Karjalanpiirakka (Karelian Rice Pasties)

About This Recipe

Karjalanpiirakka are oval, open-faced rye pastries the colour of polished walnut, filled with silky rice porridge and crimped along the edges into pretty pinched waves. They originate in the Karelian region straddling Finland and north-west Russia and earned EU Protected Geographical Indication status in 2003. The dough is rye-heavy, rolled paper-thin so it crackles when bitten. The filling is full-cream rice cooked low and slow until pudding-soft. Out of the oven, every piirakka is brushed with melted butter and stacked in a tea towel to soften. Finns eat them at breakfast with munavoi — finely chopped hard-boiled egg whipped with butter and salt — that melts into the warm pastry. They are a daily fixture in every Finnish bakery from Helsinki to Rovaniemi.

Ingredients

Serves 6

• 150 grye flour
• 100 gall-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
• 1/2 tspfine salt
• 150 mlcold water
• 2 tspvegetable oil
• 120 gshort-grain or pudding rice
• 250 mlwater (for rice)
• 700 mlwhole milk
• 1/2 tspfine salt (for filling)
• 40 gunsalted butter, melted (for brushing)
• 3hard-boiled eggs (for munavoi)
• 60 gsalted butter, soft (for munavoi)
• flaky salt to finish

Instructions

1. 1

   Cook the rice base

   Bring rice and 250 ml water to a boil in a heavy pot. Simmer covered 5 minutes until the water is absorbed. Pour in milk and salt, lower heat to the gentlest simmer, and cook uncovered 40 minutes, stirring every few minutes, until very creamy. Cool to lukewarm.

2. 2

   Make the dough

   Whisk rye flour, plain flour, and salt together. Pour in cold water and oil, then knead 6 minutes to a firm but pliable dough. Wrap and rest 20 minutes.

3. 3

   Shape the rounds

   Roll the dough into a long log; cut into 12 equal pieces. Roll each into a paper-thin oval, 13 × 9 cm. Stack with a dusting of flour between.

4. 4

   Fill

   Heat oven to 250°C (or as hot as it goes). Place 2 heaped tbsp rice porridge along the centre of each oval, leaving a 2 cm border.

5. 5

   Crimp the edges

   Lift the long edges up and over, pinching them into pleated waves so the filling shows through a long oval window. Don't seal completely — these are open pasties.

6. 6

   Bake hot and fast

   Slide onto a baking sheet. Bake 12–14 minutes until the crust is deeply burnished and the filling is bubbling and pale gold.

7. 7

   Brush and soften

   Immediately brush each pasty generously with melted butter. Stack between two layers of clean tea towel for 10 minutes — this is the crucial step that softens the rye into a pliable, classic Karelian texture.

8. 8

   Make munavoi and serve

   Mash hard-boiled eggs and soft butter together with a fork. Season with salt. Serve warm piirakka with a heaping spoon of munavoi on top, melting in.

Variations

• •

  Mashed-potato filling (peruna-piirakka) is common in eastern Finland.

• •

  Buckwheat-porridge filling is the older Karelian-Russian style, predating the rice version.

• •

  Sweet version: skip salt, add 1 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cardamom to the rice filling.

Storage

Keep in a tin lined with a tea towel for 2 days at room temperature, or freeze up to 3 months. Refresh in a 200°C oven for 4 minutes; refresh with a brush of butter.

Frequently Asked Questions