Summer of Lapland - Smoked reindeer quiche
23:01
I blogged earlier the recipe for my smoked reindeer pasta.
The other reindeer recipe that I love is smoked reindeer quiche. It’s a
lovely “light” and simple dinner served with a fresh crisp salad. It’s not
really that light with all the cream and cheese, but kind of feels healthy with
the supremely lean reindeer meat and a rye pastry base.
The reindeer and the delicious aromas emanating from the oven as the quiche was baking made
me think of this beautiful poem about Lapland. It was written more than a hundred years ago by a much loved Finnish poet Eino Leino – see, even his name rhymes! Well, ok he made the name up, so I suppose it would. The poem is called Summer of Lapland and on surface it movingly explores the unique nature of Lapland and the
melancholy, sometimes even heavy Finnish mindset and tendency to introspection
and brooding.
But in fact the Lapland of the poem symbolises the whole of Finland under oppression from the tsarist Russia in the turn of the 20th century. During that time Leino was a member of a group of important Finnish nationalist thinkers and cultural figures fighting back the Russian designs for integrating Finland into the Russian empire. This poem is part of the passive resistance and strengthening of the Finnish cultural identity that these great artists all were part of, Sibelius with his works like the Karelia Suite and Finlandia and Gallen-Kallela’s with his Kalevala inspired paintings. A painting by Eetu Isto depicting the two-headed Imperial eagle of Russia trying to snatch the book of laws from the hands of a Finnish maiden became an emblem of Russian oppression in Finland. The painting had to be smuggled into safety to Sweden and further on to Germany, but was eventually returned and now resides in the National Museum in Helsinki.
But in fact the Lapland of the poem symbolises the whole of Finland under oppression from the tsarist Russia in the turn of the 20th century. During that time Leino was a member of a group of important Finnish nationalist thinkers and cultural figures fighting back the Russian designs for integrating Finland into the Russian empire. This poem is part of the passive resistance and strengthening of the Finnish cultural identity that these great artists all were part of, Sibelius with his works like the Karelia Suite and Finlandia and Gallen-Kallela’s with his Kalevala inspired paintings. A painting by Eetu Isto depicting the two-headed Imperial eagle of Russia trying to snatch the book of laws from the hands of a Finnish maiden became an emblem of Russian oppression in Finland. The painting had to be smuggled into safety to Sweden and further on to Germany, but was eventually returned and now resides in the National Museum in Helsinki.
Anyway back to the poem. I didn’t find any official translations of it, so I translated it myself - I am no poet and not even a native english speaker so it's not a masterpiece but hopefully get the message across.
Attack by Eetu Isto - this painting came to symbolise Finnish resistance of Russification |
Smoked reindeer quiche on rye pastry
Rye Pastry base:
120 g butter
2/3 cup of all
purpose flour
½ cup of rye flour
3 tbsp of cold water
Pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter)
Rub the butter, flour and water until it forms a ball of dough. Let
rest in fridge for 10-20 min while you prepare the filling.
Smoked reindeer flling:
100 g smoked reindeer
1 red pepper
1 red onion
1 stalk of celery
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp Scandinavian Forest spice mix (I realize it’s not easy
to find so you can skip this)
1 tbsp fresh parsley
1 tbsp fresh thyme
1 tbsp fresh rosemary
Salt and pepper
Topping:
1/3 cup of milk
1/3 cups of double cream
1/3 cups sour cream (or creme fraiche)
1/3 cups cheese (feta, goat cheese, cheddar, manchego,
whatever you have)
Pinch of salt and pepper
Chop onion and celery, slice pepper and mince garlic. Fry
onion, celery and pepper for a few minutes, add garlic and herbs, and a careful
pinch of salt and pepper. The smoked reindeer is salty so don’t add too much.
Fry until the vegetables have softened a bit still al dente, leave to cool mixing in the
chopped smoked reindeer.
Roll the dough and place in a buttered quiche dish. Blind
bake for 15 minutes in 200 C.
Pour the filling onto the partly baked base. Cover with
cream topping. Bake 30 min in 200 C or until quiche is firm and nicely browned. The rye base takes a bit longer to firm up, which is why it is important to blind bake.
1 comments
I loved this recipe and I made it at home, I was looking for a page where they sold different salt and I found a page where I bought himalayan pink salt online and it was delicious!
ReplyDeleteHighly recommended!
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