Karjalanpaisti

First stop in our food trip is Finland.

For introducing of Finnish kitchen I chose Karjalanpaisti recipe. It has been traditionally oven baked casserole made from veal and pork, what has been baked in low temperature for long time. Long time and low temperature gives to casserole especially flavoursome taste.
In some recipes it is recommended to use also the meat with bones, what gives especially deep flavour to casserole. For flavoring of casserole also onions, carrots, allspice, black pepper, bay leaf and salt are used. Mashed potatoes and pickled (salted) cucumbers are usually served as side dishes to Karjalanpaisti.

In year 2017 for Finland 100 anniversary ELO (ELO is a non-profit foundation established in June 2009 to promote Finnish food culture in Finland and internationally) has organized contest for choosing Finnish National Food. Karjalanpaisti got the second place. First place was given to rye bread, what is also very known in Estonia 
http://www.elo-saatio.fi/suomen-kansallisruoka-on-ruisleipa
People gave altogether 38 500 votes. From this 9783 votes were given to rye bread and 9375 to Karjalanpaisti. 

Idea for my recipe I got from here https://kotiliesi.fi/resepti/perinteinen-karjalanpaisti/
I have made some minor changes to this recipe.

Ingredients:
500 g veal
500 g pork belly 
50 g butter
2 onions
2 carrots
2 tsp salt
20 pcs. allspice
3 bay leaf
0.5 tsp black peppercorns
ca 500 ml water

Cut meat into big pieces ca 3 x 3 cm.
Fry meat pieces with butter in hot pan, so the color is nice and golden brown.Put fried meat into oven pan (what you can cover with lid) or slow cooker (I used  Crock-Pot). 
Peel onions and carrots and add also this to oven pan.
Add salt, black pepper, allspice and bay leafs.
Add water to the pan, where you fried the meat and let the water come to boil, so you will get all the flavors and meat juices from the pan. Add water to meat.
Let the dish cook in oven 4-5 hours in 125 C or in slow cooker in low heat 4-5 hours. 

Ready casserole meat is soft and sauce is flavorsome.
Serve with mashed potatoes and pickled cucumbers.

Bon Appetit!

Next stop is Sweden 😊