Lohikeitto is a Finnish salmon soup with cream, although this dish is prepared in all the northern countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula. Due to the lack of sunny days per year, the body of residents of these regions does not receive enough energy. This hearty soup fills this gap, and it’s delicious.
It’s strange for our people to hear an unusual combination of fish and dairy products, but after trying the soup, you understand that these products complement each other perfectly. The recipe for Finnish salmon and cream soup is quite simple. Even a young and inexperienced housewife can handle the preparation. The soup turns out delicious and looks beautiful in appearance. The light orange salmon contrasts with the white background and bright green seasonings.
In this article we will look at how to prepare Finnish soup and what products are needed for work. We will tell you in detail several interesting recipes with step-by-step descriptions and photographs.
Classic recipe
Finnish salmon soup with cream is prepared from familiar ingredients. Instead of salmon, you can use any red fish - salmon, pink salmon, sockeye salmon, chum salmon or trout.
To prepare 1.5 liters of soup, take the following ingredients:
- 1 small fish or fish soup set, that is, head and tail.
- Potatoes – 5-6 pieces.
- Carrots – 1 large or 2 medium.
- 1 onion.
- Leek – 1 piece.
- 150 grams of liquid cream.
- 50 grams of butter for frying.
- Spices - salt, allspice - 3-4 peas, a sprig of thyme (fresh).
Swedish recipe
Here's another dish. Our southern neighbors, the Norwegians and Finns, also love the combination of tender salmon and heavy cream. But they add a ton of vegetables to the soup. The dominant note among them is leek. Creamy salmon soup in Swedish is prepared like this. First, cut the ingredients: fish fillet (three hundred grams) - into large pieces, carrots, two potatoes and an onion stalk - into small cubes. Chopped dill and celery greens. Throw a piece of butter into the pan and fry the leek in it. Add carrots and potatoes, sauté for another five minutes. Pour in a liter of water and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat and continue cooking for another quarter of an hour. It's time to add fish fillets, 100 grams of peas (green or canned), spices, and salt. Cook for another five minutes. At the end, pour half a liter of milk or cream into the salmon soup. Bring to a boil and let it brew under the lid for a quarter of an hour.
Cooking
First of all, start cleaning the fish. Clean it of scales, remove the gills and entrails and wash thoroughly. Place all the pieces in a saucepan and cover with water. When it boils, remove the foam with a slotted spoon and turn the heat down. Add a whole peeled onion, 1 small carrot, allspice peas, maybe a couple of bay leaves and a sprig of thyme to the fish soup for flavor. Peel the potatoes, cut 3 pieces into pieces and add them to the fish.
When the fish and vegetables are cooked, turn off the fire. Carefully remove the fish to a plate to cool. Place the potatoes in a separate bowl and crush them with a masher until pureed. According to the recipe, Finnish soup with salmon and cream should be of medium consistency - neither liquid nor thick.
The broth itself is filtered through a strainer into a clean container and put back on the fire. Throw the remaining potatoes, cut into pieces, into the pan. While the vegetables are cooking, fry them in a frying pan. Heat the butter and add the chopped carrots and leeks. Fry until golden brown and remove from heat.
Pour the roast into the bowl with the puree, pour in the cream and stir. When the potatoes in the soup are almost cooked, add the sorted and chopped pieces of fish, as well as the puree mixture. Salt and stir the contents, keep on the fire for a couple more minutes and turn off. That's it, Finnish-style salmon soup with cream is ready!
Finely chop the dill or parsley and, when serving the first course, pour a pinch into a plate for each family member.
Lohikeitto: making broth
Norwegians, Finns and Swedes have slightly different recipes for the dish. The soup can be made not only from salmon, but also from salmon, chum salmon, sockeye salmon and other types of fatty fish. The main secret is the use of “illiquid” parts of the carcass. It would seem that the fillet would make the dish more tender, but no - the meat boils over in the soup. And the skeleton, skin, fins and head, thanks to the high gelatin content, give an amazing amber broth. The fish fillet is added at the very end of the cooking process. Finnish creamy salmon soup, or lohikeitto, is considered a holiday dish. First of all, let's cut the fish. Let's gut it, remove the eyes and gills. Let's put the fillet aside for now. If your salmon is large, you can use some of its meat to prepare main courses. Fill the illiquid parts of the fish with two liters of cold water and bring to a boil over high heat. When the liquid begins to gurgle, turn the gas up to medium and skim off the foam. Place the peeled onion and peeled carrots into boiling water. Cook for another half hour with bay leaf and a pinch of pepper. After this, filter the liquid through cheesecloth. Discard vegetables and bones.
