Recipe - Lihapiirakka

DOUGH
3 ounce Butter
1 cup Milk
1/3 cup Sugar
3 cup Wheat flour
1 ounce Yeast cake
(or 1 package
of dried yeast)

FILLING
1 lg Yellow onion
1 pound Meat, ground
(mixed beef and pork)
1 cup Cream
1 One fourth cup Rice, cooked
(leftover rice is fine)
1 Egg
Salt and pepper

MAKE THE DOUGH: melt the butter and add milk. Heat the mixture to 100
degrees F. Crumble the yeast into a bowl. Add the butterandmilk mixture
and whip it until the yeast as dissolved. Add sugar, salt and flour and
stir until it becomes a dough. Cover the bowl and let rise in a warm place
for about 40 minutes.

While the dough rises, chop the onion into very small pieces and put in a
large frying pan. Add the ground meat immediately and saute for 10
minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the cooked rice and saute this mixture
another 5 minutes. Add the cream, season to taste with salt and pepper, and
turn off the heat. Let the frying pan stand on the stove, covered, until
the dough is ready. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Roll out the dough so it fits in a 12x16 inch baking dish. Put the dough
into the dish so that the dough covers the whole dish (this is the most
difficult part; don't be discouraged if you have to roll out the dough
again).

Add the filling on top of the dough. Whip the egg and spread it over the
filling. Bake it on the bottom rack in the oven for about 20 minutes.

When the pie has cooled off a bit; cut it into pieces that are about 1 1/4
inches by 6 inches (the traditional size of lihapiirakka in Finland).
Serve.

NOTES:

* Finnish meat pie This is an excellenttasting stomach filler. My dear
mother gave me this recipe when I moved away from home. She probably
thought that it would give me that feeling of home. It does. I have tried
it on my friends and it is always a hit. My mother is from Finland. Yield:
Serves 46.

* While eating lihapiirakka, you can try the hard work of pronouncing its
name. Liha means meat and piirakka is just piirakka. The filling can of
course be varied. Other traditional Finnish fillings for other piirakkas
are blueberries (with some potato flour on top) and cottage cheese.

: Difficulty: moderate.
: Time: 30 minutes preparation, 30 minutes cooking and cooling.
: Precision: measure the crust ingredients carefully.

: Krister Valtonen
: Dept. of CS, University of Linkoping, Sweden.
: {seismo,mcvax}!enea!liuida!obelix!valtonen

: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust

From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini