Every family has holiday traditions, usually going way back to their ethnic roots.  I am of Irish, German and Finnish descent.  So, we had several festive traditions.  Getting drunk on whiskey and fighting with each other, getting drunk on beer and invading France and getting drunk on vodka and trying to kill Russians.  Family gatherings were lively.

Beautiful braided Pulla loaves.

The Finns had one other tradition besides the Russian thing.  Pulla.  Pulla is a wonderful holiday bread made with Cardamom.

I remember as a child having pulla at family gatherings.  The wonderful braided bread, golden and infused with the rich flavor of cardamom is one of the best memories of my childhood.  Remembering my Aiti (It was not until I was an adult that I realized that Aiti was a title – mother – rather than her name.  To this day I have to look to see what her first name was) on the rare occasions we made it to Minnesota or vice versa.

Anyway, in recent years I have missed the Pulla.  So, last year I decided to make some pulla myself.  I am not sure why I waited so long, it is not hard.  (With one little warning).

First some stuff:

Cardamom is about the third most expensive spice in the world, after Saffron and vanilla.  Cardamom spice is made from the seeds of the cardamom plant, a type of ginger native to India, Sri Lanka and parts of Southeast Asia. It has been used medicinally and as a flavoring for food for at least two thousand years Like saffron, cardamom is expensive because it is labor-intensive to produce. The seed pods are hand-picked before they are fully ripe to ensure the freshness of the seeds. There are about 12 seeds per seed pod.

India and Guatemala are the main producers of cardamom. It is a primary ingredient in curry, a popular additive to coffee in Arab countries and is widely used in Scandinavia to flavor baked goods.

It is the Scandinavia thing I come from even though the Finns are not Scandinavians.  Still they retain some traditions from their years of oppression under the jackboots of the Swedes.  In my family we had it at Christmas and at weddings and special occasions.  In the later years of my life I was much surprised when a Greek family I knew gave me a traditional Greek Easter Bread that was cardamom flavored and tasted very much as I remembered pulla.

Anyway, pulla is very delicious and not that hard to make.  Here comes my little warning, though.  I had the bread dough in a stand mixer and I noticed that the dough started to march up the bread hook.  This is a very dense, sticky dough, and throughout the mixing process kept working its way up the bread hook.  Even with a spatula and a steady nerve, it got all over the place.  Recently I have learned about  an aftermarket attachment you can get for your stand mixer that prevents that and if I can find out the link I will put it in this article.

Anyway, pulla is a great holiday bread and not that hard if you remember to watch out for the bread crawling up the mixer.

Here is the  recipe:

Pulla

• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon finely crushed cardamom
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 8 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
• 1 egg lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

Directions:

Preparation:  2 hours

Total Time: 2 1/2 hrs

1. Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Let cool until lukewarm.
2. 2 Dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Stir in the lukewarm milk, sugar, salt, cardamom, 4 eggs, and add 4 cups of flour and beat well; the dough should be smooth and glossy in appearance. Add the melted butter or margarine, and stir well. Beat again until the dough looks glossy. Stir in the remaining flour until the dough is stiff.  Knead by hand for 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Place in a lightly greased mixing bowl, and turn the dough to grease the top. Cover with a clean dishtowel. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down, and let rise again until almost doubled.
4. Turn out again on to a floured surface, and divide into 3 parts. Divide each third into 3 again. Roll each piece into a 12 to 16 inch strip. Braid 3 strips into a loaf. You should get 3 large braided loaves. Lift the braids onto greased baking sheets. Let rise for 20 minutes.
5. Brush each loaf with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.
6. Bake at 400 degrees F for 22 to 28 minutes. Check after 20 minutes as the bottom burns easily.

This is a great holiday bread, very traditional, and not that hard.  Other than the mixing, the toughest part for me was to remember how to braid things.  I had not braided anything since I used to braid string in 3^rd or 4^th grade, Lo’ those many years ago.

Anyway, try the recipe out.  I think you will like the results as will your friends and family.

(And if I have screwed this up royally, Finns can feel free to drop a comment.  Swedes – shut it.)

In finland you only get caught once

Erik Nabler,

N.B. Guest blogger Erik Nabler blogs regularly about drinks and drinking at the Liquor Locusts.

I know! I thought they all did, too!

