The Hirshon Luxury Finnish Cream of Salmon Soup with Herbs and Vegetables – Lohikeitto

My Citizens SUPREME – as you have undoubtedly noticed by now, My posting rhythm has once again become as regular as the tides and as stable as a neurosurgeon’s hand whilst operating on their own firstborn! This pleases ALL of us to no end, as My humors have aligned and My melancholia (while still with Me) has at least become bearable enough to continue posting with aplomb and alacrity in equal measure! For today, journey with Me to one of My true spiritual homelands: the dark and brooding land of Finland, paradoxically home to the world’s “happiest” people – and lohikeitto, the national soup of the Finns!

Salmon chowder (Finnish: lohikeitto, Swedish: laxsoppa) is a common dish in Finland and other Nordic countries. It consists of salmon fillets, boiled potatoes, carrots and leeks. The dish is served hot, and typically seasoned with fresh dill, allspice, salt and black pepper. The soup is made with cream or whole milk, making it a chowder with a creamy flavor and texture. This is a summary of Finland’s bounty from both land and water in a single bowl, but sadly there is very little history to share around this divine bowl of Finnish keitto (soup). I can at least discuss Finnish cuisine with you as background!

Finnish cuisine is notable for generally combining traditional country fare and haute cuisine with contemporary continental-style cooking. Fish and meat (usually pork, beef or reindeer) play a prominent role in traditional Finnish dishes in some parts of the country, while the dishes elsewhere have traditionally included various vegetables and mushrooms. Evacuees from Karelia contributed to foods in other parts of Finland in the aftermath of the Continuation War.

Karelian pasty (karjalanpiirakka) is a traditional Finnish dish made from a thin rye crust with a filling of barley or rice. butter, often mixed with boiled egg (egg butter or munavoi), is spread over the hot pastries before eating. Finnish foods often use wholemeal products (rye, barley, oats) and berries (such as bilberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, and sea buckthorn). Milk and its derivatives like buttermilk are commonly used as food, drink or in various recipes. Various turnips were common in traditional cooking, but were replaced with the potato after its introduction in the 18th century.

The way of life and culture of Finns was mainly based on agriculture already at prehistoric times. However, in the harsh and cold environment, agriculture was neither a very effective nor secure way of life, so getting food from nature has often been an important secondary livelihood. When crops failed, it might have been the only way to survive. Also, while farms mainly produced plants like crops or turnips, and often families had only some farm animals to get milk products and meat, hunting and especially fishing were important ways to get more protein. Large-scale meat production started to emerge only at the beginning of 20th century, after periods of malnutrition in the 19th century caused by failed crops.

In former times, the country’s harsh climate meant that fresh fruit and vegetables were largely unavailable for at least nine months of the year, leading to a heavy reliance on staple tubers (initially turnip, later potato), dark rye bread and fermented dairy products, occasionally enlivened with preserved fish and meat. Traditionally, very few spices other than salt were available, and fresh herbs like dill and chives were limited to the summer months. Many Finnish traditional dishes are prepared by stewing them for a long time in an oven, which produces hearty but bland fare.

Forests and lakes were historically a major source of food, and produce from forests currently accounts for the distinctive traits in Finnish cuisine. The simplicity of traditional Finnish food has been turned into an advantage by shifting the emphasis to freshness. Modern Finnish restaurateurs now blend high-quality Finnish products with continental cooking techniques. This approach helped Helsinki’s Chez Dominique to receive two Michelin stars in 2003. The restaurant closed in 2013.

Internationalization brought imported goods. As pasta, pizza, kebab, and hamburgers were integrated into Finnish menus, they displaced some traditional everyday dishes like kaalilaatikko (cabbage casserole), or herring fillets, which some consider inferior. As of the 20th century, when the majority of Finnish women entered the workforce, many traditional dishes that require long preparation time are reserved for holidays.

Finnish cuisine is very similar to Swedish cuisine. Swedish dishes like Janssons frestelse (janssoninkiusaus), pyttipannu, and gravlax (graavilohi) are common in Finland. The overarching difference is the Finns’ preference for unsweetened foods. For example, while traditional Swedish rye bread includes plenty of syrup and spices, Finnish rye bread is unsweetened, even bitter. Finnish cuisine also bears some resemblance to German and Russian cuisines.

