Merry Finnish Christmas Feast: Recipes for Goose, Buns & More

Recipe: Goose Stuffed with Mashed Potato Recipe »

Merry Christmas my Dearest, Darlingest Readers! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas full of love and laughter and that you have had a chance to rest and recuperate from the crazy year that was 2010! In previous years I haven't really written much about our Christmasses as we were often away without an internet connection  but this year I thought I'd throw the doors open and invite you into our Elliott family Christmas. We decided to theme it in a Finnish theme-as you may know Mr NQN is half Finnish and they are very proud Finns indeed. We merged my own family with Mr NQN's and his aunt, uncle and cousin and before we knew it, we had over a dozen sitting at the table.

In the past we have gone away for a holiday and rented a house but this year, due to a multitude of reasons, we decided to stay put in Sydney. Unlike Halloween where I prepared all of the food, Christmas was a bring a plate affair with everyone bringing a plate for each person. The theme was red and white right down from everyone's outfits to the red and white wax straws from Lovely Little Parties. Mr NQN and I made the red and white pompoms and hung little wooden Nordic birds from them.

This was the book that got me started on the whole Finnish theme for Christmas. I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the Moomins Cookbook from the lovely Catty from A Catty Life. She had reviewed it on her site and because I consider myself part Finn insofar as Mr NQN is half Finn and I'm Finnish by association, I got very excited about the book. Lo and behold Catty kindly sent me a copy of it in October which I considered an early Christmas present!

As a compulsive feeder, I couldn't help myself and went a little overboard making a crispy roast goose stuffed with mashed potato,  braised sweet red cabbage, Danish Christmas caramelised potatoes and finishing it off with some slightly sweet soft buns heady in cardamom with slivered almonds on top and sugar pearls on top of stollen, Swiss roll cottages, cinnabread cookies and cranberry and oatmeal cookies. And when I woke up on Christmas morning I thought "Oh no! The vegetarians won't have enough to eat!" and quickly made a caramelised onion pie. It's a sickness I tell you ;)

We were literally overflowing with food and despite the fact that we had over a dozen people at a table meant to seat eight, we pretended that we were in a Finnish cabin in the middle of Winter snowed in. Except that it was actually Summer and we were really hot :P

We had enormous, plump, sweet cherries sent from our friends at Harris Farm. It's not Christmas without cherries and these ones had everyone in raptures. They were huge, sweet and meaty and the whole box pretty much disappeared instantly.

And Lindt sent over a lovely range of their Christmas goodies-Lindor balls...drool my favourite. I'd like to bathe in the liquid filling....I kept saying to myself "Share them with others, don't hog all the milk Lindor balls". And I'm quite proud of say that I did. Although psst don't tell them but I have a stash of the peanut butter ones that I'm keeping ;)

We had delicious Danish Caramelised Christmas potatoes-yep they're as good as they sound! Although not strictly Finnish, what's a border or two and a sea when it comes to good food?

One of my favourite side dishes is braised red cabbage. Plus it's low fat and good for you! I know, I know, Christmas is not exactly the time to think of low fat but trust me, it's good...

Sisko, Mr NQN's aunt made these Karelian Rice pies which are served with egg butter. I ate about half a dozen of these as they are among my favourite Finnish foods and she was kind enough to humour my pleas for these. The pastry outer is made of rye flour and she tells us the traditional Finnish food was often using a limited range of ingredients as there wasn't a wide variety of food available in Winter. These rice pies are simply made of rye flour, water, rice, milk and salt and the egg butter is eggs and butter mixed together.

Amaya and Laporello brought along a fragrant sweet potato box with nutmeg which was sweet and moreish.

Tuulikki brought along beetroot salad called "Rosolli" which was flavoured with dill gherkins and is a very traditional Finnish salad. It's served with a light cream and beetroot dressing and was a big hit with people.

My mother made the Lighthouse Keeper's Fish Pie from the Moomins cookbook which was very tasty and filled with fish and prawns whilst...

I made Moominmamma's Best Buns which were buttery buns flavoured with cardamom and topped with pearl sugar and flaked almonds. It was lovely to see that Tuulikki was lost in a sea of nostalgia.

And of course the guest of honour, the roast goose stuffed with mash potato! The skin was wonderfully crisp and interestingly it eats quite differently from when I first had it in Austria. Since it is a summer bird there wasn't the layer of fat that surrounds a winter bird.

The Assman made a rich, sweet rice pudding made with organic milk which was served with Sisko's delectable kissel (a sweet, fruit soup).

While Tuulikki made a "Lanttulaatikko" which is a turnip or swede bake made with cream, breadcrumbs, honey and butter. It is really delicious. If anything the flavour slightly reminds me of Chinese radish cakes.

My mother made the Muddler's Favourite Pudding which is made with prunes and topped with breadcrumbs. It's best served with cream.

