Rye rye whisky brownies

Juuri unaged rye whisky is the star of the show in these brownies. It's distilled by Kyrö Distillery Company in my birth place in Isokyrö, Finland. I've written about these guys a few times before and just can't get enough of their products. In the meanwhile their range has grown and I can't keep up tasting everything and introducing it here. Luckily in August I will be going to Finland again and should get a chance to sample a few of their products. The title of the post is a reference to the distillery's products and marketing, as they often use the “rye rye” thing.

For the recipe itself I took guidance from Waitrose's Chocolate and Whisky Brownie Cake, but have posted my own version below. I added some rye flour to the recipe as well to make it double rye with the whisky. I wanted to make sure that I'll get a nice and dense texture for the brownie and thought it's best to take some advice from other recipes. Here's how I made the brownies.

Ingredients

Brownie dough

150 g dark baking chocolate

150 g butter

2 eggs

250 g sugar

50 g rye flour

75 g wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

Other ingredients

50 ml Juuri unaged rye whisky

300 ml double cream + 1 tbsp sugar + 2 tsp whisky

Handful of fresh raspberries

Vanilla ice-cream

Method

Melt the chocolate and butter in a water bath.

Whisk the eggs with the sugar.

Add the cooled chocolate and butter mix to the eggs and sugar.

Carefully add the flour and baking powder and mix into a dough.

Line a baking tin with baking paper and grease it. I baked mine in a 27 x 17 cm rectangular baking tin.

Bake at 180 C for about 35 minutes. The dough should be a bit soft in the inside, which you can test with a skewer.

Let rest in the tin for 15 minutes after the baking.

Remove from the tin and pour the whisky on the top.

Let rest for at least 10 minutes and then cut into squares.

Serve the brownies with whipped whisky flavoured cream, vanilla ice-cream and fresh raspberries.

Enjoy!

I'm entering the recipe to the We should cocoa challenge. It's hosted this month by Johanna from Green Gourmet Giraffe and co-hosted by Choclette from Tin and Thyme. This month's theme is malt, which got me curious and thinking of some nice combinations. I was certain that the maltiness to my recipe would come from either beer or whisky, but went with whisky in the end. It was nice to be baking for a change.

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog

My first sourdough bread

I grew up watching my grandmother baking rye sourdough bread every week and occasionally helping her out (not that I was much of a real help). She made such a tasty traditional regional bread and since then I haven't been much in touch with sourdough baking. I have never baked one from my own starter until now. However as I love eating that style of bread, I have been determined to make my own at some point. Of course it takes a little bit time and patience to make a sourdough bread, but the results are absolutely worth it. This dough variation didn't need much of kneading, just long rising times, but that's fine if you plan your schedules well.

I got the starter mix from BreadMatters and it came with instructions that were very easy to follow. There's also quite a lot of advice and FAQs for sourdough bread baking on their website. I knew I wanted to make a rye bread as my first attempt, so I made one entirely from rye flour. I liked this variation very much, and now I have some starter left for other breads to experiment with. I think I'll need to try something with spelt flour as well. The starter can be fed so that it doesn't run out! 

 

What are your experiences of sourdough bread baking?

Your VegHog

Rye pasta

I tend to eat one or several pasta dishes in a week, as they are quick and versatile. This rye pasta was included in my weekly cooking plan for this week and I used ingredients for it that I mostly have around. I only called it generically rye pasta, as the vegetables and pine nuts can be substituted by others. This is the time to get creative or just use up what you already have.

I bought this really nice dark rye pasta in Copenhagen and finally got around cooking with it. Unfortunately I don't have exact amounts for the ingredients, as I more or less just threw the dish together, but here's what I used.

Rye pasta

Garlic

Olive oil

Pine nuts

Grated mature Cheddar

Fresh basil

Salt

Pepper

Grilled antipasti peppers

Chop the garlic finely and cook it soft in olive oil. In parallel, cook the rye pasta al dente.

Add the pine nuts, grated mature cheddar and a few tablespoons of the pasta cooking water to the pan so that the contents get a more sauce-like consistency. Season with basil, salt and pepper.

Mix the pasta with the sauce and serve with the cold antipasti peppers on the top. And the dish is done!

