Poronkäristys-Makkara
Reindeer sausage, a lean and gamey meat, mixed with pork for smoothness, lightly smoked over birch. A speciality of the reindeer herders of Finnish Lapland.
| Lean reindeer meat | 600 g |
| Lean pork | 200 g |
| Pork fatback | 200 g |
| Fine salt | 20 g |
| Ground black pepper | 3 g |
| Juniper berries, crushed | 3 g |
| Dried thyme | 2 g |
| Garlic powder | 2 g |
| Iced water | 60 ml |
| Hog casing (Ø 32–38 mm) | — |
- Preparation: Trim the reindeer meat, removing all tendons and membranes. Cut all the meats into cubes. Chill hard.
- Mincing: Mince through the 6 to 8 mm plate. Because reindeer meat is lean, pork fat is essential for smoothness.
- Seasoning: Crush the juniper berries in a mortar. Mix all the spices with the ice water. Add to the meats and knead.
- Resting: Refrigerate for 24 hours to develop the flavours.
- Stuffing: Stuff into the hog casings. Form sausages 15–20 cm long.
- Smoking: Cold-smoke over birch wood for 4 to 8 hours. Birch is the traditional wood in Lapland.
- Drying: Dry for 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator.
- Cooking: Pan-fry or grill over medium heat. Serve with mashed potato and lingonberry jam.
The name poronkäristys-makkara joins the word poronkäristys, the traditional reindeer sauté, and makkara, the sausage. The sausage is conceived as a cased adaptation of the dish, allowing reindeer meat to be eaten in a portable form and grilled over a campfire.
The reindeer is the central animal of Sami culture and of the Lapland economy. Its semi-nomadic herding occupies some 4,500 herders in Finland. The meat is lean and dense, with a pronounced gamey taste owed to the reindeer’s natural diet of lichens, arctic grasses and wild berries. This low-fat content makes it difficult to work into sausage on its own. The addition of pork fat resolves the problem and keeps it from drying out during cooking.
Juniper berries are the emblematic spice of Lapland cooking. The birch-wood smoking, also found in the Norwegian vossapølse and in certain variants of the Swedish isterband, imparts a gentle, faintly sweet smoke suited to the delicacy of the reindeer meat. The drying that follows the smoking produces a semi-dry sausage that keeps longer — well suited to the itinerant life of reindeer herders.
It is eaten pan-fried or grilled over the campfire, with mashed potato and lingonberry jam. In Lapland restaurants, it is served on a wooden board with barley bread (rieska) and butter.
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