Sausages and buttered bread (like Butterbrot), and kiisseli (kissel) and lihapiirakka (cf. pirozhki) are similar to their respective German and Russian counterparts. Finnish recipes, however, tend to favor fresh ingredients over canned or pickled foods, as fresh vegetables, fish, and meat are available throughout the year. The most popular meats in Finland are pork (33.5 kg/year/person in 2005), beef (18.6 kg), and chicken (13.3 kg). Approximately one third of this is eaten as sausage (makkara), which is mostly made from pork but often mixes in other meats as well. Horse meat, lamb and reindeer make up a small portion of the total meat consumption, but they are widely available.

In addition to domesticated animals, there are long traditions of hunting and fishing in Finland. The hunters focus on deer, moose and bear, but small game such as hare, duck and grouse are popular. Approximately 70,000–80,000 moose are culled yearly, producing significant amounts of meat. Due to very strict food hygiene regulations, moose meat is mainly consumed within households and is rarely obtainable in restaurants.

Arctic wild berries are distinctively featured in Finnish cuisine with their strong flavor and high nutrient content. Traditionally, they were eaten fresh in summer and dried at other times of year. It is still quite common to go picking berries straight from the forests – in fact, wild berries are free to pick in any forest, state or private, except in close proximity to dwellings. Wild raspberries (vadelma), bilberries (mustikka) and lingonberries (puolukka) are found in almost every part of Finland, while cloudberries (lakka), cranberries (karpalo), arctic brambles (mesimarja) and sea buckthorns (tyrni) grow in more limited areas.

The intensely flavored wild strawberry (metsämansikka) is a seasonal delicacy decorating cakes, served alone, with cream, or with ice cream. Farmed strawberry (mansikka) is also very common. Today, berries are no longer dried for winter consumption but usually frozen. They may be used as ingredients, or eaten on their own, for example, with porridge and sugar. Kiisseli (a sweet soup of berry juice and berries thickened with potato starch) is a common dessert.

Homemade berry juices and jams are common, especially among older people. While berries are most often used for desserts, they are also served with meat, especially the sour lingonberry relish. Bilberry kissel|kiisseli (mustikkakiisseli) and pie (mustikkapiirakka), made from wild bilberries are traditional Finnish desserts. Bilberries are frequently used in Finnish cuisine, both as an ingredient, such as bilberry pie, and also served with cream or ice cream. They are often used on top of viili and other yogurt-type dishes.

Lakes and rivers in Finland and the Baltic Sea provide many opportunities for fishing and fish has always been an important protein source. Numerous methods of preparing fish are used, including frying, boiling, drying, salting, fermenting, cold smoking or simply slicing sea fish and eating it raw. Salmon is a popular choice, both as kylmäsavustettu lohi: cold smoked salmon, lox, or served raw with lemon juice as graavilohi (gravlax in Swedish). The soup called lohikeitto is also one of the most popular salmon dishes in Finland (as I previously noted!).

It is common to smoke any type of fish, like salmon, zander, pike, perch and Baltic herring. A popular dish among the Swedish-speaking population is smoked herring (Finnish: savusilakka, Swedish: böckling). There are many styles of pickled herring which is a common appetizer and also served around Midsummer accompanied by small potatoes called uusiperuna (nypotatis in Swedish) which means ‘new potato’, usually the first harvests of potato. Whitefish and vendace roe are Finnish delicacies served on top of a toast or with blinis. crayfish can be found in many lakes and streams in Finland and, in August especially, the Swedish-speaking population often arranges parties centered around eating crayfish and drinking.

Various species of mushrooms grow in abundance in Finnish forests and false morels start the season in spring and are used in creamy dishes. Chanterelles and ceps pop up after Midsummer and are popular in the whole country, while in eastern Finland almost all edible fungi are consumed, including milkcaps and russulas. Most of the mushroom recipes originate from Russia, since Finns used mushrooms in coloring fabrics rather than as food. Mushrooms are used in soups, sauces, stews, pie fillings, or simply fried in a pan with onions as a side dish.

They are preserved for the winter by pickling or drying. Chanterelles are frequently featured in Finnish haute cuisine with their relatives winter chanterelles which often end the season. Just like berry picking, mushroom hunting is also a popular outdoor activity among Finns.

Dark and fiber-rich ruisleipä, rye bread, is a staple of the Finnish diet. Breads are made from grains like barley, oat, rye and wheat, or by mixing different grits and flours. For example, sihtileipä is made of a combination of rye and wheat. There is also a variety of flat breads called rieska, like maitorieska (milk flatbread), ryynirieska with barley grits from Savonia, läskirieska (lard flatbread) a somewhat flat barley bread with pieces of lard from Western coast, and perunarieska (potato flatbread).

