Handmade Karelian pies - Part 1

Let’s bake Karelian pies at home and start by cooking rice porridge

Of course, the porridge can be cooked on the stove in a saucepan or kettle according to the instructions on the side of the bag or from a googled recipe. Even with a thick-bottomed pot, the porridge requires active stirring when the milk boils to prevent it from burning, and it is difficult to do anything else while cooking without the porridge on your mind all the time. That is why we make the porridge more passively with a rice cooker. You can find a two-piece “one-switch” rice cooker for about 20-30 euros suitable for home use at your nearest retailer.

Figure 1. Rice cooker ready for porridge making.

For the rice cooker, you can check the indicative amounts by weight or volume for the porridge ingredients on the side of the porridge rice bag, but there is no need to pay attention to the cooking instructions. With a rice cooker you can make porridge in about 40 minutes as follows: dump all the ingredients into the rice cooker pot, stir occasionally, done.

Let’s go into a little bit of detail next.

Ingredients:

about a liter of whole milk

2 dl water

2 dl porridge rice

½ tsp salt

Figure 2. Traditional porridge ingredients: salt, water, porridge rice, whole milk

There is no cream, egg or butter in our porridge, because in this series we do not want to bake rice pies but rice-filled Karelian pies. The ‘Karelian pie’ belongs to the category of Authentic Traditional Product in the EU name protection system (in Finnish APT). The name protection determines what ingredients can be put in an authentic Karelian pie. You can find the 2019 version of the Karelian Pie Name Protection Document here: PDF (in Finnish). For alternative fillings, the document states (translated using google translate):

The production of “Karelian pies” begins with the cooking of the filling. The filling is usually a boiled porridge made of barley or rice or mashed potatoes. Additionally, cooked, grated vegetables (e.g., chopped, carrot, turnip, or stewed cabbage or mushrooms) can also be used. Mashed potatoes can also be made from dried potato flakes.

It should also be mentioned that, in practice, the name protection makes it difficult to make Karelian pies on a conveyor belt, as ingredients that facilitate industrial baking (and spoil the authentic taste of the pie) may not be used in the process. Due to ingredient restrictions, supermarket baking points sell mainly ‘rice pies’ instead of Karelian pies. In principle, the name protection also takes a stance on the methods of making Karelian pie, but our interest is limited to the ingredients allowed by the name protection, which play a more central role in the end result, i.e. the taste, texture and feel of the Karelian pie.

Back to the porridge.

Cooking instructions:

• Dump the ingredients into the rice cooker, switch it on (Cook position), stir and put the lid on. Wooden spatulas are the best tools for stirring the porridge.

• It takes time for the cold liquids to warm up. However, stir the porridge a couple of times during the first 10 minutes as the starch coming off the rice makes the rice stick to the bottom of the pot. However, starch is your friend because it makes the porridge creamy.

Figure 3. The lid keeps the heat in the rice cooker.

• When using the rice cooker for the first time, it is a good idea to mix the porridge at least once about every 5 minutes (put a kitchen timer or cell phone alarm to ring every 5 minutes). As you gain experience, things will go smoother. Remove the lid at about 20 minutes as the porridge begins to bubble more vigorously. If you forget to remove the lid, you might have to sample the spilled porridge from your table. There are, of course, differences in timings between cookers.

Figure 4. Porridge is bubbling.

• The cooker cord can be removed from the socket at about 35-40 minutes. During the last few minutes, you should stir the porridge more as the quantity of liquid reduces. Lift the pot off the rice cooker, place it on the table and put the lid on. Leave the porridge to cool and settle (solidify). If the pot is left in a hot cooker, the porridge will caramelize to a red color and will taste sweet, which is not suitable for Karelian pies.

Figure 5. Cooked porridge ready to be filled into Karelian pies

A few notes:

1. You can leave out a deciliter or two from a liter of milk as the porridge must not be too loose. If the porridge is too loose, it may boil and spill out of the pie shell during baking.

2. The devil may whisper in your ear that loose porridge is easier to spread on the pie shell, and by adding an egg to the porridge as a binder, even loose porridge doesn’t spill out of the pie during baking. But remember that adding an egg makes a Karelian pie a heretical pie (name protection and tradition do not allow eggs). The egg belongs to the egg-butter.

3. You can change the ratio of milk and water to suit your own taste. For example, try a 50/50 porridge.

4. When cooking a larger portion of porridge, a good rule of thumb is that you can put a tablespoon of salt (1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons) per kilogram (~ 12 dl) of rice.

5. If you cook porridge more traditionally in a pot on a stove, it is a good idea to use a thick-bottomed and possibly non-stick pot. If you first boil the rice in plain water, you can heat the milk separately before adding it to the pot to speed up the preparation of the porridge. To avoid caramelization, do not leave the porridge on a hot stove, even after it is turned off.

6. Since 2019, the name protection of Karelian pie has also allowed the use of lactose-free milk in rice porridge.

Next time we will make the Karelian pie dough using only water, rye flour, salt and a rolling pin. See you again.

Figure 6. A sheet of our Karelian pies stuffed with rice porridge going to the oven.