Reijosfood

Finnish traditional Christmas food differs a lot from ordinary dinners. Most of the dishes are prepared specially for Christmas and some of them available only at super markets for that special occasion.

First you enjoy class of mulled wine in order to find Christmas spirit.

Dinner itself usually starts with fishes like spiced salmon and whitefish (if you do not have enjoyed rice pudding before that). Roes are also typical delicacies, most common are salmon, whitefish and vendace roes. To ensure extreme gusto, add sour cream, red onion and black pepper. Sometimes you might want eat roe with toast and/or Lappish potatoes, which cook really fast, because they are softer than ordinary potatoes. Some people still like to eat lutefish which is prepared from dried whitefish or cod; not my favourite.

After fish it is common to eat Christmas ham which is prepared in oven for several hours. Add some mustard, yammy! Nowadays it is also quite popular to enjoy turkey or have both. With ham one usually eats casseroles like carrot, sweetened potato and rutabaga (all dishes in picture below). Also green peas, plums and ordinary potatoes are common side dishes. Rosolli, mixed combination of beetroot, carrot, pickles, apple, potato and onion can also only be found during Christmas time. Usually eaten with beetroot coloured whipped cream.

Dessert can be cheeses or of course mince pies with coffee. You can find mince pies in every cafe before Christmas, made of puff paste and plum jam. The difference with home made pies and those you can buy at super markets is egg which is sed to lubricate the the surface of the puff paste.

After dinner it is nice to listen some Christmas music by great Finnish singers e.g Johanna Kurkela and Jarkko Ahola.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!