Wherever you are.
In the past 10 years since I moved to Texas from Inari, I’ve mostly adapted to the local culture. But I never felt at home before the Impasse. I missed my community, my family, and our traditions… but the little things were what got me spiraling.
Food was that trigger for me. The food here is good, but I missed the home-cooked meals and unique flavors of home. I’d try to cobble together some amalgamation of ingredients for hours at a time only for it to never taste quite right… and by the end of the night, I would be a heap on the floor crying about how much I missed my Ämä and order a pizza again.
The Impasse changed everything. Suddenly, I wasn’t alone. For the first time since I’d moved here, the others who had been here all along started coming out of hiding. I met people like me and got to know some of the diverse spectrum of Nälkän communities worldwide. I even found a childhood friend from a settlement just north of my home community who had been living less than 30 minutes away this whole time.
We shared bits and pieces from our cultures and created a community all our own. When we started to cook meals together… sit and talk about our days… celebrate each other’s holidays and compare the similarities… Suddenly, I didn't care that our food didn't taste exactly like my Ämä made because… it felt like it was. That was when I finally started to feel at home here.
So, we’ve decided to share some of our homes with you in this recipe blog to try and help those who haven’t found their own communities just yet feel a little less alone.
Hyvää ruokahalua!
- Peruna, Puolukka, and many others.
Vaśńa Cuisine: The Food of Orok's Hunt
The idea for this blog came about when Puolukka and I visited our families in Inari.
She was going home to her family anyway and I decided to tag along to see mine. We got to talking on the flight over… one thing led to another and when we landed in Ivalo we called one of their siblings and asked if they wanted to share a couple of recipes.
What those recipes would be was supposedly a hot topic before we arrived, but by the time the over 2-hour drive from Ivalo to the small settlement on the northern bank of the lake was over, they’d settled on two dishes from Orok’s Hunt.
Orok’s Hunt is celebrated in the coldest part of the year when food is most scarce; sweet foods and meat are traditionally consumed as a symbol of defiance against the barren cold and overcoming the challenges Kalmaa brings. Gifts are given and the story of the fabled hunt the holiday gets its name from is recited. It’s like Christmas, but it’s nothing like Christmas. We’re too early to celebrate, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the meal. I was more than excited to eat it again.
The dishes are Orok's Stew, a sweet and savory reindeer stew named after the holiday itself, and Kierretorttu, a lingonberry jelly cookie made with fresh cheese.
Sharing the meal began several hours before dinner time. A dozen or so family members of varying generations all aided in the preparations. We peeled the potatoes, carrots, and beats, diced onions, plucked the remaining stems off of the lingonberries, and chopped up the tough leg meat of a reindeer for stew meat.
The whole process was that wonderful community bonding activity I missed so much before I found it in America. Discussions ranged from gossip to storytelling and even light-hearted arguments. A lot of it was Puolukka and their family catching up. Some older children attend a public school in Inari Village, staying with an adult brother for 5 days out of the week while school is in session. It was there that one adolescent picked up an enthusiasm for a series of books based on Greek mythology. They had a ton of questions for us about the American author.
By the time the pot was bubbling and we’d started shaping the veripalttu and began work on the Kierretorttu a full debate had sparked around whether the girl should be reading these books, whether the books were promoting reverence for deities, if it mattered at all since it was fiction anyway, and finally, if the Greek pantheon’s tumultuous representation of gods as a whole started as a satire. When the food was finally ready to eat, no one had anything left to say other than how delicious it turned out.
The stew is sweet, savory, comforting, and warm with a tang of sourness; the veripalttu were perfectly chewy to compliment the soft texture of the vegetables and fall-apart tenderness of the meat. The cookies were dense, sweet but not too sweet, with a delightful chew from the cheese that makes it impossible to only eat one. We were all content to enjoy our meal in silence… after Puolukka promised to send a copy of the author’s new book to her little sister when she got back to America, of course.
Recipes
Orok's Stew
Stew:
1 Large Beetroot
1 Cup Fresh Lingonberries(Can be substituted with freeze-dried lingonberries soaked for 3 minutes or fresh or frozen Cranberries)
4 Small Onions
3 Carrots
Water as needed
1 pound Reindeer Stew meat(Can be substituted with an alternative Venison or Lamb)
4 cups of Reindeer Bone Broth(Can be substituted with Beef Broth)
1 Bay leaf
½ teaspoon Ground Cloves
Salt to taste
Veripalttu:
1 medium Potato
¼ Cup of Reindeer Blood(Can be substituted with Cow/Pig’s Blood or One Egg)
3 ½ Cups of Flour and extra as needed.