Potato starch soup
The desired consistency of salmon and cream soup can be achieved without puree. Potato starch will add thickness. Let's take a closer look at this recipe. Prepare the following foods:
A budget option for preparing fish soup is to use the head and tail for cooking the broth, not the whole carcass or expensive fillet. The fish soup kit is cheap and there are a lot of great pieces in the large salmon head. In addition, the broth turns out rich.
Creamy salmon soup - recipe from Norway
The Finns' western neighbors have adopted tomatoes. And they were right! The soup turned out to be slightly sour. The main thing is to skillfully get rid of the tomato skin. To do this, we make a cross-shaped cut on each tomato and scald them with boiling water. After this, the skin comes off easily, like a stocking. Everything else is insanely simple. You can also use salmon and other similar types of fish in this soup. First, finely chop one onion. Three large carrots finely. Cut four potatoes into cubes. Cut peeled tomatoes (three large or five small) into small pieces. Collect the released juice in a bowl. Four hundred grams of salmon fillet cut into large pieces. Chop a small bunch of dill. Pour some vegetable oil into the pan, heat it, add onions and carrots. When they turn golden, add the tomatoes. Reduce heat to low and simmer for two to three minutes. Fill in one and a half liters of water. When the liquid boils, add the potatoes. After ten minutes of cooking over medium heat, add the salmon. Salt and pepper. Pour in the cream and cook until the potatoes are fully cooked. Sprinkle creamy salmon soup with dill.
How to cook soup?
Finnish salmon soup with cream is easy to prepare. The fish is thoroughly cleaned of scales and entrails, the gills are removed from the head, washed and the broth is boiled. If desired, you can add spices, such as allspice or bay leaves.
After cooking, remove the fish, cool and remove the flesh from the bones. Frying is done in olive oil, sautéing only finely chopped leeks. Mix starch with water in a bowl, add cream and fry.
Strain the broth through a strainer into a clean pan, add peeled and chopped potatoes. When it is almost ready, pour in the creamy-starch mixture with frying, lay out pieces of fish, salt, pepper and boil for another 3-4 minutes. At the end, sprinkle with chopped dill.
A budget option
The recipe for Finnish salmon and cream soup can be simplified using cheap ingredients. So, instead of red fish fillets, the skeleton, tail and head are used, and instead of leeks, onions are chopped into frying.
Let's take a closer look at what you need to have to get started. This:
How to cook?
Clean and wash the fish, place in a pan and fill with water until it covers completely. After boiling, remove the foam with a slotted spoon and turn the heat to low. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, peel the vegetables. Grate the carrots on a coarse grater, cut the onion into cubes. Heat the frying pan, pour in either vegetable oil or melt a piece of butter if desired. Add vegetables and fry until golden brown. Add half a glass of water with flour diluted in it, stir until it boils constantly so that there are no lumps.
Peel the potatoes and cut into large pieces. When the fish is cooked, turn off the heat, take it out to cool and carefully separate the meat from the bones. Strain the broth and pour into a clean saucepan. Add potatoes and put on fire. When it is almost cooked, add the frying and fish, stir, salt, add black pepper or other spices if desired. When serving, sprinkle with chopped dill. Many people chop green onions. It turns out delicious too.
Swedish creamy salmon soup
Despite the similarity of recipes for such fish soup in Norway, Denmark and Finland, Swedish soup has differences. To prepare it, only red fish fillets are used. It is relatively inexpensive there, as it is found in the sea in large quantities. For soup, only meat is taken, the skin is carefully cut off.
To prepare the soup, prepare the following products:
Saffron will add a unique taste and a beautiful golden hue to the soup. If you can’t find the ground spice, grind the dry saffron threads in a mortar.
