Cold Nights, Hot Performances and Parmesan Pretzels

There is no shortage of good music or theatre on offer in Helsinki even if you don’t speak Finnish. My Finnish has improved to the point where I can actually manage to buy tickets without speaking any English, unless they come up with complicated questions regarding my attendance. Actually I could not even answer a very simple question in Finnish, but I am working on it. The Finns have been very kind though. Every time I open my mouth to practice my newly acquired Finnish language skills, they kindly switch to English. How on earth did they guess? Thank heavens though, their English skills are far superior to my Finnish ones.

In the past few weeks I’ve attended and enjoyed performances of ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ at Komedia Teaterri and the Helsinki City Orchestra at Finlandia Hall. The orchestra has an impressive repertoire and plays music from a wide variety of composers. During April 2009, I am looking forward to a performance of choreographer Jyri Kylian’s dances at the Helsinki Opera House. And... an upcoming performance of Mozart’s ‘Magic Flute’ with surtitles in English, had me reaching for my credit card against my better judgement too.

The Opera House and Finlandia Hall are linked by a garden walkway next to the water. Cross the road and you have the historic old Storyville Jazz Bar with autographed photos of Satchmo on the wall and world class jazz performances most nights of the year. In addition, we can relax with a beer and sandwich for dinner and enjoy two hours of live jazz at Cafe Ursula on the downtown shorefront every second Wednesday evening too.

In summary, a feast for music and theatre lovers at extremely affordable prices. We plan to spend many chilly nights and some Sunday afternoons enjoying some of the best music on offer. Before the show we like to relax with a glass of wine and some freshly baked soft pretzels. I am particularly fond of parmesan cheese so I’ve adapted my recipe to give me a savoury parmesan hit with my wine before we head out into the cold for a night on the town.

Parmesan Pretzels

For the pretzels:

1 ½ Cups (375ml) Unbleached flour
1 ½ Tablespoon raw sugar
2 teaspoons Sea salt
2 teaspoons Dried yeast dissolved in 125ml lukewarm water
1/2 Cup (125ml) Parmesan cheese plus extra for topping

For boiling the pretzels:
4 Cups boiling water
2 Tablespoons bicarbonate of soda
Egg wash:
1 Egg beaten with 1 teaspoon of cold water
This recipe makes 4 medium sized pretzels. Double the ingredients to make the big pretzels.

• Mix the sugar, flour, parmesan and salt in a bowl.
• Once the yeast is frothing, after 5 minutes in the warm water, add it to the flour mix.
• Mix and/or knead the dough till smooth. Add a little bit of flour if too sticky.
• Put the dough in a lightly greased bowl and let it rise for an hour. It should double in size.
• Turn out the dough onto a baking mat and divide into 4 pieces.
• Roll each piece of dough into a rope about 25cm long with a thicker piece in the centre.
• Prepare a baking sheet by lining with baking paper or a baking mat.
• Make the pretzel knots and place on the baking paper. Let them rise again for 45 minutes till doubled in size.
• Preheat the oven to 200 C.
• Bring the 4 cups of water to boiling point in a medium size deep stainless steel casserole.
• Once the water is boiling, add the bicarbonate of soda.
• Gently lower one or two pretzels at a time into the boiling water.
• Boil each pretzel for 30 seconds. They will puff up and look a bit wrinkled.
• Gently remove the pretzels from the boiling water, let the water drain off and place them back on the baking mat or on the baking sheet.
• Paint each pretzel with the egg wash and sprinkle liberally with parmesan cheese or , if you prefer, herbs, paprika, chilli, curry powder etc.

• Bake for approximately 10 to 15 minutes till a rich golden brown colour.
• Let the pretzels cool a few minutes before you tuck in. I like to eat them warm as is. I believe that hot chilli sauce and mustard are also good with them.