Finnish Liver Pate

This pâté is a traditional Finnish hors-d’oeuvre. 

Ingredients

500 g (1 lb.) ground liver (ask the butcher to grind the liver twice)
200 ml (generous 3/4 c.) bread crumbs
400 ml (1 1/2 c.) cream
2 onions
2 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. potato starch
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground white pepper
2 eggs
Fresh pork fat  

Directions

Line the bottom of an oval baking dish with the strips of pork fat;
combine the cream and bread crumbs and set aside until the bread crumbs have absorbed the cream.

Chop the onions and sauté them in the butter until transparent; let cool;
Add all the ingredients to the ground liver, ending with the lightly beaten eggs; combine well.
 
Fill the oval baking dish with the mixture and cover with a sheet of aluminum foil; place in the oven in a dish of hot water and cook for 2 hours; let cool before unmoulding.

CHRISTMAS IN FINLAND
Finland, a country of a thousand lakes and countless forests, long winters and sunny summers, is situated between Sweden and Russia and offers dishes both simple and refined.
 
The Christmas table is laid with fish dishes: lightly-salted raw salmon or pollan (whitefish), and different kinds of herring, including Baltic herring, in various sauces. Fish jelly has a quality similar to aspic. The roe of the pollan, whitefish or monkfish can hold its own against caviar. We must also mention dried cod, or lutefish: fish which has been soaked in a lye solution. It is cooked and served with white sauce and potatoes, seasoned with pepper and drizzled with melted butter.

Also on the table are ham, sausages (a staple food for Finns, who say that a man is never too full to refuse a bit of sausage!), pâtés and gratins. Plums are often used in traditional desserts such as joulutorttu, flaky pastry baked with plum jam.

It seems as if everything stops in Finland on December 24: restaurants close, and public transport comes to a halt. As in the Middle Ages, the Christmas break is proclaimed from Turku, the ancient capital, in a symbolic ceremony that holds great importance for the Finns. It is not until St. Stephen’s Day, December 26, that the country comes back to life.

Chef
0 min
Serves 0