The Nordics and the Baltic · Volume 24, The Swedish Crown, the Gulf of Bothnia and the Reindeer North
Poronkäristys
Lapland, Finland
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Researched
- 13 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Named plainly and honestly: this is Lapland's own dish, built from reindeer meat that Sámi herding supplies, but the preparation itself, described in Finland's own national heritage inventory only as regionally Lappish rather than attributed to any particular Sámi tradition, is a twentieth-century Finnish kitchen and restaurant creation, not a documented traditional Sámi preparation. The proper Sámi reindeer dishes, bidos and suovas, are treated separately in this chapter's Flavour Arsenal and Ferment and Preserve Bench.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 20 minutes.
Ingredients
- 600 g reindeer, very thinly sliced (or venison as the honest UK substitute)
- 2 tbsp butter
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 200 ml double cream
- 100 ml water or stock
- to taste salt and black pepper
- to serve lingonberry preserve, to serve
- to serve mashed potato, to serve
Method
- Fry the onion gently in half the butter until soft, then set aside.
- Heat the remaining butter until very hot, and fry the sliced reindeer hard and fast in batches, so it browns rather than stews, about 2 to 3 minutes a batch.
- Return all the meat and the onion to the pan.
- Add the water or stock and the cream, and simmer gently, 5 to 8 minutes, until the sauce reduces slightly and the meat is tender.
- Season with salt and plenty of black pepper.
- Serve over mashed potato, with lingonberry preserve alongside.
What a modern chef changes
A brief cure for extra depth, and a final touch of the fire this chapter keeps returning to.
Rung 4
Method
- Dry-age or lightly koji-cure the venison for 24 to 48 hours before slicing, using the same barley koji this chapter's technique ladder describes, for a deeper, more savoury flavour before the meat ever meets the pan.
- Sear a portion of the sliced meat over direct, high flame for a few seconds only, rather than frying all of it in the pan, folding the seared pieces through the creamed remainder just before serving, for a genuine char note the traditional pan method never develops.
- Reduce the cream sauce hard before combining it with the meat, rather than simmering meat and cream together from the start, so the sauce itself carries real body rather than simply coating the meat in warm cream.