Salmon Soup Recipe for Karelian Lohikeitto — beragampengetahuan Travels – Beragampengetahuan

This salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto makes a rich and creamy salmon soup packed with vegetables, which has a gentle warmth due to allspice and a freshness of flavour and fragrance thanks to dill, the beloved herb of Russian and Nordic cuisines. Can’t source salmon or not a fan? Replace it with your favourite fish and you have kalakeitto or fish soup. Serve with sour cream and slices of sourdough or black rye bread for dunking.

If you want a quick, easy, yet rich and creamy salmon soup that’s versatile, try this salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto or Karelskiy rybnyy sup in Russian. It’s one of my favourite salmon recipes, and another of my family recipes that my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother made. Serve it in big bowls as a filling, comforting lunch or dinner as my baboushka did, reduce the size for starters, or pour it into small cups with dollops of caviar for a festive appetiser.

Baboushka made soup for lunch every day; almost always it was borscht, occasionally shchi, every now and again rassolnik — because my grandfather was a creature of habit, happy to eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner, day in, day out. Baba, however, was an accomplished cook, who was also creative. If she’d had her way, she would have made a different soup every day.

I think that’s why Baba loved it when I stayed, especially after our family left Sydney and took to the road for a seemingly never-ending road trip around Australia, and the Sunday family meal ritual was put on hold, along with the feasts she relished preparing. Baba used my visits to spoil me with delicious food, and as an excuse to cook dishes she rarely made but loved to cook, such as this salmon soup. Why was a Russian-Ukrainian grandmother making Karelian soup?

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Salmon Soup Recipe for Karelian Lohikeitto or Karelskiy Rybnyy Sup

My mother is losing her memory. So after moving her into a lovely light-filled apartment in the heart of Bendigo in July, after 18 months fighting eviction notices and looking for a new home for her during a nationwide housing rental crisis, I set Mum to work on translating babouskha’s recipes.

Because Mum is also losing her ability to concentrate and gets tired and cranky easily, like that five-year road trip we did around Australia, it’s seems like a never-ending task. But we’re making progress. And I’m constantly being surprised by what dishes are turning up in Baba’s handwritten recipes that I carefully slid into plastic sleeves in a folder and photocopied for Mum so she could write on the copies.

One reason the translation seems to be taking so long is that my grandmother appears to have written in surzhyk, a hybrid Russian-Ukrainian language I thought was only spoken. Apparently not; she wrote in a mix of Russian-Ukrainian. What’s interesting about the recipes that are turning up is that there seems to be three types. So far!

There are recipes for breads, cakes, biscuits, and pastries. That makes sense, as baking requires specific measures and temperatures — unlike savoury dishes, which were nearly always cooked from memory, habit, instinct, and taste.

There are a few friends’ recipes. Sharing handwritten recipes was common. I recollect Baba, in apron, often sitting at the dining table writing out a recipe for a friend or neighbour who dropped by and would sip tea and nibble on biscuits or a slice a just-baked cake, asking questions as Baba wrote down instructions, and explained how to do such and such.

The third type of recipes are for dishes Baba occasionally made — dishes she didn’t make every day or every week, so didn’t remember the ingredients or steps off by heart; dishes such a delightful surprise to me when they appeared that I’d ask a million questions about them; dishes my grandfather reluctantly ate, often grumbled about, sometimes even getting up and going into the kitchen, returning with a plate of something more familiar he preferred to eat.

I don’t recall Baba looking through her recipes then deciding what to cook. Rather, we’d walk into Blacktown to go shopping, as Baba did every morning, and she’d spot a beautiful fresh ingredient she’d buy, such as a salmon at her favourite fishmongers. Once home, Baba changed from her shopping dress into her house dress, tied on an apron, sat down to go through her recipes, and pulled one out. This salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto was one such recipe.

Russian Karelians and Karelian Lohikeitto

Growing up, I thought this salmon soup was a Russian soup. I thought all the food baboushka cooked was Russian food. Because while Baba was born in the countryside near Odessa, now in Ukraine, when my grandparents and great-grandmother came to Australia after World War 2, Odessa was still in the Soviet Union or USSR, and when my great-grandmother was born it was part of the Russian Empire. Baba was born on the eve of the Russian Revolution.

My grandparents always shared stories around the dining table, stories about their childhood and coming of age, stories about the wars, about their time in labour camps and displacement camps in Germany and Italy, and stories about their new lives in Australia. They talked about survival and being hungry. Their fondest memories often involved food, whether foraging for mushrooms and berries, or eating ice cream by the sea. They never talked about ‘identity’.

