Eating on Christmas Eve

The food plays a very important role in the Christmas of Finns. So this post is going to be about Christmas Eve’s dishes. Some of the dishes date back to medieval times and even before. Of course they have been updated during the centuries.

The centerpiece of the dinner table is ham, but in some home’s it has been replaced by turkey or even a dish out of vegetables. Because this blog is about Finnish traditions and there are many different ways to eat in Finland on Christmas Eve I shall focus on my family’s food traditions. We have been eating the same dishes for decades and the recipes have been given from mother to daughter for some generations already. Mostly the Christmas Eve’s dinner is eaten in Finland at home, not in restaurants.

We eat very light breakfast, because for lunch just after the Christmas Peace has been declared at noon we eat rice porridge (riisipuuro). It is made out of white porridge rice and milk and let stew on stove for 1 - 2 hours, mixed couple of times during stewing. One pealed almond is mixed into the porridge before it is served. Everybody eating try to find the almond, because the receiver of the almond will have good luck for the upcoming year. The porridge is scooped to one’s plate, then powdered, dried cinnamon (kaneli) and white sugar (sokeri) are added on top of the porridge and finally milk (maito) is poured to the plate.

The actual Christmas Eve’s dinner is served around 5 pm before the Santa visits. The dinner consists of starters or the so called fish table, the main dishes and the of course the desert.

The fish table is filled with cold fish dishes and other cold dishes. Our tablet has the following:

gravlax (graavilohi), made out of fresh salmon or usually at our table rainbow trout by covering the fresh fish file with thin layer of sea salt, some sugar and fresh dill, wrapping it to a foil and let stay there for few days

shoemaker’s salmon (suutarin lohi) made out of Baltic herring, that has been placed to a liquid made out of vinegar, water, salt, sugar, onion, laurel leaf and pimento, the liquid is replaced few times during the about 5 days that it takes to make this dish

glassmaster’s herring (lasimestarin silli) made out of Atlantic herring, that has been placed to a liquid made out of vinegar, water, salt, sugar, onion, white pepper, pimento, laurel leaf and carrots, the liquid is replaced few times during the about 5 days that it takes to make this dish

mustard herring (sinappisilakka) made out of Baltic herring in a mustard sauce

boiled eggs

meat jelly (aladobi) usually the meat is from calf

liver paste (maksapasteija)

mushroom salad (sienisalaatti)

pickled onions (hillosipuli)

pumpkin pickles (kurpitsapikkelsi)

warm, cooked potatoes (keitetyt perunat)

rosolli salad (rosolli) that is served cold and contains cubes of cooked carrot, cooked beetroot, pickled cucumber and onion

rosolli sauce made out of whipped cream that is colored pink with vinegar beetroot liquid

rye bread, sweet dark and light Christmas bread (spiced with dark syrup, anise, fennel), milk, butter, cheese

The main course table contains then

The Christmas Ham (joulukinkku) baked in the oven for several hours, the ham weighs usually about 10 - 12 kg, incl. bone, or a ham with attached bone about 6 - 8 kg, it is cooked in the oven in 100 - 125 C about 1 - 1,5 h / kg until the inside temperature is around 80 C, let cool to under 60 C, surface is pealed off and the upper side of the ham is covered with mixture of raw egg, sugar and mustard and then fine breadcrumb is sprinkled on top of the the ham, baked in the oven in 225 C for 6 - 10 minutes until the surface has a nice brown color, then stored in fridge and served cold

carrot casserole (porkkanalaatikko) made out of rice porridge, dark syrup, eggs and cooked carrots in oven, served hot

rutabaga casserole (lanttulaatikko) made out of cooked rutabaga, dark syrup, egg, spices and cream in oven, served hot

potato casserole, sweetened (perunalaatikko, imellytetty) potatoes are pealed and cooked, then they are smashed and wheat flour is added, stewed in oven in 55 - 60 C about 8 - 10 hours, milk and dark syrup are added and then baked in oven for 2 - 3 hours at 150 C

liver casserole (maksalaatikko)

warm, cooked potatoes

ham sauce (kinkun kastike) when the ham is baked in the oven the bouillon is collected, it is filtered and cooled, some of the bouillon is taken, water added and wheat flour and heated and boiled, cream is added and let boil for just few minutes, served warm

For desert we always have plum cream (luumuvaahto) made out of cooked plums, sugar and whipped cream

After the Santa has visited we have the coffee table, which contains gingerbreads, sour milk coffee cake, mince pies (containing plum jelly) and cream cake plus chocolate cordials.

Needles to say that we have been eating excessively after even tasting all of that.

And the ham lasts about week and so do the casseroles. On new year’s day the rest of the ham is traditionally used in the making of a pea soup.

:)