Salmon Soup

Of late, it has been a renaissance of all food Finnish :D A Finnish friend's mum & aunt are visiting and we all learnt from the experts how to make karjalanpiirakka (Karelian pie - little pastries of rye flour filled with rice porridge). And a couple of days ago, I made a batch of pullaa (essentially cinammon buns but flavoured with cardamon).

Now that DH is off to Finland for 11 days, I suddenly have a craving for lohikeitto (salmon soup) which I haven't had for more than a year since I left Finland. Thankfully, I've the opportunity to visit a supermarket today that is the only place in Chengdu to stock dill so here we go....

300g salmon, skinless, 2cm cubed
1 large onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large potatoes, cubed
2 medium carrots, cubed
1 tbsp butter
fish or meat stock
milk or cream
black pepper, freshly ground
salt
large handful of dill, finely chopped

1. Heat up a large pot. Melt butter and saute onions and garlic until onions turn translucent.
2. Add potatoes, carrots & stock. (the amount of stock depends on whether cream or milk is used. I like my soup creamy so the proportion of stock to milk I had is 3:2)
3. Boil until vegetables are cooked through.
4. Add milk or cream.
5. Lower heat and add cubed salmon.
6. Season to taste with black pepper and salt.
7. Simmer for a few minutes to ensure that salmon is cooked. Add dill. Hyvää ruokahalua! Bon appetit!


Traditionally, the soup is eaten with rye bread. I thawed 2 pieces that I'd stashed away in my freezer and dunked them into the soup. hmm!

Some versions of lohikeitto do not add carrots or garlic but add chives or parsley. But this is how I remembered it and besides, you can't run away from the chief ingredients of salmon, potato and dill ;)

minibeanie is 1 year, 7 months, 3 weeks & 1 day old