Kebab Pizza, The Infamous Swedish Odd Pizza
It has been more than 2 years since I published my article about Finn’s Berlusconi Pizza. Yet, Scandinavian pizza culture still not cease to amaze me. It’s a 2 years late post, actually. But I guess I am not that late to share my odd experience.
When I was staying in Turku, Finland, my living place was in proximity to a local pizzeria called Orikedon Taverna. Whenever I have a sudden craving for pizza every time I went back from campus, I always stopped my bus on this restaurant which only 400 meters from where I lived. Like many pizzerias I found in Turku area, the pizzeria is also a kebab eatery. Not sure for me, but I guess the culture comes from the immigrants who come to live and work in Turku.
Then one day, I read an article about a pizza, which topping is (or was) famous in Sweden, while I know that some of the citizens of Turku are fluently speaking Swedish, next to their native Finnish. The pizza is called “kebab pizza”. At first impression, I was like, what the heck is that?? How on the earth they going to make a random crossover between pizza and kebab… and secondly, it also famous??
From that moment, if you nagged some people because they put pineapple to their pizza. Then they, and you as well, are nothing compared this one.
Some moments after, I payed a visit to Orikedon Taverna, found that kebab pizza, and for my curiosity, I ordered it for take away so I could eat it at home. Then I walked, I arrived, and I opened the pizza box lid.
The Kebab Pizza
I spend several minutes to stared at the pizza. How could this be popular amongst Swedes and Finns?? Then I remembered salmiakki by Finns (that black ammonium chloride licorice candy, Finns known “sweets”) and surströmming (that infamous sour, pickled herring; known as the world’s smelliest food that even surpass Indonesian durian fruit in comparison).
But hey, they made Berlusconi Pizza (see above link for access) in Finland, and in Sweden, they have their famous Kottbullar (Swedish Meatballs). Let’s give this kebab pizza a shot!
First bites, it is quite funny to taste the intersection between the spicy mayonnaise that usually in kebab for dressing and the marinara tomato sauce that topped a pizza crust. But it’s not bad! Then here comes the meat part, and the odd one: the lettuce part. It’s good actually.
My first experience on trying fresh lettuce on pizza was when I was in the elementary school 1st or 2nd grade. I remembered when Pizza Hut has gone too far and they made a “Taco Pizza”. That time, it tasted really odd to eat a pizza, which the crust not even crunchy, with lettuce and non-melted cheddar as topping. Funny thing to compare to Kebab Pizza, they shredded the mozzarella on top of the marinara sauce, baked it, so you can see in the picture above, there are traces of mozzarella on the pizza topping, but then the sliced kebab meat, freshly shredded lettuce, and spicy mayo was added. The pizza is good, for my tastebuds. Although, I wish the spices were more prominent in the kebab meat. I said this because whenever I eat kebab in Indonesia, the kebab meat always has a kick! Combining it with the spicy mayo is always a good idea.
There you have it. I tried the Swedish popular pizza on Finland!
—
KEBAB PIZZA
Can be found in any kebab-pizzeria places in town, but this was bought at: Orikedon Taverna, Vanha Tampereentie 137, Räntämäki, 20380 Turku, Finland (Google Map: Link; TripAdvisor: Link; Foursquare: Link; Web)
Price: EUR 10.50 (regular size)
-AW-
Berries in Turku
There are lots of plant species in Turku, Finland, that provides visible (and maybe tempting) fruits. Thing that we should know is not all of them are simply edible without preparations. This “berry note” might be helpful for anyone, especially foreigners like myself who are coming to either staying or studying in Turku!
Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus)
Location to find: Forest floor
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: July (Late Summer)
Habitus: Low herbal plant
Flowering plant.
Fruits bearing bush.
Description of berry: Small, blueish color, purple flesh. Small version of blueberry in fruit morphology. Tastes sour and a bit of sweetness.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam
Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea)
Location to find: Forest floor
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: August (Late Summer)
Habitus: Low herbal plant
Flowering plants.
Plants with fruits.
Description of berry: White-ish when young, red when ripe. Tastes sour and a bit of sweetness.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam.
Red Currant (Ribes rubrum)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Low shrub plant
Description of berry: Orange when young, red when ripe. Tastes sweet.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam. Also nice for flavors.
Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: Late June (Summer)
Habitus: Low shrub plant
Description of berry: Translucent green when young, reddish when ripe. Tastes sour and sweet.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, infused water or tea, dessert, or made into jam. Good ingredients to make as steak sauce as well.
Wild Strawberry (Fragraria vesca)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex or in forest floor
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: Late June or July (Summer)
Habitus: Herbal plant
Description of berry: Smaller than cultivated strawberry, red when ripe. Tastes sour and sweet.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam.
