Meal 65: Germany

What a convergence -- my 30th birthday, the one-third point for United Noshes, a gorgeous day, an apartment with a backyard...and a cuisine and culture renowned for good cheer around food. While German food rarely makes the rounds of haute cuisine, for those who enjoy meat and beer it's a wonderful, homey way to get a lot of calories. New York City used to have a distinct German immigrant population. Much like Chinatown today, Kleindeutschland in the Lower East Side and other enclaves around town featured whole communities where you'd see more German than English on the walls. Yet today the presence is a lot more subdued, and is hanging on best in the portion of the Upper East Side once known as Germantown. There are many reasons explaining the decline of the German identity, from the General Slocum disaster in which over 1,000 people capsized near shore, to xenophobia during the two World Wars.

About thirty friends and members of the Noshing community passed through in the nine (!) hours the temporary backyard biergarten was open, including three visitors from California! Thanks to all who came for bringing so much beer and wine, too -- it was quite festive!

Aufschnitt | Cold cuts

German food is chock-a-block with preserved meats. To get the party started, I set out a few different kinds. Pictured above is liverwurst; sometimes it's more of a spread but this is the Braunschweiger variety, originating from near Hanover, which is firm enough to slice, and goes great with some onion on a bit of pumpernickel bread. We also had two air-dried ones: Landjäger, from the south, which is like a thin square salami, and smoked bratwurst. To round it out, we enjoyed the rich and appropriately named Butterkäse -- käse means cheese and I'll let you figure out the other part.

Brezeln | Pretzels | Recipe

I've always loved the distinctive flavor of pretzels, that oddly salty nuttiness, most enjoyable a crisp crust and a soft inside. The process was really enjoyable: a quick rise, a supple dough to roll and twist, a quick boil in a baking soda bath to lend the distinctive flavor, and a moderate bake. (In fact, the one modification I'd make to the recipe is to cook at more like 400 or 425, rather than 450, to get it to really bake through -- the crust will darken plenty even at a lower temp thanks to the baking soda.) Since I didn't want to spend my birthday party leashed to the stove, I figured out (with help from my buddy PJ at King Arthur Flour) how to prep and freeze them ahead of time while serving them nice and hot, right in time. I made them the whole way through but pulled them just as the crust was starting to brown, froze them on sheets until mostly hard, and put them in plastic bags and back into the freezer. A few days later, I thawed them for about an hour at room temperature, and put them on a 350 oven for maybe 15 minutes until the house smelled great. Done! I think they turned out even better this way than the original recipe, because the second bake really cooks them through and also lends a pretty thick and crispy crust. However you judge it, I made 65 pretzels and they all disappeared!

If you end up making these pretzels -- and you should! -- make sure you get some good mustards to go with it. We had a straightforward, medium-sharpness yellow mustard, a spicier one, and my favorite, a sweet rich Bavarian. Each brings out a different aspect of the pretzel, and taking your time to decide which mustard is your favorite is a great excuse to eat more pretzel.

Rheinlander Sauerbraten | Sweet and sour pot roast | Recipe

Don't worry, even if the photo were in focus, this dish wouldn't look like much. But whatever soaking three days in a spiced vinegar sauce followed by several hours of stovetop stewing and a dusting of raisins does to make a hunk of beef look unattractive, it sure makes it flavorful. This dish has been enjoyed in Germany for a very long time -- both Julius Caesar and Charlemagne have been credited with its invention -- and the meaty sourness, balanced a bit by the sweetness of gingersnaps and raisins, is still a winner.

Würste | Sausages

While I try to make as much as possible from scratch, I draw the line at sausages. It was surprisingly difficult to find a good variety of German sausages around New York -- Fairway, normally a reliable source of European foods, really came up short. So I headed up to Yorkville on the Upper East Side, an area once well-known as Germantown, to Schaller and Weber. It was tough to choose from their wide variety, but I ended up with delicate Weisswurst, richly spiced and smoked Bauernwurst, and then the famous Bratwurst, which I bought raw, and simmered in beer before grilling. As all the sausages were fully cooked ahead of time, grilling was just for temperature and texture, so I did it with the cover up.

