This easy salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto makes a rich and creamy salmon soup packed with vegetables. It has a gentle warmth due to allspice and a freshness of flavour and fragrance thanks to dill, the beloved herb of Russian, Finnish, and other Nordic and Baltic cuisines. Can’t source salmon or you’re not a fan? Replace it with your favourite fish and you have kalakeitto or fish soup. Serve with sour cream and slices of sourdough or black rye bread for dunking.
If you want a quick, easy, yet rich and creamy salmon soup that’s versatile, try this salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto or Karelskiy rybnyy sup in Russian. It’s one of my favourite salmon recipes, and another of my family recipes my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother made. Serve it in big bowls as a filling, comforting lunch or dinner as my baboushka did, reduce the size for starters, or pour it into small cups with dollops of caviar for a festive appetiser.
My baboushka served soup for lunch nearly every day; almost always it was borscht, occasionally shchi, every now and again rassolnik — because my grandfather was a creature of habit, happy to eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner, day in, day out. Baba, however, was an accomplished cook, who was also creative, and relished experimenting. If she’d had her way, she would have made a different soup every day.
I think that’s why Baba enjoyed me staying, especially after our family left Sydney for a seemingly never-ending road trip around Australia, and the ritual Sunday family meals stopped, which she relished preparing. Baba used my visits to spoil me with delicious food, and as an excuse to cook dishes she rarely made but loved to cook, such as this salmon soup. Why was a Russian-Ukrainian grandmother making the Karelian and Finnish soup lohikeitto?
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Salmon Soup Recipe for Karelian Lohikeitto or Karelskiy Rybnyy Sup
My mother is losing her memory. So after moving her into a lovely light-filled apartment in the heart of Bendigo in July, after 18 months fighting eviction notices and looking for a new home for her during a nationwide housing rental crisis, I set Mum to work on translating my Russian-Ukrainian grandmother’s recipes.
Because Mum is also losing her ability to concentrate and gets tired and irritable easily, like that five-year road trip we did around Australia it seems like a never-ending process. But we’re making progress. And I’m constantly being surprised by what dishes are turning up in my babouskha’s handwritten recipes.
One reason the translation seems to be taking so long is that my grandmother appears to have written in surzhyk, a hybrid Russian-Ukrainian language, which I thought was only spoken. Seems not. Baba wrote in a mix of Russian-Ukrainian. What’s interesting about the recipes is that there seems to be three types. So far.
There are recipes for breads, cakes, biscuits, and pastries. That makes sense, as baking requires specific measures and temperatures — unlike savoury dishes, which Baba almost always cooked from instinct, memory, habit, and taste.
There are a few friends’ recipes. Sharing handwritten recipes was common. I recollect Baba, in apron, often sitting at the dining table writing out a recipe for a friend or neighbour who dropped by, who would sip tea and nibble on biscuits or a slice of just-baked cake, asking questions as Baba wrote down instructions, explaining how to do such and such.
The third type of recipes are for dishes Baba only occasionally made — dishes she didn’t make every day or every week, so didn’t remember the ingredients or steps by heart; dishes that were such a delightful surprise to me when they appeared I’d ask a million questions about them; dishes my grandfather reluctantly ate and grumbled about, sometimes even getting up and going into the kitchen, returning with a plate of something more familiar he preferred to eat.
I don’t recall Baba looking through recipes then deciding what to cook. Rather, we’d walk into Blacktown to go shopping, as Baba did every morning. She’d spot a beautiful fresh ingredient, such as salmon from her favourite fishmongers. Once home, Baba changed from her shopping dress into her house dress, tied on an apron, sat down to go through her binder of recipes, and pulled one out. This salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto was one such recipe.
Russian Karelians and Karelian Lohikeitto
Growing up, I thought this salmon soup was a Russian soup. I thought all the food baboushka cooked was Russian food. Because while Baba was born in the countryside near Odessa, now in Ukraine, when my grandparents and great-grandmother fled to Australia after World War 2, Odessa was still in the Soviet Union or USSR, and when my great-grandmother was born it was part of the Russian Empire. Baba was born on the eve of the Russian Revolution.
My grandparents always shared stories around the dining table, stories about their childhood and coming of age, stories about the wars, about their time in labour camps and displacement camps in Germany and Italy, and stories about starting their new lives in Australia. They talked about survival and always being hungry. Their fondest memories involved food, whether foraging for mushrooms and berries or eating ice cream by the sea. They never talked about ‘identity’.
And I didn’t begin to think about issues of identity until I started to research our family recipes and the food we cooked and ate when I began writing a Russian-Ukrainian-Australian cookbook-cum-family history. (Yes, I know, I’m crazy, I’m working consecutively on two cookbooks, that and the epic Cambodian cookbook and culinary history).