Your VegHog

Rye crisps with fresh vegetables and cottage cheese

Guess what, I'm on holiday again. Last week was very hectic, busy, full of work etc., but now I can have a little break. I'm visiting my family in Finland, so it's a suitable time to post about rye crisp canapés. I made them with different vegetables and cottage cheese. These were very nice spring snacks, yet somewhat filling thanks to cottage cheese and rye.

These are the ingredients I used:

Rye crisps

Baby plum tomatoes

Cucumber

Radishes

Fresh basil

Cottage cheese

Salt + ground black pepper

I'm buying the rice crisps in Finland whenever I'm on holiday, but you can maybe get similar products where ever you live.

To make the canapés I just chopped baby plum tomatoes, cucumber, radishes and fresh basil into small cubes and filled some rye crisps with them and cottage cheese. 

Have a nice week!

Your VegHog

Rye bruschetta

Almost Friday! I couldn't be happier about it and hopefully I'll have the chance to catch up more with posting and sorting out my holiday photos during the weekend.

Today I wanted to share with you my rye bruschetta idea. A fresh bruschetta is a lovely thing as breakfast or lunch and I made some now because I had tasty heirloom tomatoes at hand. This bruschetta is slightly different to the normal ones, as the base is rye bread, but it's very filling and healthy.

This is what you'll need for my rye version:

Rye bread slices

Heirloom tomatoes

1 small garlic clove

Fresh basil leaves

Pine nuts

Salt

Ground black pepper

Olive oil

Slice the tomatoes and cut the garlic clove in half.

Toast the bread and rub the garlic on the toasted bread slices.

Place the other ingredients on the bread and sprinkle little olive oil on them.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Rye crisp canapés

Yesterday I wrote a post of my rye whisky and rye gin tasting and the company behind these wonderful products, the Kyrö Distillery Company. These are the canapés I enjoyed during the tasting and still didn't have a rye overkill yet.

It's always nice to make colourful canapés to serve, and these are quite effortless to make. You can put any of your favourite vegetables and cheeses on them. Soft cheese always gives quite a nice and fresh contrast to these.

Ingredients

Rye crisps – Rye crisps can be obtained in well stocked supermarkets and health food shops or online. You might not get exactly the same ones as I had, but any thin rye crisp bread is good.

Olives – Olives are always a nice addition to a canapé serving.

Here are the different sorts I made.

Tomato and basil crisps:

Small tomatoes ( I used my own produce, Tomato Tigerella)

Fresh basil leaves

Chilli cheddar

Radish crisps:

Radishes

Plain soft cheese

Sea salt

Cucumber crisps:

Cucumber

Plain soft cheese

Chilli flakes

Pepper crisps:

Baby peppers

Olive oil (for roasting)

Smoky cheddar

There wasn't much preparation needed, mainly just chopping and filling. Fill the crisps just before serving as depending on the filling, the crisp can get soggy quickly.

The only thing that required a bit more cooking were the roasted baby peppers. Brush them with olive oil to get them extremely sweet, yet smoky. About 30 minutes roasting time is needed for these.

Serve these canapés at a party or just during a cosy film night. What are your favourite fillings for these?

Have further a nice week!

Your VegHog

Garlic & herb rye nachos with char-grilled vegetables

I love nachos served with mixed grilled vegetables, cheese and refried beans. This time I again used Finnish rye nachos, which are very tasty and savoury. I can't think of anything better at the moment than relaxing at home eating nachos. Let the relaxing weekend commence!

Ingredients

(You can use any vegetables of your choice, and also other sauces. Get creative!)

130g garlic & herb nachos

½ zucchini

½ aubergine

1 romano pepper

1 shallot

1 halloumi

Vegetable oil for grilling

Refried beans (If you also want to add refried beans to your nachos, have a look at my previous recipe for them.) 

Hot cheese dip (Cornish Cruncher cheese bake with cider)

Spicy chilli sauce

Slice the vegetables and the halloumi. Heat some vegetable oil in a griddle pan and char-grill the vegetables and the halloumi on it until they have dark grilling marks. Then fry the shallot rings in a separate pan until soft.

Place the nachos on an oven proof dish, put the refried beans, vegetables and halloumi on the top and heat through in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Serve warm with the chilli sauce and cheese dip.

Have a nice nacho night!