Preparation
To prepare the soup, take a stainless steel pan with a thick bottom. Peel the garlic and cut the cloves into small pieces. Chop the leek into thin rings, using only the white part of the feather. Place a piece of butter on the bottom of the pan and add onion and garlic, frying until golden brown for about 7 minutes over low heat.
Then add peeled potatoes cut into pieces, pour in cream, wine, 4 glasses of water, sour cream and spices (except bay leaves and allspice), after boiling, cook over low heat for 15 minutes. When the potatoes are soft, turn off the gas and set aside to cool. Then use a blender to beat the contents until pureed and put it back on the fire. When the soup is hot, place the fish pieces in the pan and cook for 10 minutes, adding the remaining spices.
Serve the thick soup hot, sprinkled with herbs if desired. The delicate creamy taste with notes of saffron will appeal to everyone without exception. The fish is not cooked for long, otherwise it may become dry and tough.
In the article, we introduced readers to several popular recipes for Finnish soup with salmon and cream, and you learned how the Swedish version of this dish differs. As you can see, preparing such a tender and tasty soup is easy, and all the ingredients can be easily purchased at any supermarket. Prepare delicious dishes and delight your loved ones with new tastes! Bon appetit!
Lohikeitto - Salmon soup in Finnish style
One of the most popular dishes of our northern neighbors - the Finns. This soup is also popular among Karelians. An interesting detail: Lohikeitto is, rather, a festive version of Finnish fish soup , it is prepared from salmon and cream, but a simpler version of this soup is Kalakeitto , prepared from white fish (flounder, whitefish, cod) and in milk. This soup can be found in the Teremka menu, but for some reason they called it “Finnish-style trout soup.” The soup recipe is completely simple. First, broth is boiled from the soup set (fish heads, fins, ridges and skins). Then it is filtered and potatoes and carrots are cooked in it until almost ready, with bay leaf and allspice, then cream and pieces of fish are added, salt to taste and cooked until the fish is ready, just a few minutes, at the end of cooking, sprinkle with finely chopped dill. To enhance the taste of this wonderful soup, it is cooked in a cast iron pot and in the oven, then it is allowed to brew for a day and then it is enjoyed. Well, hot Finnish guys are in no hurry, we are all in a hurry. The soup tastes very pleasant; the combination of salmon, potatoes and carrots, fish broth and cream leaves a very pleasant aftertaste.
We will need (for 2 servings):
- — salmon fillet — 200 g,
- - potatoes - 3 pcs.,
- — carrots — 1 piece,
- — onions — 1 pc.,
- – fresh dill – 2-3 sprigs,
- - fish broth - 400 ml,
- – cream 33% – 100 ml,
- – spicy allspice (whole) – 2-3 peas,
- — bay leaf — 1 pc.,
- - salt - about 1 tsp. (or to taste).
| Since this is still a fish soup, it is prepared in fish broth. Take a liter of water, put the soup set (fish head, fins, spine and skins) and a peeled onion into it. Let the water boil, remove the scale, reduce the heat to a low simmer, cover the pan with a lid and cook for an hour. Strain the resulting broth. I had a pike perch soup set and salmon skin. If there is a salmon soup set, the taste will be even richer. | |
| Wash and peel the carrots and potatoes, then cut the potatoes into small pieces and the carrots into circles. | |
| Cut the salmon fillet into small pieces, for example, 2 by 2 cm cubes. | |
| Pour 400 ml of fish broth into a pan of suitable volume, put the pan on the fire, let the liquid boil, add potatoes, carrots, bay leaves and allspice to the pan, reduce the heat and cook the root vegetables until almost done. Add cream to the pan, add salt to taste and place salmon fillet pieces into the pan. After the liquid boils, cook the soup until the fish is ready at a low boil, literally 5 minutes. While the soup is ready, rinse the dill, shake off the water and chop finely, add to the soup before turning off the heat. Then cover with a lid and let sit for 5-10 minutes. | |
| The finished soup is served with slices of rye bread brushed with butter. |
Sincerely, S. Zverev.