And for presents, I was very lucky to receive everything that I wanted (minus the Blue Jean Birkin ;) ). Mr NQN got me just what I wanted because errmm...I bought it for myself (it's easier that way, he finds shopping harrowing the poor dear).

This heart shaped measuring cup set was a gift from my lovely reader Maddie who has been reading NQN for 2.5 years!

Not only that but I received these delicious biscottini and ciambellette from fabulous reader Matilda along with some chocolates! And I also got some lovely chocolate fruit from the lovely reader Chauntelle from her very own garden!

Now onto the recipes!

Goose Stuffed with Mashed Potato

Click here for roast goose recipe

Braised Red Cabbage

Click here for braised red cabbage recipe

Danish Christmas Caramel Potatoes

Mr NQN came home from work the other day and he told me about a Danish colleagues Christmas tradition. It involved singing at least three songs while they are dancing around a Christmas tree. I knew my tightly trussed conservative parents would completely eschew that idea (although Mr NQN's family would love it) but what really interested me was the Danish caramel Christmas potatoes. It involves boiling potatoes and then cooking them in a sweet caramel. I was sold instantly!

• 1 kg/2 pounds of baby chat potatoes

• 6 Tablespoons of sugar

• 2 Tablespoons of butter, unsalted

• a little salt

Step 1 - Boil and peel the potatoes until just done but not mushy.

Step 2 - In a large heavy bottomed frying pan or pot, cook the sugar on moderate heat in an even layer until completely melted-most importantly do not stir it. When it has melted, add the butter and stir until combined

Step 3 - Add the potatoes and turn them gently with tongs so that each side is covered (the caramel is very hot!) with the caramel. One batch of potatoes takes about 10 minutes until they become lovely and glazed. Add some salt at the end.

Moominmamma's Best Buns

Receiving the book prompted the whole Finnish theme for Christmas and one thing that delighted me was the recipe for Moominmamma's best buns which contained the tempting line "Press your thumb into the top of each bun, leaving a shallow hole and spoon a knob or butter into each hole". Swoon

Sadly I think I came across a bit of a recipe typo when I saw that there was basically equal parts milk to flour which meant that it was a sloppy cake batter mixture. I added more flour and crossed my fingers hoping that the dough would still come together as it should and it did. And my oh my these were good fresh from the oven slathered in even more butter (of course).

• 350ml/12.5 fl ozs. warm milk

• 23g dried yeast (or 50g fresh yeast)

• 80g/2.8 ozs. sugar

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon ground cardamom

• 1 egg

• 600-650g (21 ozs-23 ozs) plain flour (approximately)

• 100g butter, melted

To glaze and decorate

• 1 egg

• granulated sugar

• slivered almonds

Step 1 - Measure the warm milk into a mixing bowl and crumble in the yeast and whisk in the butter and the egg. Fold in the sugar, salt, cardamom and flour and knead either by hand or with a dough hook of the electric mixer until the mixture becomes elastic. Add more flour if necessary.

Step 2 - Cover the dough with a cloth and allow it to double in size, around 30 minutes (I did a slow fermentation overnight in the fridge as I wanted to do as much ahead of time as possible).  Divide the dough in half and roll each half into a long sausage shape. Cut each sausage into 12 pieces and roll them into buns.

Step 3 - Line an oven tray with baking parchment and place the buns on the oven tray and allow them to rise for another 15 minutes.

Step 4 - Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Once risen press your thumb into the top of each bun, leaving a shallow hole and spoon a knob or butter into each hole. Glaze the buns with the beaten egg and sprinkle with the granulated sugar and slivered almonds.  Bake for about 10-12 minutes.

Austrian Orange Punsch

Recipe from Kochen in Wien cooking school in Austria

• 120ml rum

• 40ml lemon juice

• 40-60ml Peach nectar

• 800ml orange juice

• 2x Cinnamon sticks

• 6 cloves

• sugar (if needed to taste)

• curled orange peel for decoration

Bring all ingredients to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Taste it, if it needs more sugar add it to taste. Decorate with curls of orange peel.

_ As we have every year, we held a Secret Santa. And of course you know that Santa comes from Finland right? ;) _

Tuulikki opening up her present-I think she was worried that she might have gotten a box of shortbread as her Secret Santa psyched her out with a large empty shortbread tin.

Amaya opens up her presents-these Elliotts love fruit!

Thanks for stopping by our little Finnish Christmas (in a Southern Hemisphere summer)! I hope your Christmas was full of fun and frolicking :) So tell me Dear Reader, what did you get up to for Christmas? I want to hear everything! :)

Red and white straws from Lovely Little Parties, Lindt chocolates from Lindt, cherries from Harris Farm Markets, bird napkins by Citta Designs, Smood potato masher by Dreamfarm.