- Prep: Roughly dice the onions, peel and cube the beetroot, and peel and slice carrots into thin coins. Place beetroot and carrots in a bowl with the berries.
- In a large covered pot over a stove or flame(an electric pressure cooker on "saute" setting is acceptable) add onions and water then stir continuously. As the water cooks out, add more to replace it and prevent burning. When ready, the onions should be translucent and slightly browned but not fully caramelized. Remove from pot and place to the side.
- Add the stew meat to the bottom of the pot, and flip occasionally until browned on all sides or a dark fond forms on the bottom of the pot.
- Add in the bone broth, lingonberries, beetroot, carrots, bay leaf, and cloves to the pot. Return the onions as well.
- Allow the liquid to reach a boil for 5 minutes, then taste the broth and add half the salt you think you’ll need. NOTE: The stew will not taste good at this point. It will be sour, smell strange, and lack sweetness. Focus only on the salt.
- Remove from the open flame and place in an oven for 2 hours or until the stew meat falls apart when pressed. (If using an electric pressure cooker, add the lid and begin cooking on the stew setting for 2 hours. You will not need to check or add water.)
- Once the stew is in the oven, prepare your veripalttu. Boil the potato until fork tender, mash, and allow to cool.
- Wait until the dough is warm but not completely cold, then mix in your blood until homogenous, then slowly add flour and knead.
- After the mixture has a doughy consistency that retains a divet when poked with a finger, start rolling the dough into small roughly even balls and cover them in extra flour to ensure they don't stick. This step will take the most time, this process can be sped up with assistance from loved ones.
- Just before the stew has finished cooking, boil the desired amount of veripalttu in salted water for 7 minutes.
- Remove the bay leaves, add additional salt as needed, and serve in a bowl with the veripalttu. Store leftover veripalttu and stew separately to maintain the dumpling's springy texture and avoid sogginess. Enjoy!
Kierretorttu
Cheese + Filling
1 cup lingonberries(Can be substituted for other berries)
4 cups of milk
A squeeze of lemon (optional)
¾ cup sugar
Cheesecloth
2 teaspoons of starch
1 tablespoon of water
Dough
1 ⅓ cup flour
¼ cup butter
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Split milk into two even portions. Heat half of the milk over the stove and add 1/4th cup of sugar. Once the milk is bubbling and the sugar has dissolved, add half a cup of lingonberries. Wait until milk curdles completely and then remove from heat and strain with cheesecloth and reserve whey.
- Repeat this step, but only add 2 tablespoons of lingonberries this time. If complete curdling does not occur, add a squeeze of lemon. Strain with cheesecloth and reserve whey. You should be left with two separate bowls of cheese, one lighter and one darker.
- Heat 3/4 cup of whey over the stove with the rest of the lingonberries. Mix the water with the starch and pour into the pan. Mix continuously until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat.
- In a bowl, mix the darker cheese with 1/3 cup of flour with a fork until homogenous. Once combined, add an additional 1/3 cup of flour and knead with your fist. If the dough is too soggy, add more flour until it no longer sticks to your fingers. Repeat these steps in a second bowl for the lighter cheese.
- Roll out the darker dough into a 1/8th inch thick layer, and cut out roughly even circles of dough with a cookie cutter or the mouth of a glass. Recombine excess and roll out again until you get 10 cookies or have run out of dough.
- Roll out the lighter colored dough prioritizing length over width. Slice the dough lengthwise into as many strips as there are cookies.
- Pinch the cut edges of the strips to stretch them and then place in a rim around the cookies. Once the two edges meet, scoop a spoonful of the lingonberry whey filling into the center and roll the rest of the of strip of dough into a spiral on top. Repeat for all cookies.
- Bake at 350 for 18 minutes and enjoy! Leftover whey can be consumed as a sweet, warm winter beverage.
Comments
Rating: 𖦹𖦹𖦹𖦹⬤
IronShears
The stew will probably be the most contentious part, the sweetness from the beets and the sour contrast from the berries gives it a unique taste. I enjoy it quite a bit, but you might not. I'd still suggest giving it a try! The blood in the dumplings is a complete non-issue. You can't taste it AT all and if it still stresses you out, you can just use an egg.
The cookies are good. I mean… they're cookies. They have kind of a unique texture but if you've ever had joulutorttu that's basically what this recipe is; just with lingonberries and using the byproduct from the fresh ricotta instead of plum jam. If you want them to be sweeter you can add a dusting of powdered sugar on top.
Give 'em a try!