Wild Raspberry (Rubus idaeus)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex or in forest side
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: High herbal plant
Description of berry: Compound fruits, red, soft flesh and juicy. Tastes sweet and a bit sour.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam.
Juneberry or Saskatoon Berry (Amalanchier arborea)
Unripe fruits
Ripe fruits
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex or forest side
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption or cooked
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Tree plant
Description of berry: Green when young, black when ripe. Tastes sweet with a hint of leafy flavor.
Consumption note: Good to cook for dessert, or made into jam.
Rowanberry (Sorbus aucuparia)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals
Edibility: Toxic when raw (contains parasorbic acid, may leads to kidney failure), edible when cooked
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Tree plant
Description of berry: Orange when young, red when ripe. Tastes stingy sour when uncooked.
Consumption note: Cooked into dessert, or made into jam. Also made into liqueurs.
Tartarian Honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals
Edibility: Poisonous
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: Orange when young, round in shape. Food source for birds and insects.
Consumption note: –
Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals
Edibility: Toxic when raw (contains glycoside, causing nausea), edible when cooked
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: Red when ripe. Clustered from inflorescence.
Consumption note: Cooked into dessert, or made into jam. Also made into liqueurs.
Hawthorn Berry/Thornapple (Crataegus coccinea)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals or fence plant
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption or cooked
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: Clustered, red when ripe. Have medicinal value for heart and vascular problem remedy and also digestive system problem. Fruit is a bit hard with leafy taste.
Consumption note: Cooked into dessert, or made into candied fruit slice, jam. Also made into liqueurs.
Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals or fence plant
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption or cooked
Period of fruiting: July (Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: Clustered, black when ripe. Soft fruit with leafy taste and gritty texture.
Consumption note: Made into juice, baked into bread, made into flavoring, jam, and tea.
Sour Cherry (Prunus cerasus)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as fruit bearing tree or in forest side
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption or cooked
Period of fruiting: June (Summer)
Habitus: Tree plant
Description of berry: Small fruit, red, with big seed inside. Tastes sour and sweet.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam.
European Crabapple (Malus sylvestris)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as fruit bearing tree or in forest side
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption or cooked
Period of fruiting: June (Summer)
Habitus: Tree plant
Description of berry: Crabapple is smaller than apple, green-reddish when ripe. Tastes sour and sweet.
Consumption note: Good for snacks, ice cream topping, dessert, or made into jam.
Rose Hip (Rosa rugosa)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as flowering bush
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption or cooked
Period of fruiting: Late July (Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: Small fruit, red, with big seeds inside.
Consumption note: Made into herbal tea, jam, jelly, syrup, pastries, marmalade, wine, or other beverages.
Snowberry/Ghostberry/Waxberry (Symphoricarpos albus)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals
Edibility: Poisonous
Period of fruiting: June (Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: Hard, white berry, round in shape.
Consumption note: –
Crowberry (Empetum nigrum)
Location to find: Forest floor
Edibility: Edible, direct consumption
Period of fruiting: July-August (Late Summer)
Habitus: Low herb plant
Description of berry: Soft, black berry, round in shape. Tastes a bit plain to sweet.
Consumption note: Direct consumption, made into jam or wine.
Yewberry (Taxus baccata)
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex as ornamentals
Edibility: Edible flesh, extremely poisonous seed and other plant part. Not recommended to eat for safety.
Period of fruiting: August (Late Summer)
Habitus: Shrub plant
Description of berry: It’s actually not a berry as it is a Gymnosperm. Soft torus-shaped flesh (modified seed cone) covering solid single green seed. The flesh tastes sweet with slime like Aloe vera.
Consumption note: It’s actually edible, but due its other plant part contains taxine than claimed to cause cardiac arrest, it’s better to avoid this one.
—
BONUS PLANT
Silver Birch Tree (Betula pendula)
Tree in winter/early spring
Tree in summer
Sap may be collected in spring.
Location to find: Randomly around housing complex or in forest side. It’s Finland national tree.
Edibility: Wood bark can be used for consumption, sap can be taken directly or processed. Mycorrhizal host for chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius)
Habitus: Tree plant
Consumption note: Bark bread, sap syrup
—
Identifications were done with help of Reza Raihan (Forestry Engineering batch 2012 of Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia)
-AW-
Restaurant Lappi, Helsinki
Food in Finland for me is close to nature. Things that people normally can forage from the forest. We can see most areas in Finland are made of forests, although some products are caught fresh from the sea. For example, as now I’m living on Turku, I tend to get fishes as local products easier than meat. In the other hand, if you want to eat reindeer, people said, you should go to northern area like, Lapland.