And I didn’t begin to think about issues of identity until I started to research family recipes and the food we cooked and ate when I began writing a Russian-Ukrainian-Australian cookbook-cum-family history. (Yes, I know, I’m crazy, I’m working consecutively on two cookbooks, that and the epic Cambodian cookbook and culinary history).

It was only when I began to research this Russian salmon soup that I realised that it was a Russian Karelian salmon soup. When I was growing up, it was called ‘Karelskiy rybnyy sup’ in Russian, simply ‘Karelian fish soup’. Despite baboushka making it with salmon, it wasn’t identified as a salmon soup as such in the way that Karelian people distinguish salmon soup, ‘lohikeitto’, from fish soup, ‘kalakeitto’.  ‘Lohi’ is ‘salmon’, ‘kala’ is fish’, and ‘keitto’ is soup — in Finnish.

Because there are Finnish Karelians and Russian Karelians as the Republic of Karelia is in northwest Russia, bordering Finland, and Karelian culture and cuisine straddles that border. As the Republic of Karelia has more than 60,000 lakes and some 27,000 rivers, Karelian cuisine is distinguished by its seafood and fish, served in many forms. Fish is cured, pickled, salted, smoked, and roasted, eaten raw, in salads, pies, porridges, stews, and soups.

I only have a few tips to making this salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto or Karelskiy rybnyy sup as it’s easy to make and comes together quickly.

Tips to Making this Salmon Soup Recipe

Just a few tips to making this creamy salmon soup recipe for Karelskiy rybnyy sup or Karelian lohikeitto.

Ingredients

Let’s start with the ingredients, beginning with the key ingredient, the salmon.

Salmon

My grandmother used to shop for fish at her favourite fishmongers in Blacktown — back in the day, she went to a butcher to buy meat, the greengrocer (fruit and vegetable shop) for fresh produce, the delicatessen for tvorog cheese and salamis, and specialty Eastern European products — and the fishmonger would fillet the fish.

I remember the fishmonger wrapping up the fish head separately which baboushka took home and used it to make fish stock. But she also made this creamy salmon soup with water because salmon has so much flavour. You want salmon with skin-off and you’ll be chopping the salmon into pieces.

My salmon soup recipe calls for 460 g salmon fillets because that’s the standard weight of a pack of four salmon fillets sold in supermarkets here in Australia, which is essentially around 100-120 g of salmon or so per person. But feel free to round that up or down to 400 g or 500 g or thereabouts. On a tight budget? Go even lower and bump up the veg!

Vegetables

Many Russian soups feature the vegetable quartet of onion, leek, carrot, and potato — and other vegetables are added to that mix depending on the soup; turnips and parsnips for a root vegetable soup, a mix of mushrooms for a mushroom soup, greens such as peas, beans and asparagus for a spring soup — and our salmon soup recipe is no different.

My grandmother mostly used brown onions over white onions, as white onions are more pungent and sharper while brown onions (also called yellow onions these days) are more subtle and due to their higher sugar content are sweeter. That’s why they’re better for caramelising.

The carrots my grandmother used were always a motley mix of oddly shaped things from my grandfather’s backyard vegetable garden, but our salmon soup recipe calls for medium-sized carrots. To be honest, it really doesn’t matter what the size of your carrots are, as long as they’re similar in size so they cook evenly. Don’t get caught up with grams. My baboushka didn’t weigh anything unless she was baking.

Potatoes

When potatoes are called for in my grandmother’s recipes, she just writes ‘potatoes’ or ‘kartoshka’ and doesn’t specify the variety. I remember my grandfather bringing in a few potatoes covered in dirt one morning, another day just one, and then coming into the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear, his blue eyes sparkling and flashing his white teeth, with a dozen of the things sitting in his white singlet, which he’d gathered up into a pouch of sorts.

When Baba had to buy potatoes from the grocers, she bought brown potatoes covered in dirt. These days, we call them ‘brushed potatoes’ in Australia, where they’re still popular, as we now know that layer of dirt retains moisture and extends their life. Funnily enough, they’re usually russet potatoes, now considered best for baking, frying and mashed potatoes, or Sebago potatoes, preferred for roasting or mashing these days.

But baboushka loved russet potatoes for soup as their high starch content helped thicken soups. If you prefer potatoes that remain firm, don’t break down and hold their shape, then you’ll probably prefer a waxy potato for this soup, and will want a white potato, yellow potato such as Yukon Gold, or even a red potato if you want some colour.

Leeks

Just a note on the leeks: the leeks I’ve been buying are very clean here in Australia. Because I’m told that these days leeks are thoroughly washed at farms. I remember leeks used to have quite a bit of dirt and grit trapped between their leaves. Not anymore!

