Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

-----------------------------------DOUGH-----------------------------------
3 oz Butter 1 oz Yeast cake
1 C Milk -(or 1 package
1/3 C Sugar -of dried yeast)
3 C Wheat flour

----------------------------------FILLING----------------------------------
1 lg Yellow onion 1 1/4 C Rice, cooked
1 lb Meat, ground -(left-over rice is fine)
-(mixed beef and pork) 1 Egg
1 C Cream 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 butter-and-milk 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 excellent-tasting 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 4-6.

* 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

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