So what is it looks like, the food from Lapland, area that dominates by forest? To answer this, during my last trip to Helsinki (May 7th, 2016), I visited an exotic local restaurant that sells delicacies from Lapland. It’s Restaurant Lappi or Lappi Ravintola (Lappi means Lapland, and ravintola means restaurant in Finnish).
Outside view of the restaurant.
It looks like a small shop when you see from outside, but when you go inside, it looks wider and more… natural.
Interior of the restaurant.
This is your table.
So then I entered the restaurant once it open in 1 pm, the waitress greeted me and took me to my seat. The atmosphere is really nice. It’s like you’re inside a hunter’s lodge in the middle of the forest. Wooden wall amplify the ambience to be more… rustic. I can imagine when you have a dinner here, it must be great!
Then I received my menu (well, I already check them out on their homepage, so I knew what I want to eat). For my lunch on that day, I decided to eat a simple dish, a sautéed reindeer and finished with a mousse.
Sautéed Reindeer (served with mashed potato and lingonberry)
I was surprised when the sautéed reindeer was served on my table, it’s actually larger than I expected! And bit more… juicier. But well, it’s still looked good anyway. And it tastes really good! In my sense, it tastes simple. It’s like you cook it with butter, salt, and pepper, than added with some water, but the flavour is just wow. The gamey taste of reindeer is balanced with creaminess of mashed potato and acidic flavour of lingonberry. Although it’s a bit runny, the broth actually enhanced the flavour richness of mashed potato like you’re eating poutine. Yummy!
Sea Buckthorn Mousse
I know lingonberry and I know cloudberry, but sea buckthorn is something new in my ear since my arrival in Finland this January. After I made a quick browse, unlike lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea L.) and cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus L.), sea buckthorn (Hippophae sp.) is a shrub instead a short, forest floor dwelling herbs. So then that’s basically the reason that I wanted to try this for my dessert! As it served on mousse, it tastes really fresh to your palate (although I know it’s not because it’s impossible to bring it fresh from that far north). It’s smooth, combined with its acidic taste and sweetness of the scone. Terrific!
Overall, the price is quite high like normal Scandinavian dish restaurant, but it is worth the fortune if your really like reindeer or adventurous enough to try some new meals here!
—
RESTAURANT LAPPI/LAPPI RAVINTOLA
Address: Annankatu 12, 00100 Helsinki, Finland. Phone: +358 964 5550. Website click here.
Opening Hours:
Monday – Friday: 04:00 pm – 10:30 pm
Saturday: 01:00 pm – 10:30 pm
Closed on Sunday
Ordered meals:
Sautéed Reindeer: EUR 24.50
Sea Buckthorn Mousse: EUR 10.50
Price Range:
Food: EUR 11.00 – 68.00 (Dessert: EUR 6.50 – 35.00)
Beverages: EUR 6.00 – 11.00
Foursquare: Link
TripAdvisor: Link
Note: The place is a bit tricky, but it close to the central road as well as Kamppi Bus Station
-AW-
To The Sea! Food Aboard Silja Line and Viking Line Boats
Moi! It’s been so damn long since I wrote something here. Being a Ph.D student is one heck of a challenge you know. But, when science stuffs drain your brain energy, food will be there to soothe it up!
In these both months of March and April of 2016, I’ve been on a boat cruise twice. First, it’s for a cruise seminar along my lab colleagues in Silja Line (route: Turku-Åland-Turku in a day) and second, I went to Stockholm with Viking Line. For my second trip, I can only tell you about my return trip, since my departure trip is at night and I was obviously spending most of it on my cabin bed.
In the nutshell, if you want something really Nordic to eat, go to their buffet!
Let’s start from the breakfast meals!
(Silja Line) Buttermilk (FI: Piima) with lingonberry jam
Most of the time, finding yoghurt and other dairy products here in Finland is always been easy. You go to any convenient stores to big supermarkets, you’ll find one. Even honestly, this become my reason of why I can get easy access to cheese, yoghurt, milk, and buttermilk every time! Anything else is, berries are common forest products to find in summer. Back to the ship, so then I tried the buttermilk with lingonberry jam. I thought the jam is sweet. I was wrong. It’s face-warping sour. Now I know my supervisor, Pav, poured a lot of sugar in it.
(Viking Line) Nordic pancake with starwberry jam, Karelian pasties, mini cakes, and cookie.