Rotkohl | Stewed red cabbage with apples | Recipe

The classic German stewed cabbage is tender, with a good balance of sweet and sour. While this fulfilled all those elements, it was kind of lacking in depth. The dish was pleasant enough, but didn't really beg to be scarfed down like some versions of these dishes I've found. Not sure what the problem is -- maybe shredding with the Cuisinart made the cabbage too fine, or something?

Berliner Kartoffelsalat | Vinaigrette potato salad | Recipe

Most German potato salads don't have mayonnaise, and I like them for that. This recipe, which makes an unsubstantiated claim of being from Berlin and therefore helped me round out the geography, is pretty clever, using juice from the pickles as the sour base for the vinaigrette. I'd say it was all right, but it probably could have used more vinegar to really make the flavors sing. I also probably overcooked the potatoes a bit, which might have made things mushier than ideal.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte | Black Forest cake | Recipe

I didn't feel like I should be making my own birthday cake, so Laura agreed to do it. She even knew what she'd make, a German chocolate cake. Imagine Laura's surprise when she discovered that such a cake is actually American in origin, invented by a certain Sam German working at a chocolate company! Thank goodness our friend Lisa came to the rescue with this cake, which is so German that it was one of two national submissions to a Europe-wide cake fest. Four layers of deep chocolate, generously separated with buttercream studded with cherries, and then evenly sprinkled with shaved chocolate...wow. I might have a German-themed birthday party every year just so I have an excuse to get this cake!

We're about to start into a 16-state, 4500+-mile road trip, and our first stop is to the Jersey Shore where we'll do the Greece meal!

Meal 64: Georgia

“In the center of Tbilisi, the capital, there is a statue of a woman with a sword in one hand, and wine in the other. It shows how, if you come in war, the Georgians are so fierce the women as well as the men will fight you. But if you come in peace, you’re invited to feast.” Throughout the evening, on our friend Mark’s rooftop in Williamsburg, was punctuated by two periodic events: the rumbling of the elevated J train a few feet away, and stories from Mark, our tamada -- toastmaster -- as well as host.

Time spent in Georgia qualified Mark to guide our meal; having attended a supra, a feast, with President Saakashvili lent him all the more authority to regale us with tales of strength, folly, and complexity, usually leading to a moral and always finished with a toast. These stories of a distant and ancient land, washed down with abundant wine, enriched the meal nearly as much as the walnuts, herbs, and spices.

Even if you don’t have a tamada from Tbilisi to guide your meal, do yourself a favor and get to know Georgian food. Despite its history as a former Soviet republic -- and homeland of Joseph Stalin! -- it has nothing to do with sour creamand pickled fish! Its cuisine is much closer to Persian and Central Asian, overflowing with vegetables, nuts, fresh flavors, and a wide variety of meats. The cuisine is most authentically enjoyed in abundance: Mark’s a generally easygoing guy, so I took it quite seriously when he warned me that if the table were anything short of crammed full of food, it’d be a failure.

Enormous thanks to Justin and Kathryn, who braved a hot and small kitchen to make this absurdly ambitious feast get started before sunset!

Note that we put all the food out on the table at once, so rather than a list of courses, I’ve ordered these roughly in the order in which I prepared them.

Tarkhun | Tarragon drink | Recipe

Georgian cuisine is huge on spices and especially herbs. Whether dried or fresh, just about every recipe is enhanced with flavors from either the backyard or the trade caravan. In fact, Georgians are so crazy about their herb flavors that they even drink them, as evidenced by this drink made of tarragon. It’s quite an experience to drink in the essence of an herb, and we picked up a milky aspect along with the particular clear intensity that makes tarragon so lovely. (Note, also, that this is the first Nosh in which I used food coloring! Had to make it authentic, right?)