It was only when I began to research this salmon soup recipe that I realised it was a Russian Karelian salmon soup. When I was growing up, it was called ‘Karelskiy rybnyy sup’ in Russian, simply ‘Karelian fish soup’. Despite baboushka making it with salmon, it wasn’t identified as a salmon soup in the way that the Karelian people distinguish salmon soup, ‘lohikeitto’, from fish soup, ‘kalakeitto’. ‘Lohi’ is ‘salmon’, ‘kala’ is fish’, and ‘keitto’ is soup — in Finnish.
Because there are Finnish Karelian people and Russian Karelians. The Republic of Karelia is in northwest Russia, bordering Finland, and Karelian culture and cuisine straddles that border. As the Republic of Karelia has more than 60,000 lakes and some 27,000 rivers, Karelian cuisine is distinguished by its seafood and fish, served in many forms. Fish is cured, pickled, salted, smoked, and roasted, eaten raw, in salads, pies, porridges, stews, and soups.
I’ll tell you more about the Karelian peoples when I share another Karelian recipe. For now, I have some tips to making this salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto or Karelskiy rybnyy sup.
Tips to Making this Salmon Soup Recipe
Just a few tips to making this creamy salmon soup recipe for Karelskiy rybnyy sup or Karelian lohikeitto.
Ingredients
Let’s start with the ingredients, beginning with the key ingredient, the salmon.
Salmon
My grandmother used to shop for fish at her favourite fishmongers in Blacktown — back in the day, she went to a butcher to buy meat, the greengrocer (fruit and vegetable shop) for fresh produce, the delicatessen for tvorog cheese, salamis and other specialty Eastern European products — and the fishmonger, who would fillet the fish.
I remember the fishmonger wrapping up the fish head separately which baboushka took home and used to make fish stock. But she also made this creamy salmon soup with water because she said salmon has so much flavour. You want salmon with skin-off and you’ll be chopping the salmon into chunky pieces around the same size as your vegetables.
My salmon soup recipe calls for 460 g salmon fillets because that’s the standard weight of a pack of four salmon fillets sold in supermarkets in Australia. As this recipe serves four people, that’s around 130 g of salmon per person. But you could round that up or down to 400 g or 500 g or thereabouts. On a tight budget? Go even lower and bump up the veg!
Vegetables
Many Russian soups feature the vegetable quartet of onion, leek, carrot, and potato — and other vegetables are added to that mix depending on the soup; turnips and parsnips for a root vegetable soup, a mix of mushrooms for a mushroom soup, greens such as peas, beans and asparagus for a spring soup — and our salmon soup recipe is no different.
My grandmother mostly used brown onions over white onions, as white onions are more pungent and sharper while brown onions, also called yellow onions, are more subtle and due to their higher sugar content are sweeter. That’s why they’re better for caramelising.
The carrots my grandmother used were a motley mix of oddly shaped things from my grandfather’s backyard vegetable garden. My salmon soup recipe calls for medium-sized carrots. To be honest, it really doesn’t matter what the size of your carrots are, as long as the pieces are cut to a similar size so they cook evenly. Don’t get caught up with grams. My baboushka didn’t weigh anything unless she was baking.
Potatoes
When potatoes are called for in Baba’s recipes, she just writes ‘kartoshka’ or ‘potatoes’ and doesn’t specify the variety. My grandfather also grew potatoes. I remember him bringing in a few potatoes covered in dirt one morning, another day just one, and another time coming into the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear, his blue eyes sparkling and white teeth flashing, with a dozen of the dirt-covered spuds sitting in his white singlet, which he’d gathered up into a pouch of sorts.
When Baba had to buy potatoes from the grocers, she bought brown-skinned potatoes covered in dirt. They’re called ‘brushed potatoes’ in Australia, where they’re popular, as that layer of dirt retains moisture and extends their life. Funnily enough, they’re usually russet potatoes, now considered best for baking, frying and mashed potatoes, or Sebago potatoes, preferred for roasting or mashing.
But baboushka loved russet potatoes for soup as they break down and their high starch content thicken soups. If you prefer potatoes that remain firm and hold their shape, try a waxy potato for this soup, such as a white potato or yellow potato such as Yukon Gold, or even a red potato if you want to leave the skins on to add some colour.
Leeks
Just a note on the leeks: the leeks I’ve been buying are very clean here in Australia. Because I’m told that these days leeks are thoroughly washed at farms. I remember leeks used to have quite a bit of dirt and grit trapped between their leaves. Not anymore!
If your leeks have some dirt on them, it means there’s probably some grit trapped between the layers so after cutting off the dark green tops — I use the light green parts of the leeks — slice the leeks in half lengthwise (vertically) and wash each layer under running water. Pat the leeks dry and slice them horizontally. For this dish I chop them into thick slices.