Nordic pancake is similar to French pancake or crepes. The serving for pancake in Nordic way is by combining it with berry jam. This time (learning from experience before), I used the sweet strawberry jam. It tastes really good and fresh! About Karelian pasty, I’ve explained about it before. However, in both boats, it tastes plain, you have to use munavoi (butter mixed with chopped boiled egg) to give the taste in. The mini cakes flavor mostly buttery, sugary, and sometime have almonds in it.
(Viking Line) Bread, butter, and smoked salmon.
You know what? It’s hard to find a white dinner bread or toast here in Finland. They mentioned it as French bread for it. But the French bread I know available here is baguette, the long hard bread. So, to eat a sliced loaf of soft bread, you will normally found bread that normally and naturally colored brown or yellowish. The color comes from rye or other cerealia seeds (or carrot). And it’s common to eat them with LOT of butter as topping. Anything else, you can also add smoked salmon in it. It’s protein and omega-3 rich meal for you! And its taste is very rich, umami, and fresh!
(Silja Line) Cheese plater
In Europe, cheeses are something you can easily found, staple, and cheap (compared to Asia countries, including Indonesia). You can eat cheese like emmenthal, blue cheese, smoked cheese, or more with crackers. Me? I like to eat the cheese as it is! Not everyone have an endurance for the taste of blue cheese, and I’m enjoying myself eating one of the strongest blue cheese, roquefort from France!
(Silja Line) Caviar, assorted herring, smoked salmon, and open sandwich with fish salad.
Smoked salmon (FI: savulohi), especially the cold smoked one (slowly smoked in 25ºC for hours to days, allowing the natural fragrance of the smoke to permeate the fish) is recommended dish to start your day! You can it it with bread, or as it is. Anything else, in Nordic country, an abundant fish you can find from Baltic Sea is herring. You can found it as fresh commodity, hot-smoked, fried, baked, pickled, and even… as sour herring (SE: surströmming, the Swedish cuisine, a fermented RAW herring with extremely putrid smell… if Capt. Barbossa of Black Pearl in Pirates of Caribbean ever mention the smell of kraken’s mouth… here you go). Here, you can find the pickled herring that tastes salty or sweet. I don’t know exactly yet on how it cooked. Open sandwich, normally with fish is common dish in Nordic countries, especially Norway. And in picture above, you can found herring cooked in tomato and caviar… although we believe it’s not the actual one, but it made with alginate. Yeah… the original one has a price of fortune.
(Silja Line) Roasted beef, spiced chicken with red sauce, and Greek Dolma with Feta cheese.
There are also many European dishes and some Asian dishes like curry in the buffet. Even you can find roast beef and Dolma (Greek dish, grape vine filled with sour rice, been explained here although it’s in Indonesian).
Other than these buffet menus, I was also walking around in the boat. I found this in Frank’s Casual Dining… let’s put it as extra…
Reindeer & beef filled potato lefse (FI: Poro & nautarieska, SE: Ren och nöstek fyllda potatis tunnbröd)
My second reindeer dish during my whole journey in Europe! Lefse is basically Norwegian flatbread made of flour, butter, milk, and potato. Here, the lefse is rolled with cold roasted beef, small-diced roasted reindeer mixed with mayo, lettuce, sliced grilled tomato, and sliced cucumber pickles. I kinda like the combination! It’s fresh!
Mazarin.
Mazarin or in Swedish, Mazarintårta, is a tartlet consists of almond paste dough and topped with icing sugar. So far, this is one of my favorite dessert because I love the sweet flavor combined with the almond taste inside! If you asked me to compare this one with the one I ate in IKEA Tangerang (near Jakarta), Indonesia… it’s heaven to earth compared.
So much new food to try! I’m glad I’ve been through various trip in here!
Special thanks to my lovely colleague from Laboratory of Paper Coating and Converting, Åbo Akademi University, who brought me to the special cruise seminar and then… the buffet!
—
SILJA LINE & VIKING LINE
Aurora Buffet
Breakfast: EUR 10.50
Lunch: EUR 24
Dinner: EUR 31
Frank’s Casual Dining
Reindeer and beef potato lefse: EUR 6.90/SEK 63
Mazarin: (around) EUR 3/SEK 30
Note: Booking the buffet while booking the cruise ticket is recommended to avoid fully booked restaurant.
-AW-
My Culinary Trip at Turku – The Beginning
Moi! Tervetuloa Suomen! Ummm… I meant, welcome to Finland! This month and forth, I will take you to the meals that I will eat for daily routines, or some restaurant visits, or even some traditional food events!