This one comes from Twitter:

And, yeah, if you need a Sandra Lee fix today (remember, that Christmas episode is coming up!) here you go. Watch it and weep. Weep for our culture.

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Paula Deen on Dancing with Butter!!!

Happy Holidays, y’all! Here is a lovely little interview from Vanity Fair, in which that li’l pat of sunshine Paula Deen holds forth on Thanksgiving etiquette, doggy bowel movements and their relation to the Survival Principle, and the infamous butter scene in Last Tango in Paris. You must read it. No, you MUST, y’all.

A snippet:

Do you have a Thanksgiving recipe that’s made entirely out of butter?

Just butter? I don’t know. I guess you could unwrap a stick of butter and pour a bottle of jam over it. That might be tasty. But I wouldn’t want to serve it to my family at Thanksgiving.

You are the Butter Queen, right?

Yeah, I have been called that. I do love butter. I don’t care what you’re fixin’, butter makes everything taste better.

I’m assuming your butter enthusiasm has nothing to do with the movie Last Tango in Paris.

I don’t think so. Do they eat a lot of butter in that film?

Well, they don’t eat it exactly.

What did they do with it?

[Long pause.] Uh… I don’t think I know how to explain it without embarrassing both of us.

Is it something dirty? [Laughs.]

You could say that, sure.

Does it have something to do with how your wife got pregnant?

Actually, no. You have the wrong … It’s a different, you know… It’s lower down on the … [Long pause.] Wow, this is amazing. You’ve actually turned the tables on me. I’m flummoxed!

Well honey, you’re the one who brought it up.

Here’s what I can tell you. Marlon Brando used butter in a slightly more intimate way than you do on your Food Network shows.

Ooooh. Well I will definitely check that out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to awkwardly change the subject.

If you need to.

I think that poor interviewer has the vapors!

Like buttah

Hip Hop Turkey is pardoned.

Let me ask you seriously: what would your Thanksgiving turkey have to do to win a pardon from you? I mean, NO TURKEY FOR YOU THIS YEAR. You’ll make do with sliders, or Filet o’ Fish sandwiches, or tofurkey instead of that lovely, lovely bird with the tasty, tasty drumsticks. You still get the stuffing (dressing, technically), the mashed potatoes, the rest of the holiday hooplah, but no turkey.

For me to go without turkey, that bird would have to…get this man to call me. And not collect, either.

This is weirdly brilliant, in the way turducken is weirdly brilliant. It’s nice to see some respectful innovation around traditional holiday meals, while still putting a kooky, 21st-Century, I-wouldn’t-do-it-but-Reddit-will-go-apeshit-for-it slant on things.

This is nothing less than a Thanksgiving cake made out of ground turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and yams, and frosted with mashed potatoes. Here’s your recipe, don’t all click at once!

Before you laugh, remember the hottest item in the gourmet’s arsenal over the past few years has been flavoured foam. We are obviously cooking in the time of Surrealism, and this is a perfect, and not difficult, iteration of the meme. And think about it; this would be darn tasty. It’s basically just a vertical, poultry-based Shepherd’s Pie, and who doesn’t love Shepherd’s Pie?

via MercuryPDX, KindaFabulous, and Carlovely

Up here in Canuckistan we’ve long since had our Thanksgiving (we have to get it over with before the weather changes and the only people on the roads are Ice Truckers) and it generally features a simple roast turkey, generally stuffed with bread cubes, celery, brandy-soaked raisins, old doll parts, Monopoly dice, and anything else Mom finds in the bottom of the junk drawer. It’s quite a fun tradition, really: if you get the Barbie head, or roll snake eyes, you get to make a wish on the moose antlers. After the meal and the ritual round of butter tarts, the whole family compliments the cook and then sneaks out the back way to Timmy’s, where they can at least get good coffee.

moose antlers are a badassCanuck wishbone substitute

This confused me until I watched the following video, and now it all makes sense. I, too, like to celebrate special occasions by having a few firefighters over to the Global HQ, and this looks like the best way to guarantee they’ll actually show up.

via TheAwl

via TheAwl

Now that import restrictions are so … restrictive, one must resort to creative ways of getting one’s most precious items across borders.

Is that a Bratwurst in your suitcase or are you just happy to see me?

You can just put the laptop into the checked luggage, but don’t let THIS baby out of your sight. You know what they say: keep your friends close, and your andouille closer.