Bay Leaves and Allspice
Bay leaves and allspice are two quintessentially Russian ingredients also used in neighbouring Baltic and Nordic cuisines. Bay leaves, which have their provenance in Asia Minor, in present-day Turkey, and the Mediterranean, have been used in cooking for several thousand years, and in the oldest documented Russian recipes dating to medieval times.
Bay leaves are used dried, but the freshest dried bay leaves should smell of the forest and add an earthiness, pepperiness, almost medicinal freshness to dishes such as soups and stews, and are also used in pickling, including dill pickles or gherkins.
If your bay leaves aren’t fragrant and are grey-brown rather than green, they’re old and no good to you. Discard them. Most recipes call for a single bay leaf, but I love the flavour of fresh dried bay leaves and tend to use one bay leaf per person, so, yes, four bay leaves. Don’t forget to remove the bay leaves before serving the soup.
Allspice gets used a lot in Russian cooking, as well as neighbouring Baltic and Nordic cuisines. My grandmother loved using spices and a lot of old Russian recipes feature spices such as cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.
It’s not true that all Russian food is bland, as writers are prone to writing. My baboushka’s recipes from Ukraine and Crimea feature spices such as cumin and paprika. The cuisine of Odessa was heavily influenced by Turkish cuisine. My grandfather used to bite into whole chillies and slather mustard and horseradish onto everything.
Allspice is actually a spice ground from a dried, fermented, unripe berry from the Myrtle family that originated in Central America and is called Pimenta dioica or Jamaican pepper, myrtle pepper, or, locally, simply ‘pimento’.
Fresh Dill and Parsley
I love the combination of fresh dill and fresh parsley. Dill is my favourite herb. I guess that passion for dill is in my genes. Fresh dill is showered on everything in Russian cuisine, including this soup. Dill is also used a lot in Nordic and Baltic cuisines.
When it comes to parsley, I normally use flat leaf parsley, called continental parsley here in Australia. But I’ve also been using a lot of curly parsley recently, which has loads of flavour and is fabulous in this soup. I put half the dill and parsley into the soup pot just before ladling it out; enough time to give the soup a boost of fresh herby flavour while keeping the bright green colour.
Serving this Salmon Soup
For traditional family gatherings or formal meals — as with Russian-Ukrainian borscht, which is usually eaten with fried piroshki, peppery minced meat filled hand-pies — this Karelian salmon soup is traditionally eaten with Karelian pies called kalitki in Russian or karjalanpiirakka in Finnish. Baboushka used to bake these occasionally, but once again, I had no idea they originated in Karelia.
For everyday eating, this salmon soup was served with slices of black rye bread, but sourdough is also wonderful. A dish of sour cream was also served on the table for dolloping into the soup. I also serve a dish with more fresh herbs, as I love to add more fresh dill and parsley while I’m eating. I can never have enough dill.
Salmon Soup Recipe for Karelian Lohikeitto
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp butter - unsalted
- 1 brown onion - small, peeled, diced
- 1 leek - thoroughly cleaned, finely sliced into rings, white and light green parts
- 4 potatoes - medium sized, peeled, cut into medium sized cubes
- 2 carrots - medium sized, peeled and sliced
- 800 ml water - or fish stock
- 4 bay leaves
- ½ tsp allspice
- 200 ml cooking cream - or thickened cream or heavy cream
- 460 g salmon fillets - skinless, bones removed, cut into large chunks
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley - finely chopped
- 4 tbsp fresh dill - add half just before serving, and half for garnishing
- Salt and black pepper - to taste
Instructions
- To a soup pot over low, heat the olive oil and butter, add the onions and leaks, and sauté for 5 minutes or so until starting to soften and fragrant.
- Increase the heat to medium, add the carrots, stir to combine, and continue to sauté for a couple of minutes.
- To the same pot, add the potatoes, water or fish stock, bay leaves, and spices, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook for around 15-20 minutes or so, or until the potatoes are tender.
- Reduce the heat to low, add the cream and salmon pieces and cook until the fish is just done, around 3-5 minutes.
- Just before serving, stir through half the finely-chopped fresh parsley and dill, and season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.
- Use a ladle to scoop out the vegetables and lay them in the bowls first to create a base, top them with the salmon pieces, then ladle the creamy broth into the bowls.
- Shower each bowl with the remaining fresh herbs, spoon on a dollop of sour cream, and grind on a little more black pepper.
- Serve with dishes of fresh herbs and sour cream on the table, along with slices of sourdough or black rye bread for dunking.
Notes
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this salmon soup recipe for Karelian lohikeitto or Karelskiy rybnyy sup as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
