Salmon soup from Finland
500 grams of salmon
5-6 potatoes
2 carrots
2 onions
1 piece of leek
8 dl fish broth
2 dl of cream (or whole milk)
Bay leaves 2-3
chopped fresh dill
About 10 balls of black pepper
salt
First peel and chop vegetables. Then remove the skin from the fish and cut the salmon into small cubes.
Boil the fish broth and add seasoned vegetables in the following order: carrots, leeks and onions, which are left cooking 4-5 minutes, and then adding the potatoes. Let it boil during 10-15 minutes until the vegetables are almost cooked. Now add the diced salmon and cook for a few minutes until the fish is cooked. Before finishing, add the cream or milk, cook a few minutes and sprinkle with fresh dill. Add salt and pepper if necessary.
Vorschmack
2 kg of boneless lamb
250 gm of boneless beef
6 anchovy fillets (or 1 can)
5 onions
unsalted beef broth or water
3 to 4 tablespoons of tomato puree
4-5 cloves of garlic
To accompany:
potatoes to be baked
pickles in chunks
pickled beets in chunks
sour cream
Cut the lamb and beef meat into cubes of about 3 cm. Peel and cut the onions. Then put the meat and onions in a baking pan greased with oil, and roast at 200 degrees until the meat pieces catch a nice brown color. Don’t burn. Remove the pan from the oven and let cool.
The following thing to do is to mince the meat in a meat mincer along with the anchovies fillets that are minced too, until creating a mass similar to mashed meat. (The also minced anchovies are mixed with the mass of meat). The mass of meat and anchovies is placed again in a new oven-safe recipient, adding to it the meat broth (or water) until the dough texture resembles a thick sauce. Before placing it in the oven, flavor the meat mass with white pepper and pressed garlic, and add the tomato puree.
Finally the dough is placed in the oven at 180 degrees for at least a couple of hours. If the liquid of the meat mass evaporates quickly, add more liquid. If the Vorschmack seems to be “too fluid”, continue roasting. Vorschmack texture should be thick and at the same time as juicy and pleasant as the texture of mashed potatoes.
The baking potatoes are prepared when the Vorschmack still needs some 40 minutes of cooking. The potatoes are cut into pieces, seasoned with a little of coarse salt and pepper, and roasted in the oven for about 35-40 minutes.
Finally the Vorschmack is served with potatoes and pieces of cold beet and pickles, and a touch of fresh sour cream. One can add also a touch of honey to the sour cream.
This dish is of Polish origin, but has become very popular in Finland, due to the fact that it was the favorite dish of the Finnish Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim, who “brought” this dish to the Finnish tables, and always accompanied it with a shot of a Finnish spicy spirit, known in Finland later as the appetizer of the Marshal.