Honestly for me, transition between Indonesia and Finland is not that much in term of food for me because actually I used to eat bread or cereal in the morning instead of rice while I was still in Indonesia. Even more, I actually random enough to made this… Karelian Pasty (low budget and no rye version):
Seems… odd…
The idea comes from Alexis Gabriel AKA “The French Guy” in Youtube…
And… now I’m here! Here in Turku, Finland, Karelian Pasty or Karjalanpiiraka is something you can found almost in every supermarket that selling breads which may cost you only less than 1 euro per kilogram.
The difference is uncanny… this one is piece of art!
Bitten one…
As Indonesian that accustomed to be full after eating rice, me myself… after eating like 3-4 pieces of this (medium size), I’m starting to full. I like the mild savoury and creaminess of the rice in here. I like these one! There are other variants of Karelian Pasty: Porkkanapiirakkan (FI: Porkka = carrot) or Perunapiirakan (FI: Peruna = potato).
Porkkanapiirakkan (with rice and carrot)
To let you all know, Karelia is area in Europe that marks the northwestern part from Russia, including some part in south of Finland. This pasty or pirog is available mostly in Finland, and especially here in Turku (you can find it in LIDL, K-Market, or Siwa). People here say that the pasty is delicious if you eat it with egg butter or munavoi (FI: Muna = egg, voi = butter), butter mixed with chopped hard-boiled egg.
For daily, I ate bread, cheese, and sometime… fish, because fishes in here are all mostly fresh! In Turku, I normally buy my stuffs in supermarket, but sometimes… if I’m in mood for adventure, I go to Kauppatori (FI: market) located in the heart of the city, where sometimes… various goods can be found.
In the market… in fish truck.
We can sometime found a fish truck in the market (last time, I saw it on Wednesday in a week ago, and in Friday around three weeks ago). They sell various cooked fish in there, from salmon with any methods of cooking, fish patties, to other smoked fish. They priced per weight (kilogram).
Smoked salmon…
You can found smoked salmon… with cream cheese and herb, with herb, with spices, or original one. Last time, I bought the one with cream cheese and herb… and it’s truly marvellous!
Smoked salmon with cream cheese and herb (0.25 Kg = EUR 5), warmed in microwave.
Smoked herring (whole fishes; 0.5 Kg = EUR 5), also warmed in microwave.
For the first time, I also interested to buy smoked herring because I was curious about it. Well… like I was in Indonesia eating nila fish, it has a lot of spiky bones in it so you have to be careful, and because it’s whole… you need to separate anything with flesh before you it it. I ate “something” from it, and I don’t like it…
Limppu
Rye breads are common in here. The one I bought (picture above) is called limppu. It made from rye and added with molasses, so the flavor is between sweet and a bit sour, and it has unique aroma. My housemate told me that it’s a traditional bread here for Christmas and good to be eaten with butter… and it does! It also good with lox (cured salmon).
Limppu and salmon… and extra horseradish sauce (as you might see)
Leipajuusto with cloudberry jam
Other than fish and bread, Finland is also has their own cheese… and sometimes Finnish people eat meat or cheese… with jam, especially lingonberry (red one, Vaccinium vitis-idaea) or cloudberry (orange one, Rubus chamaemorus). One of the unique cheese here is called bread cheese or in Finn, leipajuusto. This cheese is made from colostrum rich milk of cow that already has calves, and strangely… it squeaks while bitten (in contact basically) with your teeth, so in America, they call it squeaky cheese. It tastes plain with some richness of cream but a bit salty (if preserved with brine). Normally eaten with cloudberry jam or lakkahillo and it gives the flavor quite colorful in your mouth!
Ah right… there are also special foods that can be eaten to commemorate some events. Like in February 5th, you can eat Runebergin torttu (FI: Runeberg torte, SW: Runebergs Tårta) to celebrate Johan Ludvig Runeberg’s (a poet) birthdate.
Runebergin Torttu
The torte is made from pastry flavored with almond and arrack or rum and in top of it, there is raspberry jam with ring of sugar icing. It is nice to eat as snack in any time!
Ah right, you can found A LOT of pizzeria and kebab store (normally both in one shop) here! You may found one who sell falafel (Lebanese fritter made of chickpea) or kebab pizza!
Well… that’s for now. I believe there will be more soon!
PS: If you are not eating pork, here’s some list to avoid… meals with these words in Finnish:
Sika (FI: pig), sianliha (FI: pork), kinkku (FI: ham), porsaan (FI: pork), porsaanliha (FI: pork meat), porsas (FI: pork), porssu (FI: piggy)
PPS: These stuffs is just okay:
Kala (FI: fish), kana (FI: chicken), pihvi (FI: beef), lammas (FI: lamb)
-AW-