Pkhali | Spinach-walnut paste | Recipe

 

It’s a shame I couldn’t find pomegranate in the supermarket, because these nuggets would have looked even lovelier with the particular topping. Anyway, if I had to choose a dish that captured the essence of Georgian cuisine, I’d probably go with pkhali. It has the ubiquitous walnuts, leans heavily on fresh vegetables, and incorporates a whole lot of herbs and spices. It’s also a devil of a name to pronounce! I found pkhali pretty intense, though when I reread the recipe I saw that it’s intended to be spread on bread rather than eaten straight, which makes a whole lot of sense.

Khachapuri | Cheese bread | Recipe

If pkhali is the most representative of Georgian cuisine, khachapuri is arguably the best-known and definitely was the crowd favorite. It’s essentially pizza without the tomato sauce: a bready boat-shaped dough with a filling of sulguni cheese (kinda like mozzarella but marinated in brine), butter, and egg. There are several versions of khachapuri, this one, known as Adjarian, is supposed to have a barely-cooked egg sitting on top so you can dip the edges into the yolk, but time and logistical difficulties made that impossible. The crowd didn’t seem to mind, in fact I didn’t make nearly enough to satisfy demand! You can probably find sulguni at a Russian or Eastern European market, otherwise you could probably use mozzarella or a stringy Mexican cheese like oaxaca. You just might want to salt the filling a bit more to compensate for the lack of brine.

Shotispuri | Baton bread | Recipe

I figured it’d be nice to have some bread to go with all we were having, and this baton-shaped bread was nice enough, I guess, but not worth the effort. My advice would be to just focus on the khachapuri, it’d be nearly impossible to make too much of it.

Badrijani Nigvzit | Fried eggplant rolls with garlic-walnut filling | Recipe

Wow, these were tasty. Garlic and walnuts are an unexpected but great combination, sharp and brash versus meaty and deep. Put that inside strips of eggplant fried dark brown. Who doesn’t like intense flavors wrapped fried things? A real winner, this would make for a great potluck dish. You could replace the fried eggplant strips with marinated peppers or even strips of cucumber if you wanted to avoid the calories and hassle of the eggplant.

 Satsivi | Roast chicken with walnut sauce | Recipe

There’s two genius things going on with this recipe. First off, this is the best advice for roasting a chicken I’ve ever read. Trussing is actually pretty easy -- no needle needed, just about three feet of twine to tighten up the bird. The genius, though, is roasting on high heat for ten minutes on each side, like, thigh to the bottom of the pan, then returning to legs-up for the last 40 minutes at regular heat. The result was a perfectly cooked bird. Oh, and the butter basting helped.

I’d have been happy just to tuck into that well-roasted chicken, but the sauce made it sublime. It’s essentially pounded walnuts (walnuts! again!) with onion, a little flour to thicken, and chicken stock, reduced until you can just about slather it over the chicken. I’m pretty sure I’ll make this rich and oh-so-tasty dish again. Bonus: it’s just as good cold as it is hot.

Chakhokhbili | Braised chicken and tomato | Recipe

While the summer doesn’t afford pomegranates, it sure offers tomatoes, and this is a great alternative if you’re looking for something to do with the abundance in your garden or farmer’s market and don’t want to make pasta sauce. This recipe is so easy you can practically tweet it: brown the chicken legs, add an onion, add a lot of tomatoes, braise until meat’s falling off the bones, throw in herbs, serve. The braising makes this take longer you want for an easy after-work supper, but it’s not a lot of work, so if you have the time, treat yourself! (Thanks to Kathryn for chopping all those tomatoes!)

Lobio | Kidney bean salad | Recipe

It says something about Brooklyn that I couldn’t find a simple bag of dry kidney beans in the two food shops closest to my house, but both of them had several types of quinoa. When I made it over to Mark’s, his roommate Justin volunteered to go to the supermarket down the block to get some, and he was so happy to find it he bought two bags. So we made a lot of this salad. It was pretty good, but not particularly awesome; perhaps in the rush to finish up the meal we accidentally missed a spice or put in too little onion.