Your VegHog

 

Chilli cheese rolls

I love baking fresh rolls and developing new recipes, and I don't think I have published any roll recipes here recently. What can be nicer than have a homemade breakfast roll, or take one to work and enjoy the next morning. Rolls also make a brilliant company for soups. This recipe combines spicy cheesiness with the earthy rye. I used a Cheddar that has already been seasoned with chilli, but nothing stops you from using Cheddar and chilli separately.

For 8 small rolls:

200 g mature chilli Cheddar

100 g rye flour

100 g wheat flour

1 tbsp dry yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

250 ml warm water

First mix the dry ingredients together and crumble the chilli cheese into the mix. Add warm water and olive oil and knead to a dough.

Let the dough rise for about one hour under a teatowel at a warm place.

Divide the dough into small rolls and place them on a baking tray.

Bake at 200C for about 30 minutes until fully baked throughout and crispy on the outside.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Rye nachos

I bought such lovely sesame and sea salt rye nachos in Finland and combined them with some char-grilled vegetables, cheese and sauces. Any nachos are great with some extra veg, but these rye variations are especially tasty and filling. They are like thin rye bread crisps.

Here's how I made this nacho dish.

Tomato sauce:

200g tomatoes

1 garlic clove

1 small onion

Olive oil

Fresh basil

Black pepper

Salt

The tomatoes for this sauce came from my own garden, and it's quite a basic sauce. Chop the onion and garlic and fry them in olive oil. Add the tomatoes and let it simmer. Season the sauce with basil, pepper and salt and finally puree it. This sauce can be served either warm or cold, whichever you prefer.

Green pepper butter:

1 green bell pepper

Parsley

Chili flakes

Black pepper

50g butter

This was a quite nice addition to the nachos and especially melted over the char-grilled corn cob that I served with the nachos.

Chop the pepper very finely and mix it with parsley, chili flakes, black pepper and soft butter. Done!

Nachos:

1 bag of sesame and sea salt rye nachos (or other nachos or rye crisps)

1 red bell pepper

1 small zucchini

½ onion

Oltermanni and Emmental cheese (other cheeses can be used)

1 Corn cob on the side

Vegetable oil for grilling

Quarter the bell pepper and slice the zucchini. Cut rings of the onion. Char-grill these and the pre-boiled corn cob.

Place the pepper, zucchini and onion rings on the nachos into an oven dish. Grate cheese on them and bake at 180C for about 10 minutes until the cheese is melted and the nachos warmed through.

Serve with the sauces at a film night or a party or just give yourself a treat and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Finnish potato pies

These potato pies are similar to the traditional Finnish Karjalanpiirakat (Karelian pies) I made a while ago, but the rice filling has been replaced by potato mash. These potato pies are also very traditional in Finland and suitable to any occasion, may it be a festive one or just everyday life.

This crust recipe is slightly altered from my gradmother's Karjalanpiirakka recipe, but otherwise I didn't really consult much the traditional recipes and started cooking straight away. I was very happy with the finished pies. Here's how I made them.

Ingredients

For the rye crust:

3 dl wheat flour

2 dl rye flour

2-3 dl lukewarm water and milk mix

1 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Melted butter for brushing

For the potato filling:

500g potatoes, I used new potatoes because they are in season

50g butter

Salt

Peel the potatoes and boil them until they are soft. Mash them and mix with the butter and season with salt. When the mash is smooth set it to side to be cooled down.

This is how to make the dough for the crust: First mix the dry ingredients and then add the lukewarm milk and water mix and the oil and knead. You can make the fluid more milky or more watery depending on your taste. Add more fluid or flour if needed. Knead a firm dough, which will be a little bit similar to a pizza dough. Let it rise under a tea towel for about one hour.

Then take small portions of the dough and roll it out thinly with a rolling pin. Cut the dough into small (about 15 cm long) slightly oval circles. You can use a lid or a bowl of suitable size as a cutting help.

Take about two tablespoons of the potato mash and spread it to the middle of the circle by leaving about 2cm edges without filling. Then make the distinct wavy closing (see photos). Fold the edges over and pinch them starting from the middle and moving towards the ends. Leave the middle opening slightly wider as in Karjalanpiirakka.

Bake the pies at 225C for about 15-20 minutes until the crust is baked and they are nicely browned. Brush them with melted butter and let set for a while.

Then they are ready to be served as a filling snack. My favourite serving variation is the basic one, just with some extra butter spread on the pies.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog