like burned, but not to worry. You need to kinda burn off the skin :D. When ready peel the skin off (help yourself by dipping the egg plants or just your fingers in cold water). Chop the egg plants finely, or use a mixer to get a creamy texture.
If you want to free yourself from extra work can leave the paprika un-grilled, the smoky flavor is however a nice extra to the zakuszka. 
Peal them, and mince the paprika.
Mince the onions, and start simmering them in half of the (hot) oil until glassy, add the minced grilled (or un-grilled) paprika. Sprinkle with salt and black pepper.
If the paprika was un-grilled let it simmer just as you did with the onions for a while. 
Let it slowly cook together for ~about 30-45 minutes at low heat. It shouldn't boil to much, but rather barely show some tiny bubbles on top. If you had grilled pepper 30 min might be enough, if you added them raw let them cook longer.
Stir occasionally.
Add the tomato pure, and boil for about 1 hour at very low heat. When you taste it and the flavors have kinda nicely blended, you can add the left half of the oil, the egg plant cream, - or beans, - or mushrooms and let them cook together for additional 30 - 45 minutes. The mixture should be shiny rather then juicy..
If you add beans or mushrooms, be careful not to overcook them anymore.
The result will be an awfully big portion, but don't panic. The big portion is needed for the great taste, and you have two options:
- it can be divided it into smaller portions and store in the freezer. Before serving remove from the freezer and let it defrost in the fridge. Enjoy.
- place the ready zakuszka in jars, put them in a basket closely together wrapped around with hot towels and pillows and let them cool down in the warm bed. They should have a layer of oil on top, carefully not to mix it store them in the chamber.

Whole grain bread

If you liked the home made white bread, this is gonna be a success, too. In our case is actually on the first place because it has a richer taste. Besides, it's healthier, but that comes only as a bonus after the taste.
It is going to be a more flat bread, don't expect to rise as nicely high as the white one, because the whole wheat doesn't have as much gluten as the white flour, and it won't be able to "work", ferment, so nicely.

Ingredients
500 ml (3 cups) white bread flour
250 ml (1 cup) whole wheat flour
350 ml (1 1/2 cups) water (warm during winter)
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp dry yeast 

If you made the white bread already this will be almost no difference to bake, except that you use whole wheat flour.
Mix the dry ingredients, add the water, and under a kitchen towel leave it overnight to rise, at least 12 hours, or more, depends on the temperature in the house. This particular one stayed I guess ~18 hours, as it is winter, even in SD..
If after adding the water the dough feels very wet, feel free to sprinkle a pinch or two of white flour, but overall, this dough is going to be more wet than the white bread dough, and do not add to much flour or the bread crumb will be very dry and heavy.
Dump the dough on floured table, fold it like an envelope couple of times until it gets a firm and nice round shape (no need to kneed, just softly fold).
Let it rise for another 2 hours. Meanwhile preheat the oven (and the pot) to 435 F (225 C).
Place the dough in the preheated pot, put the lid on, and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid, bake for additional 20 minutes.
Wrap the bread in two kitchen towels, let it stay for at least 1 hour to cool. If you cut it earlier, as we unfortunately often do, the crumb won't have time to nicely dry and cool, and it's going to stick to your knife, and the brad will flatten completely.. :(

!!!!  During summer is irrelevant what kind of water you use. However during winter is difficult to make the dough rise. I just made this trick last night and it worked perfectly: added warm water, more warm than I would add to a yeast, but not hot for my hands. After mixing the dry ingredients with the water I placed the bowl in the oven (NOT heated oven) and closed the door. The dough had more stable temperature and humidity then it does on the counter otherwise. The bread was better than ever in the past two cold months!