Khinkali | Georgian “soup” dumplings | Recipe

I think I’m getting better at my kitchen pacing, after so many meals, but I waited too long to get start started on this dish, the quintessential Georgian accompaniment to beer. (Or is it that beer is the quintessential accompaniment to khinkali?). I don’t like making things with rolled-out dough, and  I didn’t have a scale on me and the recipe was all based on weight so I had to completely wing the proportions, and ended up making too little dough. Then when it came to making what are supposed to be cute little meat-filled parcels, they looked pretty ugly, too small -- and then when boiled, many of them broke instead of keeping the juiciness from the cooked meat within. So the dumplings came out late, were misshapen, and there were too few. Oh well, it was worth a try, but I gotta get better at my dumpling-making because so many cultures do this sort of thing. Any tips?

Shashlik | Barbecue | Recipes: marinade, savory sauce, hot sauce

This was the other major screw-up -- I misread the recipe when making my shopping list and got ground lamb instead of chunks! I made the most of the situation by forming the ground lamb into balls, and marinating it in the copious quantity of onions as specified. (Thank goodness for the food processor, shredding 2.5 pounds of onions by hand would have been brutal.) I asked Kathryn to put them on the kabob skewers, but that quickly proved to be impossible, so we instead threw them on the grill directly -- and, despite being completely the wrong format, they were delicious. Several sauces accompanied: an herb-and-tomato sauce, a hot sauce (I used those fat red peppers rather than jalapenos as specified), and a bottled sour plum sauce.

Ghvinisa da tsqlis | Wine and water

Along with the tarragon drink, we washed the food down with Borjomi, a fairly salty mineral water with reputed health benefits, and of course plenty of wine. Georgia’s been making wine for millennia, but apparently the quality took a big hit in the Stalin years. Uncle Joe, as they call him, was actually a big promoter of Georgia’s wine, but his preference was for sweet wine, so they made sweet wine. It’s only in recent years that drier, more complex wines have come to market -- and, in fact, some of them are quite good, definitely fruity and with a moderate terroir. Don’t be surprised if you see a Georgian wine or two at your local wine shop one of these days, because we found one at ours! While our preference was for red, you just might see a special wine called Pheasant's Tears, which is called "amber," distinctively yellower than white wine.

Laura keeps a list of countries that weren’t really on her radar but that she’s now interested to visit after eating the food -- Cape Verde, Comoros...and now Georgia! Coming up is a swing of the pendulum, a cuisine that's familiar yet rather ignored in the culinary canon: Germany.

Meal 63: Gambia

The Gambia, a former British West African colony, is a little sliver of a country, hugging a river of the same name and surrounded by the formerly French Senegal. I find it appropriate that we held this Nosh in Portland, Oregon, a riverine city -- and, thankfully, one that has a few African markets!

While Gambia is squarely in West Africa, the food struck me as borrowing major parts from both Central and North Africa. The stew, with peanut butter and palm oil, is similar to many things we've made from the center of the continent, while the rice and couscous dishes remind me quite a bit of North African and even central Asian cooking.

Huge thanks to my aunt Marcia for hosting us, and a bunch of our friends, at her lovely house with a third of an acre for a back yard which doubles as an Urban Farm Collective site. Joining us were Molly, Jens, Eric, Sarah, Alley, Andrew, Viola, Laura, Drew, Suj, Craig, Laura (yes, there were a total of three Lauras there!), Luca, and Marc.

Pepe soup | Spicy chicken and tomato soup | Recipe

They say a hot, spicy soup on a warm day cools you down. I'm not sure I entirely buy it: I was warm inside, and sweating a bit, but didn't feel much cooler, in the mid-80s heat. Anyway, this is a pretty simple but tasty soup, made of simmering panfried chicken with bouillon and chilies to make a tasty broth, then enriching with tomato paste. The soup was a bit thin, with not a ton of chicken per bowl, but that might be authentic. Also we couldn't find anything resembling the hot African peppers called for; I would have preferred scotch bonnets but the closest we found was serranos. All in all, pretty tasty, I'd use this as a basis for something else in the future. (Maybe throw rice in there to enrich it?)

