{"id":564,"date":"2017-02-08T19:15:49","date_gmt":"2017-02-08T19:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gars.harmaasudet.fi\/?p=564"},"modified":"2017-02-08T19:21:26","modified_gmt":"2017-02-08T19:21:26","slug":"making-a-rattana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gars.harmaasudet.fi\/?p=564","title":{"rendered":"Making a r\u00e4tt\u00e4n\u00e4"},"content":{"rendered":"

GARS portrays soldiers from the province of Savo (Savolax) in eastern Finland. For our \u201cPeasant day<\/a>\u201d in 5.2.2017 we prepared several traditional savonian dishes. Here is the recipe for the dessert, a r\u00e4tt\u00e4n\u00e4<\/em>. It is basically a blueberry pie with a rye crust, and belongs to family of savonian dishes called \u201ckukkos\u201d. A kukko can be made from many types of ingredients -fish, meat, vegetables- but it\u2019s always fully enclosed in rye dough and then slowly cooked in oven. The rye crust seals in the ingredients resulting in food that preserves well, an ideal food for longer journeys.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Baking r\u00e4tt\u00e4n\u00e4s in clay oven in Pukkisaari. Photo (c) GARS 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

Our recipe is slightly modernized, and of course we don\u2019t have any written peasant recipes from the 17th century to start with. But the kukko is surely a centuries-old thing and the only ingredient here that wasn\u2019t a part of 17th century savonian staple is the sugar: back then, it was mostly available for the rich, as it was imported. Instead of sugar kind of a home made sweetener called imell\u00f6s<\/em> would have been used. Imell\u00f6s is made by soaking and simmering rye, in a process similar to malting. But it\u2019s a bit gross so we used sugar anyway!<\/p>\n

Kukko-type dishes can be made without any cooking vessel, into a form of a plump bread, but with r\u00e4tt\u00e4n\u00e4 it\u2019s best to use a clay pot as the blueberry filling can be very runny when hot and may try to escape from the crust. You\u2019ll need a oven-proof clay pot, about 2-3 liters in volume. The pot doesn\u2019t need to be glazed.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

The crust in a clay pot. Photo (c) GARS 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

Crust:<\/h6>\n