Finnish Breakfast
ÅLAND SEMOLINA PANCAKE WITH PRUNE SAUCE
INGREDIENTS – PANCAKE
2¾ cups milk
¾ cup semolina or Cream of WheatTM
½ tablespoon cardamom
4 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sugar
1 cup flour
no-stick spray.
INGREDIENTS – PRUNE SAUCE
12 pitted prunes
3⅔ cups water (½ cup more later)
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons corn flour
⅓ cup water
whipped cream (optional or is it?)
SPECIAL UTENSIL
9″ x 12″ baking dish
Serves 8
PREPARATION – PANCAKE
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray baking dish with no-stick spray.
Add milk to pot. Simmer milk on low heat until milk warms. Stir frequently. Gradually add in semolina. Stir constantly to prevent lumps. Remove semolina porridge from heat.
Add cardamom, eggs, salt, and sugar to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until foamy. (Scare away unwanted visitors by smearing this mixture on your mouth before you open the front door.) Add flour and semolina porridge to mixing bowl. Stir with whisk until batter is well blended.
Pour batter into baking dish. Put baking dish in oven. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-to-6o minutes or until pancake is firm and golden brown.
PREPARATION – PRUNE SAUCE
While pancake bakes, dice prunes. Add prunes and 3⅔ cups water to pot. Soak for 40 minutes. Add cinnamon stick. Boil to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to medium-high and cook for xx minutes or until prunes soften. Add sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat.
Add corn flour and ⅓ cup water to small bowl, . Mix with whisk until well blended. Add corn flour/water mix to pot. Bring prune sauce to boil using high heat. Stir constantly. Cook for 1 minute or until prune sauce thickens. Remove cinnamon stick. Pour into serving tray.
PREPARATION – FINAL
Cut pancake into 8 squares. Top pancakes square with prune sauce and whipped cream, if necessary. (Oh, of course it is.)
TIDBITS
1) The penalty for speeding in Finland varies with income. An American CEO might be fined over a million dollars. Tough country on scofflaws, you bet.
2) If you lose your shirt to Finland’s highway patrol, why not indulge your self with a Sauna? Be advised, social norms require you to be naked in the sauna. But you’re already half disrobed, having forfeited your shirt in tidbit 1).
3) It’s also quite acceptable for a bunch of friends to go to sauna together. Where everyone is naked. Good friends indeed.
4) Finland must not have many introverts.
5) It’s considered normal to leave the sauna, run outside, and jump in the nearest lake.
6) Although if its winter, it’s advisable to cut a hole in the lake before jumping.
7) Finns must have strong hearts.
8) What do Finns do if the nearest lake is twenty-six miles away and it’s freezing outside?
9) Run fast! It’s quite possible that Finland has the greatest number of saunas that are exactly twenty-six miles, the distance of a marathon, away of any nation in the world. This explains why Finland routinely garners the gold, silver, and bronze medals at every Nude Winter Marathon event.
10) Ancient Greeks invented the marathon. Or did they? Current speculation has Greece being invaded and settled by Finns around 1,700 B.C.. Finding ancient spas in Greece would go along way to proving this theory to the scientific community.
11) Some people point to the modern nude marathoners of Finland and the naked ancient Greek athletes as evidence of a vast Graeco-Finn empire around 1,450 B.C.. Why is there no evidence of this enormous realm? The au naturel Finns and Greeks, of course, wore no shirts. No shirts, no shirt pockets. No shirt pockets, no pens. No pens, no written history, and Bob’s your uncle.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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