Benachin | Fish and rice with vegetables | Recipe

Benachin means "one pot," which is all you should need to cook this dish. The recipe I followed, for a fish version, wasn't the most specific -- it calls for "six white fish" without specifying what type or how big -- so I estimated with about three pounds of ling cod for a double recipe. (The "bongo fish," on the other hand, is clearly a dry-smoked fish with the tail stuffed in its mouth!) We improvised a bit across recipes, throwing in butternut squash and eggplant, and leaving out bitter tomato which we had no chance of coming across. I did my best job of following the technique of steaming the rice above the stew before throwing in, but honestly I don't think it was worth the hassle, next time I'd just throw the rice right in the stew after rinsing. All in all, this was a pretty tasty dish, although I think I made way too much for the crowd!

Plasas | Spinach stew with peanut butter and beef | Recipe

Aunt Marcia had mentioned before I came to town that there was amazing local spinach to be had, so I was happy to find this recipe using spinach. Unfortunately, with their spell of heat the spinach was gone from the farmers markets, but the supermarket still had fine stuff, which we used in place of frozen. Mixed in with that classic  technique of simmering beef into a gravy rich with palm oil and a bit of peanut sauce, this was in my mind one of the better of the African stews I've made.

Chakery | Pineapple-dairy sauce over couscous | Recipe

Between the main course and dessert, we went out back and picked marionberries and raspberries from the garden, so naturally they, very incongruously, made their way onto a few plates. I was surprised to see a recipe with so much fresh dairy product from an African country, but then I saw it a few more times and was convinced of its authenticity. There's no added sugar, but between the pineapple (we used fresh instead of canned), evaporated milk, and vanilla yogurt, plus the richness of cooking the couscous in coconut milk and the sour cream in the sauce, this was quite a heady dessert. And yes, the berries went quite well.

We came back to New York the next day, and did a Georgian feast soon after that. The writeup is coming soon!

Meal 62: Gabon

New letter, new season, new home! After a week of unpacking our new place in Fort Greene - let's be honest, a lot of the work was setting up the kitchen! - we hopped right back into Noshing, which happened to be the first weekend of summer. We kicked off the G's with a meal from the west-central Francophone African country of Gabon, with the sultry weather giving us as good a taste of the tropics as we could have wanted.

The new kitchen is, on the whole, an improvement over the other. More storage and surface space, a fridge and stove that seem to lack any quirks, and it's directly adjacent to the back yard so there's natural light and fewer steps to the grill. The only bummer is that the stove is a mere 20 inches wide, making it impossible to have two pots side by side without propping one up on the edge. I'll manage

As far as the meal, regular readers and Noshers know that I try hard to pick out what's distinctive about a country's cuisine, which can be tough in Africa. The good news is I found a few, two of which use ground kernels. The not so good news is that the flavors were quite strange. At least the dessert was killer!

Joining us at this meal were Lisa, Anna, Kayla and Zoe (our hosts for the Comoros meal last year!), Alex and Catherine. Patrick and another Lisa showed up later.

Gâteau de ngondo | Melon seed dumpling | Recipe

The seeds of a particular type of melon are prized in area of the Gulf of Guinea, of which Gabon forms the southernmost shore. Rich in fat and protein, they're shelled and then ground, and usually added to stews as a thickener. But in the case of Gabon, I saw more than a few recipes for a sort of bread made of this flour, moistened and flavored by a court bouillon of onion, hot peppers, and smoked fish. Wrap in banana leaves (or in my case, foil), steam for an hour, and bake (or in my case, throw on the grill), slice, nibble, don't finish, throw out. The flavor was really offputtingly strong, a dense moist dumpling texture overpacked with aroma and flavor that just wasn't very appealing. Hope the other preparations of this seed flour turn out better!

Boeuf aux mangues sauvages | Beef stew with wild mango kernel | Recipe

I've heard wild mango kernel described as "Gabonese chocolate," so that would make this thick stew a "Gabonese mole." The wild mango is unrelated to but has fruit that tastes similar to the true mango, but the Africans take it a step further by scooping out the inside of the kernel. When mixed with red-palm-oil-simmered stew beef, the dish was richly but unsubtly flavored; it wasn't my jam but others at the table liked the creamy, rich, deep flavor.

