Karjalanpiirakka...

...is something that most of the Finns consider to be a pretty traditional Finnish pasty. It's basically a small salty pie with a rye crust and it's most likely filled with rice. There are also alternative fillings like carrot, potato and in the really old days (days before rice or potato had reached Finland) it was probably filled with barley.

Karjalanpiirakka with rice-carrot filling

Today I made some Karjalanpiirakkas filled with rice and carrots. They are very easy to make but you need some time to make them. First you have to do rice porrige. I don't use any certain recipe but an estimation instead. First add some water (about 1 dl) to the pot. Bring it to boil and add about 2 dl rice. When the rice has absorbed the water add about 5 dl milk and bring the milk to boil. Place a lid to the pot and switch off the stove. Let the rice absorb all the milk and if needed add some milk. When you have a nice porridge consistancy add some butter (about 40 g) and season with salt. While waiting for the porridge to cook boil the peeled carrots (I had four) and puree them. When the porridge is ready add the carrot puree to it and taste once more. The filling should be salty.

For the crust I took about 4 dl water, 4 dl rye flour, 1 dl wheat flout and 1 tsp salt. Mix all the ingredients into a thick dough which doesn't stick to your fingers. This is how you assemble the pies:

Form the dough into a bar und cut to desired size pieces

Use a rolling pin to roll the pieces until really thin. In Finland we use a piirakkapulikka but unfortunatly I don't own one so I use a normal rolling pin. With piirakkapulikka you can get really nicely round form. I usually still use a round stencil mold so that I will have equal size pies.

Pile the round pie crust on each other and place flour between each layer. This way they won't dry out. Try to work rapidly because the rye dough gets fast dry

When all the pie crust are ready take them out of the pile a couple at the time and brush the extra flour away.

Place the filling to the middle of the crust.

Lift the rim of the dough on to the pie and form it wavy

Place the pies on an oven sheet and bake at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes

After baking..

...dip the pies quickly into a milk, water butter mixture. If you want you can also only brush the pies with butter,

Serve the pies with "eggbutter". For the egg butter dice three cooked eggs, add some soft butter and salt. Mix with a fork to a spreadable cosistancy.