If your leeks have some dirt on them, it means there’s probably some grit trapped between the layers so after cutting off the dark green tops — I use the light green parts of the leeks — slice the leeks in half lengthwise (vertically) and wash each layer under running water. Pat the leeks dry and slice them horizontally. For this dish I chop them into thick slices.

Fresh Dill and Parsley

I love the combination of fresh dill and fresh parsley. Dill is my favourite herb. I guess it’s in my genes. Fresh dill is showered on everything in Russian cuisine, including this soup. But I also put half the dill and parsley into the soup pot just before ladling it out — enough time to give the soup a boost of fresh dill flavour while keeping its colour.

When it comes to parsley, I normally use flat leaf parsley, called continental parsley here in Australia. But — and my husband would probably die if he knew — I’ve also been using a lot of curly parsley recently, which has loads of flavour and is fabulous for this soup.

Serving this Salmon Soup

For traditional family gatherings or formal meals — as with Russian-Ukrainian borscht, which is usually eaten with fried piroshki, peppery minced meat filled hand-pies — this Karelian salmon soup is traditionally eaten with Karelian pies called kalitki in Russian or karjalanpiirakka in Finnish. Baboushka used to bake these occasionally, but once again, I had no idea they originated in Karelia.

For everyday eating, this salmon soup was served with slices of black rye bread, but sourdough is also wonderful. A dish of sour cream was also served on the table for dolloping into the soup. I also serve a dish with more fresh herbs, as I love to add more fresh dill and parsley while I’m eating. I can never have enough dill.

Salmon Soup Recipe for Karelian Lohikeitto

Salmon Soup Recipe for Karelian Lohikeitto

AuthorLara Dunston

This salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto makes a rich and creamy salmon soup packed with vegetables, which has a gentle warmth due to allspice and a freshness of flavour and fragrance thanks to dill, the beloved herb of Russian and Nordic cuisines. It was Karelskiy rybnyy sup in Russian, simply ‘Karelian fish soup’, when I was growing up. Despite my baboushka making it with salmon, it wasn’t identified as a salmon soup in the way Karelian people distinguish salmon soup (lohikeitto) from fish soup (kalakeitto). Can’t source salmon or not a fan? Replace it with your favourite fish. Serve with sour cream and slices of sourdough or black rye bread for dunking.

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 30 minutes mins

Course Lunch, Dinner, Main Course, Soup

Cuisine Karelian, Finnish, Russian

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp butter – unsalted
• 1 brown onion – small, peeled, diced
• 1 leek – thoroughly cleaned, finely sliced into rings, white and light green parts
• 4 potatoes – medium sized, peeled, cut into medium sized cubes
• 2 carrots – medium sized, peeled and sliced
• 800 ml water – or fish stock
• 4 bay leaves
• ½ tsp allspice
• 200 ml cooking cream – or thickened cream or heavy cream
• 460 g salmon fillets – skinless, bones removed, cut into large chunks
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley – finely chopped
• 4 tbsp fresh dill – add half just before serving, and half for garnishing
• Salt and black pepper – to taste

• To a soup pot over low, heat the olive oil and butter, add the onions and leaks, and sauté for 5 minutes or so until starting to soften and fragrant.

• Increase the heat to medium, add the carrots, stir to combine, and continue to sauté for a couple of minutes.

• To the same pot, add the potatoes, water or fish stock, bay leaves, and spices, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook for around 15-20 minutes or so, or until the potatoes are tender.

• Reduce the heat to low, add the cream and salmon pieces and cook until the fish is just done, around 3-5 minutes.

• Just before serving, stir through half the finely-chopped fresh parsley and dill, and season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

• Use a ladle to scoop out the vegetables and lay them in the bowls first to create a base, top them with the salmon pieces, then ladle the creamy broth into the bowls.

• Shower each bowl with the remaining fresh herbs, spoon on a dollop of sour cream, and grind on a little more black pepper.

• Serve with dishes of fresh herbs and sour cream on the table, along with slices of sourdough or black rye bread for dunking.

Salmon – our recipe calls for 460 g salmon fillets because that’s the standard weight of a pack of 4 salmon fillets in an Australian supermarket, but essentially you want one salmon fillet of around 100-120 g or so per person.

Calories: 2073kcalCarbohydrates: 42gProtein: 101gFat: 168gSaturated Fat: 71gPolyunsaturated Fat: 21gMonounsaturated Fat: 65gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 541mgSodium: 593mgPotassium: 3233mgFiber: 8gSugar: 20gVitamin A: 26558IUVitamin C: 40mgCalcium: 362mgIron: 7mg

Please do let us know if you make this salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto or Karelskiy rybnyy sup as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.