Dongo-dongo | Okra stew with smoked fish | Recipe

The name of the famous Creole dish gumbo comes from the name that many African languages give to okra. This fun-to-say dish, which features gently simmered okra with smoked fish and seasonings, is considered a progenitor of the Louisiana classic. Despite okra's reputation for making sauces so goopy that many Peace Corps volunteers call food made from it "snot sauce," this preparation was really quite delicate and pleasant. The smoked fish, which appeared to be catfish, came with its tail rammed into its mouth in a sort of mockery of a Zen circle, and affixed with a thoroughly blackened skewer. It was an endeavor to remove the bones, but the effort was worthwhile as the whole stew was infused with a delicious flavor and studded with occasional nuggets of tasty, salty protein.

The meal was rounded out by starches: true yams (the drier, heavier, and not at all related analog to sweet potatoes which somehow are sometimes called yams anyway) and rice.

Bananes au four croustillantes | Crispy baked bananas | Recipe

Let's be honest, the dishes ranged from ok to downright weird, but there was no question that the dessert was a star. In my experience, Africa isn't big on dessert, at most you'd find cut fruit or a fried beignet (remember the nuns' farts from Chad?), so I jumped on the opportunity to make something that actually involved more than three ingredients -- turns out that the Gabonese retained a bit more of the French culinary influence than some other former colonies. The bananas are dipped in OJ and egg, dredged in breadcrumbs, lightly fried, and then baked until brown. (The recipe says to sprinkle with brown sugar afterward; I used turbinado sugar before so it would brown further.) With a dollop of sour cream (well, I used crème fraîche, figuring that's what the French would have introduced), it was just as good as you'd think.

It was a lovely evening in the new back yard, a long, slow summer sunset eventually giving way to some sprinkles of rain. We're on our way west now, look out for dispatches from meals in Washington and Oregon!

Meal 61: Finland

Note: this post is a few weeks delayed, because in the meantime we've moved! Thanks for your patience, and for keeping the faith. We promised we'd continue Noshing! Midsummer is a big deal in Nordic countries. The nearly endless sun that the Solstice brings not only cheers the soul and makes the air warmer, but it also brings forth a variety of fresh foods that provide welcome respite from the over-wintered larder. So for this Finnish meal, despite being technically about three weeks early, I seized the opportunity to make a menu with several Midsummer-y elements, along with a few distinctive dishes that you'd find year-round.

You may remember Lars, the half-Dane, from our Denmark meal; well, turns out he's also half-Finn, and brought his sister Anneli too. Plus, our guest Sofia's also of Finnish heritage; while none of these three have lived there, they've all spent many summers in the Finnish woods. Thanks to all the Finns for their help in planning and explaining! And thanks, too, to our other guests, Betsy, Dada, Laura, Carolyn, Rachel, Marcy, and Nathan!

Karjalanpiirakka | Karelian pasties | Recipe

While most of the region of Karelia is now part of Russia, these very practical pies have spread across all of Finland. The crust is a simple and quite dry dough of rye flour, which is good because with any more water in the dough it would be too sticky to roll out. (I used a little chapati-roller I bought from an antique store in Mumbai; I think the little horizontal ridges reduced sticking.) While you can fill these rye-dough ovals with all sorts of things, including leftover carrots as the linked recipe suggests, the most common is an unsweetened rice pudding, though apparently this was a relatively recent 19th-century invention. Whatever your filling, once it's plopped in, just pull up the sides, pinch 'em together, bake for a little bit on super-high heat, and you've got a snack!

Ruisleipä | Sourdough rye bread | Recipe

Compared to the five-day rye of Estonia, this loaf was a cinch. While it didn't have quite the same depth, and definitely is rather (and apparently ought to be) drier, it still had great tang and a solid crumb. Definitely one to slather with butter!

Kesäkeitto | Summer vegetable soup | Recipe

"This dish is like meatloaf," Lars said, "in that every mother makes it in her own special way." That's the only resemblance to this very light and delicate soup, made to highlight the fresh flavors and delicate textures of new vegetables. I took it one step further by making a vegetable broth from scratch -- I used onion, carrot tops, some dill stems, and peppercorns, plus one cube of porcini mushroom bouillon for depth and, of course, salt. After straining the broth, I just plopped in the veggies in small pieces, simmered until just before al dente, and threw in a splash of milk because that's what Lars and Anneli's mom always did. This soup is far from filling, but it was really lovely and a neat way to get back to veggie basics.

