Finnish Beet Salad

This is an all time favourite for me. I will eat beets pickled, on a burger, cooked or shaved raw and crunchy in a salad. As far as I'm concerned,  you can't go wrong with beets.

My family heritage is Finnish on both my mother's side and father's side. Although my mother(Raili) and her younger brother were born in Timmins, Ontario, Canada, her parents and older sister migrated from Finland. As a young man, my father(Pauli) left his family in Finland behind and started a new life in the large Finnish community in Timmins. Since my mother and father got together, it is not a surprise that many of our meals included variations on traditional dishes from Finland.

I have often asked for my mother's recipes and her tutelage in making them so I can carry them on with me. I am happy to share them here. I'm not at the stage of adding detailed steps and photos to the recipes, and you will find many notes of "to taste". Experimentation and "I like it that way" are the keys to cooking in most cases for me. You too, will make it and either like it or not, or change it to please your palate.

Any questions, please ask.

Raili's Rosolli (Beet salad)

• 4-5 cooked beets (medium to large)
• 2 cooked carrots (medium to large)
• 1 cooked potato (medium to large)
• Raw onion ( to taste)
• 1 large dill pickle (plus about 3 tbsp. of the brine)
• Salt & Pepper to taste.

Sauce to serve:

• Unsweetened thickened cream, unsweetened and lightly whipped cream,  or sour cream
• Reserved beet cooking water

The beets, carrots and potato are boiled to cook them. Start them in cold water, bring to a boil and then simmer until tender but not falling apart. 

Boil the beets separately and reserve a bit of the pink water. 

And, do as my mom does... check for doneness with a knife, not a fork. It works so much better 

Dice all the root vegetables into a similar size; small to medium dice.

(You might want to wear disposable gloves when dicing the beets.)

Finely dice the onion and dill pickle(see note).

Put it all in a bowl with a bit of salt and pepper. 

Toss with the pickle brine (just enough to moisten).

If you do this closer to serving the salad will have different shades of colour on the veggies. If you do it far in advance everything will be pink. Neither one is wrong, and the flavours will be subtly different.

Mix the cream and a bit of the beet water to make a pinkish sauce.

Serve the sauce in a dish on the side, or make a depression in the middle of the salad and put it there. 

Note: Be sure to get a good, crunchy, dill pickle. I haven't found many good ones in Australia, but look for  imported Polish Dills or check out http://ocanada.com.au for Canadian made Dill Pickles. 

Enjoy. 

ttfn, Kaz

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