Guest Post: Le Petit Cuisinier

It is with great please to introduce Le Petit Cuisinier to you, I came across her blog from foodbuzz and saw she lived in Finland and thought I must ask for a guest post! She is a lovely and talented High School Student, a fantastic cook and great photographer. She has kindly shared two Finnish dishes for us, what a treat. Finland is a most beautiful country maybe one day we can get to visit!

I'm a sixteen year old high school student from Finland. I live in Westend, Espoo. It takes ten minutes by bus from my home to the centre of Helsinki, which is our capital. Finland is quite a small country, our population is about 5,3 millions. We have two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Finnish people love the nature, being outdoors and walking in the woods. Enjoying the silence and purity of the countryside is very important to us. To me living near the ocean has become vital, I just love it. In the wintertime we can go skiing, skating or walking on the ice covering the ocean - it's so lovely in those sunny and frosty days of January and February.

I've been cooking since I was very little. One of my mother's professions is Home Economics teacher so cooking has come naturally to me - first following her instructions and nowadays cooking myself as much as I have time. For me it's important to cook healthy, clean and natural food, and of course the delicious taste is very important too.

I started blogging last august. I had dreamed of a foodblog for some time already, so then I carried out the idea and started. It has been very gratifying, inspiring and interesting, it has brought a lot of joy and it's good to hear comments from other people.

I have no idea about my future, I don't know if my profession will have something to do with food. The only thing I know is that I'll be interested in good food and cooking all my life, and maybe someday I'll open my own restaurant or cafe.

But now, following the recipes you can cook some tasty Finnish food, and more you'll get when you visit my blog!

This peasoup is a classic soup in Finland, usually eaten in wintertime. I remeber that I've eaten it since my early childhood, and we've always had some pancake after that for dessert. It's actually a quite simple meal, but very tasty. And it's eaten almost in every Finnish home, only the method of cooking varies a bit.

My version of the peasoup is suitable for vegans and vegetarians. The pancake I made with soymilk, and I have to say that it was excellent. The time of cooking the soup is very long, so it's not a soup you can make from awhile impulse. You have to remeber to put the peas into the water the evening before. But otherwise it's a very simple soup. And remeber to serve it with

Finnish Turunmaa mustard! Or some other mustard, it might be hard to find Turunmaa abroad :)

And I must tell you that if you wonder the amount of the soup (it's quite a lot) the reason is that we always make about this much and then we freeze it. Because it's quite effortful to make, and it's easy just to take it from the freezer and warm some if in a hurry. And you can put some of it into the fridge too, it tastes even better the next day!

Peasoup

for about 15 people

Ingredients:

• make this soup in a big 5 liter kettle
• 1 kg dried peas
• 3-4 liters water
• 2 carrots, peeled and grated
• 2 big onions, chopped into tiny chunks
• olive oil
• marjoram 2 tbsp
• plenty of back pepper
• herbamare, according to your taste
• fresh parsley, two handfuls, chopped
• 3 tbsp mustard, and for the serving also (you can add some more when you eat if it feels like it)

1. The evening before put the peas into the kettle, pour 3-4 litres of water (so that the peas float in there).

2. If the peas have absorded the water the next day, add some more. Bring the water to boil, lower the temperature and cook for 1- 1,5 hours, until you can see that the structure of the soup has changed and the peas are softened. While cooking check the soup occasionally, if the zests of the peas have come off and risen to the surface, use a large spoon and remove them.

3. Sauté the chopped onions in olive oil, add with the grated carrots. Mix well, add the spicesand herbs. Put enough salt to satisfy you. Let the soup boil over a low heat for half an hour or so, until it's thick enough.

4. Before serving decorate with soycream and peashoots.

Finnish pancake

about 16 serves

• 1 liter soymilk (or ordinary, if you prefer)
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbsp rape oil
• about 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 5 dl plain wheat flour

1. Pour the milk into a big bowl. Add the eggs, oil and the other ingredients. Mix well with a whisk, put into the fridge for 30 minutes to swell.

2. Heat the oven into 200°C. Line a deep baking sheet with two parchment papers, cover the sides too.

3. Pour the dough into the baking sheet, bake in oven for about 25-30 minutes until beautifully golden and a bit brown on top.

4. Serve with self made (or store bought) jam and berries. We ate the pancake with the jam my mother made last autumn, from the berries we had picked up ourselves.