Ready to eat (or reheat) every weekend
If you’re a seafood lover, as I am, you likely already know that the food world offers a wealth of famous fish stews: bouillabaisse from Provence, shrimp gumbo from Southern Louisiana, cioppino from San Francisco, creamy clam chowder from New England. I’d like to officially nominate another member to add to that culinary club: the superb salmon soup that people in Finland know as lohikeitto! Every bit as delicious as the others, lohikeitto has just as long—if not longer—a history, and is equally enmeshed in its local culinary culture.
Why haven’t you ever heard of it? World-renowned writer Kalle Oskari Mattila offers some insight:
Here’s the thing about us Finns: we haven’t traditionally been very good at branding. … Engaging in excessive promotion doesn’t suit the quiet, self-effacing Finnish spirit; in Finland, you’re expected to do your job well and then let the work do the talking.
In this case, the work is done in the soup pot. And fortunately for you and me, the folks at the Bakehouse have decided to do a good culinary deed and put lohikeitto on their regular menu—we’re making it every Friday for the foreseeable future. So I’m going to help the marketing-averse Finns out by spreading the word far and wide about this extraordinary, centuries-old Scandinavian salmon soup.
Having eaten it a fair few times since we started serving it last month, I can vouch for the authenticity and excellence of what the Bakehouse’s savory kitchen is crafting each Friday: chunks of fresh Atlantic salmon and pieces of potato, carrots, and leeks in a light, creamy, butter-enriched fish stock that’s enhanced with allspice, nutmeg, and a good dose of chopped fresh dill. Since the Bakehouse team does all the hard work, all you and I need to do is swing by on a Friday and grab a piping hot bowl from the soup well—or, as I’ve done more than once now, pick some up from the cold case, take it home, and reheat.
I like to gild the Finnish soup lily by adding a good-sized piece of Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter atop the hot bowl, as well as a grinding of allspice and some black pepper. Paired with a green salad and a chunk of Bakehouse bread—Vollkornbrot, Country Miche, or Roadhouse all sound terrific to me—it makes for a wonderful meal that takes “fast food” to new levels of culinary greatness!