In Finland we celebrate Christmas already on the 24th December, with rice porridge in the morning, early morning/early afternoon SAUNA, then getting pretty and early evening Christmas dinner followed with opening the presents. And most of the time meeting the Santa Claus as well! For dinner we typically have ham, swede casserole, carrot casserole and potato casserole, and assortment of fish together with a salad. As I am celebrating my Christmas this year in England, in my Christmas dinner we had ham, salmon, Brussels sprouts and swede-, carrot- and potato casseroles. My favourite is the swede casserole, oooh so yummy!
Lanttulaatikko – Swede Casserole
- 2 big swedes
- 1 table spoon salt in the water
- 1/2 litre water
Peel the swedes and cut into cubes. Boil until soft in salty water. Smash into purée.
- 1 dl bread crumbs
- 1 onion
- 2 dl cream
- 1/2 dl syrup
- 1/2 tea spoon ground pepper, nutmeg and ginger
Cut onion into small purée, and soften in the pan for about 5 minutes. Add to the swede purée. Mix bread crumbs and cream and let stand for a few minutes so that bread crumbs have swollen. Add everything to swede purée, all the spices as well and mix well. Put into oven dish and bake in 200 degrees for one hour, and in 150 degrees the second hour. Let cool a bit and enjoy! You can also freeze this dish and enjoy later.
Porkkanalaatikko – Carrot Casserole
- 1kg carrots
- 2 dl porridge rice
- 1/2 liter water
- 1 litre milk
- 2 eggs
- 2 tea spoon salt
- 1/2 tea spoon nutmeg
- 2 table spoons syrup
- bread crumbs
First boil the porridge rice in 2 cups of water until the rice has used all the water, then start adding milk little by little, forming porridge. This will take about 40 minutes. Boil the peeled carrots that you have cut into smaller pieces in water, but just so much water that it covers the carrots. Boil until soft and then mash into purée. Add all the spices and syrup and mix with rice porridge. Transfer into oven dish, add some bread crumbs on top and bake in 150 degrees for about 1.5 hour.
Imelletty Perunalaatikko – (Sweet) Potato Casserole
- 2kg potatoes
- 2dl white flour
- some butter
- 0,5-1 litre milk
- 2 table spoon syrup
- 3 teaspoons salt
Boil peeled potatoes cut into cubes in little water (just to cover the potatoes) until soft. Mash into purée. Let cool until hand warm and then add white flour (this so that the flour doesn’t burn) Add some butter, mix and let stand over night in room temperature, covered with a lid. You are doing this so that the mixture would get a bit sweeter taste in the end. Don’t worry that next day when you open the lid it looks a bit grey, it doesn’t matter.
Next day, mix the mixture and add so much milk that the mixture is more liquid than typical porridge, but not too liquid. Add to oven dish, add some butter on top and bake 1/2 hour in 200 degrees, until it starts to boil, then lower the temperature to 150 degrees and bake another two hours.
These casseroles are served with ham. Enjoy!
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