FINLAND: Pea Soup and Fish Soup

Pea Soup  (Hernekeitto)

You can call pea soup almost as the national soup of Finland. It is often served in diffrent kind of festivals and mass meetings. In the earlier days it was served in schools on every Thursday for school lunch, and it is still served on Thursdays for lunch with pancakes as a dessert in the army. It is also a common meal on Shrove Tuesday with a Shrove bun as a dessert. However, it takes a lot of time to prepare it.

So, instead of pea soup we give the recipe for another typical Finnish soup:

Fish Soup ( Kalakeitto)

 

6 portions

1 kg          potatoes

1               big onion

1 l             water

6               allspice

800g        fish

2,5 dl       milk

30 -50 g   butter or margarine

about 1 teaspoon of salt

dill

chives

Bring the water into boil in a kettle. Peel and cut the potatoes into cubes and chop the onion. Add them into the boiling water together with the allspice. Cut the fish into cubes. When the potatoes are almost done, add the fish. Let it boil for a few minutes.

Add milk, butter and salt into the soup.

Bring it to the boil.

Sprinkle the chopped dill and chives on the soup.