Poronkäristys | Sauteed reindeer | Recipe

Game is quite popular, and abundant, in Finland. This is the best-known dish from Lapland, in the far north. While we couldn't find one of Rudolph's cousins, and the local butcher's exotic meat collection was temporarily out of the very similar caribou, we did end up with the still-quite-related venison. Such bold meat doesn't need a whole lot of spices to support it -- as you see, it's just wild mushrooms, beer, and butter, plus several hours of super slow stewing, long enough to break the slices of deer down into mere strands. The result is a really rich, straightforward, and truly meaty stew. With the great (and super fatty) broth it produces, I can see why the serving suggestion is for mashed potatoes, but given the season we had to stick with whole little ones. (See below for why!)

Sillisalaatti | Herring salad | Recipe

When the guy at the appetizing store asked if I wanted him to put cream sauce on the pickled herring I'd just bought, I almost shrieked "no!" Because I had my own plans to slather this preserved fish with dairy, in this case a sour cream sauce with accents like mustard and sugar. With layers of chopped dill and chive, it was pretty attractive and tasty, but I do think the recipe was quite parsimonious with the fish. I imagine this recipe was invented to make the fish stretch farther, but if you've got the budget, get more fish and treat yourself!

Varhaisperunat | New potatoes | Recipe

Scandinavians take their potatoes really seriously, especially for Midsummer. All the people I talked to (OK, it was like three people) about what I should make rattled off some thoughts of you-could-do-this or my-family-did-that, but it was made clear that it wouldn't be Midsummer without herring (see above) and even more importantly, new potatoes to accompany. These spuds are picked prematurely, with skins so thin and delicate that they slip off when subjected to moderate friction, and a delicate and sweet flavor. So they say.

Unfortunately, there was nary a new potato to be found in Brooklyn. The folks at the farmer's market said they were a few weeks out, and the closest I could find at Fairway was "creamer potatoes," which were the right size but had to be laboriously peeled. I don't quite know how exactly what we were missing (I'll pay a lot more attention to new potatoes from now on!), but what we made turned out quite nice, after a gentle boiling and a very generous dousing in plucked dill -- rather than indiscriminate chopping, Lars recommended keeping the leafy bits more or less intact and just removing the stems by hand.

Viili | Cultured milk

Viili is a fermented milk product, which is very similar to yogurt except that it's both easier and fussier. Easier, in that to make it the only special thing you need is viili -- to get started, Finns would go to a friend or the supermarket; I was lucky enough to have a coworker give me some, though you can also buy it on Etsy. Once you've got it, put a dollop in little serving-size dishes, add milk that you've heated and cooled (non-homogenized is preferable but not necessary), give it a stir, and let it sit on the counter for the better part of a day. Presto-changeo, viili + milk + time = more viili! It's important to make it in the little dishes, because the texture is very sensitive. You can't scoop it or it gets weird and ropy, the most you can do is sprinkle on some sugar or berries or other flavor before chowing down. And remember, if you want to make more viili, don't eat the last bite!

Pulla | Cardamom bread | Recipe

In the rich European tradition of sweet, buttery yeasted breads, the Finnish version is probably the richest I've ever made -- a whole stick of butter in this recipe! In fact, the dough was so slippery that I wonder if I mismeasured the flour. Anyway, what makes this one a treat is the freshly crushed insides of cardamom pods. (Scandinavians still use white cardamom, which is apparently just what happens to green cardamom on a long sea voyage!) It's a perfect foil for coffee, which apparently the Finns drink copiously, though in our case we closed out the evening with one last Finnish treat: fresh, tiny, incredibly sweet strawberries! That, and Minttu, the Finnish equivalent of peppermint schnapps, but much cleaner and stronger and less sweet.

And that's it for the F's! Gabon is coming next, from our new apartment.