Foszlós kalács - challah

This is not the Jewish challah. This is an egg-free, much more white, more fluffy version my Grandma used to bake for every Xmas and New Year. I wasn't sure whether I really liked it so much, or was it just the memories that made it so good.
Anyway, in our region this kalács, and not the "bejgli", is the typical Xmas treat, and I was looking for that particular taste..
In our village everybody makes "kalács" kinda the same way I cook: "I had this much milk for the purpose, so I added the required amount of yeast, and added as much flour as it took to make a soft dough".. But DON't ask for the recipe.. *Sigh*...
Noh, yeah, but my fingers are trained for the bread, "pulla" and "aranygaluska", so I was quite skeptic I'm gonna make any good kalács without some guidelines.
And I found some at Szellem a fazékban blog. Not so useful ones, after all, but it gave me courage to start :). In the recipe says 200 ml milk, but there is no way you can work that amount of flour together in a soft dough with that little amount of milk.. You can of course try, but when I saw that about 1/3 of my flour didn't even cling together with the rest, I just added another 100 ml milk, and a bit later another 50 ml, 'cause I didn't find the dough very soft. At the end of the day, it was still my fingers I used for measurement :) and forgot about the recipe, but I made it at least the same shape as in the recipe because it looked soooo great (isn't it?), regardless that this is not the traditional shape for a "kalács".

Ingredients
600 g flour (~1 liter or ~4 cups)
30 g fresh yeast, or 10 g dry yeast, about 2 heaped tsp
1/2 tsp salt
100 g icing sugar (3.5 ounce)
125 g butter (1cup)
350-400 ml hand warm milk, (1 1/2 - 1 3/4 cups) depends how much the flour takes in to make an easy to work with dough, not sticky but not to hard either. 

I used a bit more then 350 ml milk, and though it looked OK, it was hard to roll it out after 45 minutes raising. So, next time I will for sure use 400ml to make a bit softer dough.

Work it together in a smooth, easy to kneed dough (needs quite a bit of kneading to get enough air in it), and let it rise for 30-45 minutes, until the dough grows to about double size.
Divide the dough into 3 parts, roll it out in about 20x40 cm sheet, spread the filling, roll it on the longer edge and try to keep the length. If it shortens just roll it a bit thinner and longer.
Do the same with all three portions and make a nice braid to fit your tray.
Let it rise for another 20 minutes, spread some egg on top, or if you want to leave the eggs out completely then just a bit of water. Let it dry for a minute, or two.
Meanwhile preheat the oven to 190 C (375 F) and bake it for 30 minutes on the upper racks. When ready wrap it into kitchen towels and let it cool for about 1 hour. Ready to be served with chocolate milk in the morning.

For the original shape just divide the dough into two, roll it out in a 20x25 cm rectangle, roll it up on the longer edge and place them in two 10x25 cm (preferably 10cm high) trays. Bake for 30 (20? I shell try) min.

Filling
100 g icing sugar (3.5 ounce)
100 g ground poppy seeds or walnut (3.5 ounce)
milk, enough to boil it in a soft cream

The filling is for 1 roll, you will need 3, adjust the amount based on whether you want 2 nut and 1 poppy seed, or 2 poppy seed and 1 nut, or all of them the same.
Boil them together for couple of minutes until they blend nicely in an easy to spread, creamy texture.
 
And one last thing!! If you have leftovers that are dry and you don't feel like eating them as such, beat one egg, (add two tablespoons of milk), dip the kalács slices in the egg and fry them in hot oil, for just couple of minutes, ~1/2 min a side. It is a sort of french toast. Sprinkle it with icing sugar, and tadam, you have a new, fresh breakfast/dessert reusing the leftovers.. It is yumi.

PS. In the pic you see the "kalács" with cocoa powder and cinnamon filling, something you can try as well.
And one secret :). To make the nice cocoa swirl like in the pic don't add cocoa powder straight to the whole amount of dough you want to be with cocoa. Take a large pinch of dough, add a tsp cocoa, work it together well. When the small pinch of dough is smooth, add it to the whole amount of though you wanna be dark, and kneed it together.