Rice porridge cooked in almond milk and 3 more breakfast recipes for the holiday season

Whether you’re a fan of savory, sweet or traditional breakfasts, you’re sure to find a favorite among these tasty festive-season recipes: easy hash-brown pancake, French toast made of croissants and rice porridge cooked in almond milk and served with a zesty, festive fruit soup.

THE FESTIVE SEASON includes many wonderfully relaxed and leisurely mornings when you have time to make a hearty breakfast. These three recipes are both easy and delicious, and they can also be modified to serve a larger group without having to spend too much time in front of the stove.

Dried croissants aren’t that tasty as such but are great for making French toast, which become wonderfully light thanks to the fluffy structure of the croissants. Seasonal spices, tangy orange and a generous dollop of whipped cream are guaranteed to leave a delicious taste in your mouth. The trick is to grate fresh nutmeg on the French toast, which is the easiest to do with a sharp microplane grater.

In many food cultures, there is a dish containing grated potato: Jews celebrate Hanukkah with latkes, the Swiss serve fried potato pancakes and the Americans love their hash browns. The hash-brown pancake is a combination of latkes and Swiss-style potato pancakes; the grated potato is fried into one large pancake instead of several small ones. In addition to saving time and the nerves, it guarantees an equally tasty result!

Almond milk gives rice porridge a gentle sweetness without added sugar.

For some of us, the holidays aren’t the same without rice porridge. This year, try cooking the porridge in almond milk, which gives it a gentle sweetness without added sugar and isn’t as prone to sticking to the bottom of the pot as regular milk.

In Finland, rice porridge is traditionally served with a sweet soup made of mixed fruit, but not everyone loves raisins and prunes in a soup. This soup gets its taste from apple juice, zesty ginger and apricots, providing an orange hue that gives energy in the bleak mid-winter. If you wish, you can puree the soup to make it completely smooth.

If you’re not a morning person and already the thought of making coffee sometimes seems overwhelming, you can also make preparations for the breakfast the night before, so that you’ll only need to do a little light cooking in the morning.

On the night before the breakfast, you can halve the croissants and leave them to dry on the table. You can also whip the cream and mix the milk with the eggs and put them in the fridge. If you grate, drain and mix the potatoes and boil the eggs beforehand, all you have to do in the morning is fry the hash-brown pancake.

It’s also possible to cook the rice porridge and make the fruit soup in the evening and just reheat the porridge in the morning. Porridge becomes congealed when it cools, so it’s advisable to add liquid, such as water or almond milk, in the pot when reheating the porridge.

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The breakfast recipes:

Croissant French toast

Ingredients for four:
4 dry croissants
1 egg
200 ml milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp orange zest
1 tsp cardamom
1 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
200 ml double cream (or canned whipped cream)
30–60 g powdered sugar
grated, fresh nutmeg

Do as follows:
Whip the double cream and season it with powdered sugar.

Halve the croissants. Mix the egg, milk, cinnamon, ground cardamom and orange zest in a bowl. Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan and quickly dip the croissants into the egg mixture. Fry in a pan on medium heat until golden brown on both sides. Serve the French toast with whipped cream, orange wedges and grated fresh nutmeg.

Hash-brown pancake

Ingredients for four:
400 g potatoes
1 small onion
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 tbsp wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 tbsp rapeseed oil + 1 tbsp butter
For serving: cold-smoked salmon or gravlax, 6-minute eggs, fresh dill and crème fraîche.

Do as follows:
Cook the eggs. Boiling the eggs for 6 minutes will result in solid whites and runny yolks.

Wash and dry the potatoes, there’s no need to peel them. Grate the potatoes into a bowl using the coarsest side of the grater. Grate the peeled onion, and mix the grated onion and salt with the grated potatoes. Wrap the grated onion and potatoes in a tea towel (or a reusable vegetable bag made of cloth) and squeeze all the water into a bowl.

After a few minutes, carefully pour the water from the bowl, saving the potato starch left at the bottom. Drop the grated mass in the bowl on top of the starch, and mix it with the black pepper, wheat flour, baking powder and egg. Mix until smooth.

Preheat the oven (with the grill function on) to 225 degrees. Add the rapeseed oil and butter into an oven-proof frying pan. Add the potato mix onto the pan, pat it with a spatula until the surface is smooth and fry it on the stove until the underside starts to brown. Put the pan at the top of the oven and cook the pancake for another 7–15 minutes, depending on how effective the grill function is, until the surface is golden brown. Remember to keep an eye on the oven to avoid burning the pancake.

Cut the cooked pancake into slices and serve immediately with salmon, peeled eggs, fresh dill and crème fraîche. If you don’t like salmon, traditional Finnish mushroom or beetroot salad also go well with the hash-brown pancake.

Vegan rice porridge

Ingredients for four:
300 ml water
170 g porridge rice
1 liter almond milk
1 tsp salt
1 almond

Do as follows:
Boil the water in a large pot and add the rice. Lower the heat and let the grains of rice absorb the water, stirring the mixture from time to time. Pour the almond milk into the pot when almost all of the water has been absorbed. Let the porridge simmer under a lid on low heat, stirring the mixture at regular intervals. Season with salt and drop in an almond, if you wish. Almond milk is naturally slightly sweet, and the degree of sweetness varies depending on the milk used. If you prefer a sweeter porridge, season it with sugar. Serve the porridge immediately with the sweet apricot soup.

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Sweet apricot soup

Ingredients for four:
1 l freshly squeezed apple juice
5-cm piece of fresh ginger
1 orange (peel)
1 pack (200 g) of dried apricots
3 tbsp potato flour

Do as follows:
Measure 900 ml of apple juice into the pot and set 100 ml aside for the thickener. Cut the ginger into pieces. Add the ginger pieces, orange peels and apricots in the juice. Let it simmer on low heat for 30 minutes until the juice has flavor and the apricots are soft.

Take the pot off the stove and remove the ginger pieces and orange peels from the soup. If you want the soup to be completely smooth, you can puree it at this point. Remember to be careful, since the soup is hot!

Mix the potato flour with 100 ml of cold apple juice, and pour the mixture in the soup constantly stirring. Put the pot back on the stove and keep stirring the soup with a wooden spatula or fork. Don’t whisk the soup to avoid making it too congealed. Let the soup bubble a few times while stirring until it thickens. Allow the soup to cool and enjoy with porridge or as such.

Design Stories contributor Suvi Kesäläinen is a photographer, who loves to create dishes that are not only delicious but also fast and easy to make. She’s passionate about the best seasonal ingredients, local food and intriguing culinary trends.

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See also:

• New tableware at Finnish Design Shop >

Text and photos: Suvi Kesäläinen