No, it's not a cinematic lethal Eastern European double agent with impossibly shiny L'Oreal hair, muscular thighs with which she strangles men for a pastime and immaculate make-up which stays immaculate throughout the two hours of thigh-strangling, but a deliciously creamy fish dish with Duchess potatoes and a Bechalmel-type sauce with mushrooms. Or you can leave out the mushrooms if they're not your thing. You can make this dish with any white fish, but in Finland it's most often made with Zander / Sander / Pikeperch. It's one of those funny retro-cool (=uncool) dishes that can be quite festive somehow.



There's a story about Napoleons mistress Countess Walewska that has something to do with this recipe, well clearly the name, and the Finnish independence hero Baron C.G.E Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland, is somehow involved. I think it was one of his favourite meals or something. A bit poncey our C.G.E, and quite the gastronome. Finnish-Swedish you see, they have always had finer sensibilities and tastes than us bush-Finns who have been perfectly happy with our porridge, turnips and pork butt. But of course in this case we forgive him, because of saving the country and all.

It has taken several generations, but today a Finnish man can be seen cooking or reading a food blog without people thinking he is either gay or Swedish. Usually he would still be wearing a rude apron with pictures of genitals on it, just to make a point of his masculinity. But still, progress! Emancipation for our menfolk!

I decided this Christmas to steer away from any traditional Christmas dishes, because mostly they are rubbish. People ate the stuff hundreds of years ago, because better things were not available. Like lutefisk, fish preserved in lye. There is a reason why in these days of freezers and air-freighted fresh fish from warmer climes we don't preserve our fish in lye. It might have to do with the fact that the whole thing smells like dead people.

And no Waitrose during the Greater Wrath, was there? And I kept to plan, apart from a jar of pickled herring (incidentally from Waitrose). And because of the herring I also had to do the traditional  Finnish sweetened potato bake which mysteriously and not at all amusingly turned green during the 5-6 hour sweetening process. I've made it successfully many times and never seen this before. I know the potato type that I used wasn't optimal for this purpose, but I didn't expect a reaction this dramatic.

After witnessing this unexpected development, I just replaced the lid, pretended I didn't see anything and put it back in the oven. A friend suggested it as a great recipe for St. Patrick's day. Not helpful. But as husband doesn't really know what colour it's supposed to be, although I think he might guess not green, I went with it. In the final baking it did change from green to a weird brown - still not massively appetising looking, but so awesome tasting with the herring and some whitefish caviar. I never thought about why these tastes just work so perfectly, but of course the sweetness of the potato bake is the perfect companion to the salty, pungent herring and caviar with sour cream and onions.