Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

--------------------------FILLING-------------------------------
2 lb Fish, small
1 1/2 lb Pork, sliced into
-strips like bacon,
-but about 1/4 to 1/2
-inch thick
3 tb Salt (omit salt if
-pork is already salted)
Allspice (optional;
-traditionalists omit
-this)

---------------------------DOUGH--------------------------------
2 1/2 c Water
3 1/4 c Rye flour (sifted)
1 3/4 c Wheat flour, about
-(sifted)
4 ts Salt
1/2 oz Yeast (2 standard
-packages)

Clean the fish, removing fins, large scales and entrails. You may
leave the heads if you dare to eat them.

Mix the flours and salt. Add the yeast to the water. When the yeast
is fully dissolved, make a thick dough by pouring flour mixture into
water and blending well. The ratio of flour to water depends on the
nature of the flours. This ratio of 1:2 by volume works well in
Finland with Finnish flours. Where flours contain more gluten you
should use slightly less water.

Set aside about 4 T of dough to be used later. Roll out the remaining
dough into a circular shape about 3/4 inch thick.

Assemble the meats into the dough: cover the inner half of the dough
circle with half of the pork (the pork should cover a circle whose
diameter is half the diameter of the rolled dough). Then put all of
the fish over top of the pork, and add allspice and extra salt if you
are using them. Finish with the second half of the pork.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F. Lift the edges of the dough all
around the filling and glue together with a little water so that you
have the filling surrounded from all directions with about
3/4-inch-thick dough. Put upside down (the seam downwards) on a
baking sheet and let it rise about half an hour at room temperature.

Put the kalakukko in a 500 degree F. oven for long enough to brown the
dough, which will seal it against moisture. Then lower the
temperature to about 250 degrees F. and let it bake for 4 to 7 hours
depending on the size of the fish (bigger fish need more cooking
time). You can brush some melted butter over the top of the dough
just after lowering the temperature; this will give it a prettier
appearance. If it starts to leak while baking, fill holes with the
dough which was set aside.

Serve hot or cold.

NOTES:

* Rye bread pie with fish and pork filling -- This is an ancient
national food prepared and eaten in Savo (eastern Finland).

* Kalakukko was used as travelers' food because it stays edible very
long when unopened. Also in medieval times salt was the only way to
preserve meat and it was expensive, so with this way you could use
all the salt in salt pork. The word kala-kukko means fish-cock (the
bird).

* You can use any small fish (shorter than about 8 inches). Small
scales and spikes don't matter because they soften during the
prolonged cooking. Make sure you use un-smoked pork.

: Difficulty: moderate (some skill with dough is required).
: Time: 45 minutes preparation, 30 minutes attended baking, 4-7 hours
unattended baking.
: Precision: Careful measurement not necessary, but the consistency
of the dough (which will depend on the nature of your flours) is
important. If the dough is either too soft or too hard, the
kalakukko will leak.

: Heikki Putkonen
: University of Oulu, Finland
: putko#tolsun.oulu.fi

: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust

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