In Kainuu, North Finland, the flatbreads are very flat and baked on naked flame. Näkkileipä, crisp rye bread, is also common. Famines caused by crop failures in the 19th century caused Finns to improvise pettuleipä or bark bread, bread made from rye flour and the soft phloem layer of pine bark, which was nutritious, but rock-hard and anything but tasty. It was eaten also during the Second World War, and the tradition of making this bread has had a minor come-back with claims of health benefits. Northern Finns also have the claim to inventing lohikeitto – probably the native Sámi people, in fact!

Northern Finns (particularly from the Northern city of Oulu) have an unusual delicacy they also enjoy in their cuisine – specifically, pine tar (terva in Finnish)! It pops up in candies known as terva salmiakki – black licorice flavored with ammonium chloride and pine tar that usually sends most non-Finns (and even a few Southern Finns) running SCREAMING in the opposite direction. It is…challenging…this NY Times story discusses the Finnish obsession with salmiakki – the Food Dictatrix (My beloved wife) adores the stuff, I on the other hand…

I do, however use pine tar syrup in a few of My own secret recipes!

Fear not, My beloved Citizens – terva has no place in today’s recipe! 😉

What DOES however, is the true essence of Finland, condensed into a single bowl of comforting soup guaranteed to satisfy your inner Finn within – and assuredly one of the most delicious fish soups it will be your privilege to enjoy! I have “fancied” the classic lohikeitto up just a bit, but only JUST – this is a 100% authentic recipe elevated to a truly new level but in the end, it is still a humble soup created hundreds of years ago to save starving people in the far North of the country!

First off – the salmon. Please, for the love of all that is good, true and holy – PLEASE don’t use farmed salmon in lohikeitto, unless you absolutely have to! Farmed salmon is good, but wild is where the real flavor of the fish is to be found – here on the West Coast, a good wild Chinook (aka King) salmon is my go-to choice. If you live on the East Coast or in Europe, you’re in luck as the Atlantic salmon is the best choice for this recipe – if you can find it wild. Top-quality Norwegian farmed Atlantic salmon can substitute, if you must.

I call for making a homemade fish stock (based on a simple French recipe) and for this, surprisingly, I am NOT calling for you to use salmon heads or bones. I instead recommend using a mild white fish head or two instead – I personally like snapper or sea bass. The stock should be subtle to showcase the top-quality salmon you should be using – and to My elevated palate, salmon stock is just too strong for this recipe and trust Me, you’ll be adding plenty of salmon into this before you eat it!

Now we come to My suggested tweaks to elevate lohikeitto from the mundane all the way to the highest Empyrean firmament – these tweaks are NOT standard, but do serve to raise the dish into one worthy of Almighty G-d HIMSELF! First – a bit of SMOKED Atlantic salmon from the finest purveyor of cold-smoke-kissed piscene flesh that I know – the mighty Russ and Daughters of NYC! Using some smoked Atlantic salmon (cut thick from the loin) truly raises the soup to a whole other level, IMHO – you can buy it from here.

In testimony to the Sámi-presumed origin of the soup, I have elected to add in a powerful hit of Angelica, one of the very few herbs/spices used by the Sámi in their cuisine – it has a faint taste of licorice and frankly I’m shocked the Finns never thought to add this into the soup in the first place – like tarragon or chervil, that faint anise flavor really complements both the fish and the cream! Persians use a great deal of angelica in their cuisine, and you can easily buy powdered organic angelica from this vendor on Amazon here.

To further reinforce that angelica flavor, as well as adding a strong hint of herbs and spices from the Finnish countryside, I have chosen to add a hit of Finnish gin to the soup as well. Kyrö just might be my all-time favorite gin in the world, but it is VERY difficult to find in the States – and their advertising is simply BRILLIANT, fully suffused with that dark Finnish humor that I adore and Swedes wish they possessed (Finns and Swedes…well, let’s just say there’s no love lost between the two). 🙂

Kyrö Distillery: The Whole Story

My last tweak for the lohikeitto is a garnish to float on the soup in each bowl – in Finland, I would use their circular, ring-shaped rye bread that is hard enough to cut diamonds, covered with a thin layer of cream cheese and a goodly helping of ikura (Salmon roe) with some chives discreetly sprinkled on top. I recommend this excellent salmon roe from Russ & Daughters. In the United States, I would recommend instead a small piece of Finn Crisp – which you can buy from here.

Citizens, lohikeitto is not a difficult recipe at all to make – you can prepare the fish stock far in advance and freeze it until you need it. After that, the whole recipe for lohikeitto comes together very quickly and you and yours will assuredly find “favor with the flavor” (to quote Iron Chef Japan!) on your own table!

Battle on – the Generalissimo

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