Smoked salmon sandwich spread

300 g smoked salmon
3 eggs, hard-boiled
2 tbs mayonnaise
4 tbs sour cream
Dill
Aromat or Accent (may be left out)

Chop the salmon very finely, e.g. in a food processor, but do not process into a paste – there should be tiny pieces of salmon in the spread. Mash the eggs with a fork and mix together the eggs, salmon, mayonnaise and sour cream. Add a little Aromat and dill. Chill and serve with crackers or slices of white baguette.

Brauðterta – Icelandic style sandwich loaf: Tuna & egg

3 layers of bread (refer to the first sandwich loaf post for more information)

200 g mayonnaise
100 g sour cream
5 hard-boiled eggs
200 g canned tuna
1 medium onion
Aromat or Accent (may be left out or replaced with garlic powder)

Mix together mayo, cream and Aromat. Mash the eggs with a fork and drain the tuna well. Chop the onion very finely. Mix everything together and layer between the bread slices. Also put some spread on the ends and sides of the loaf and decorate with tuna, egg slices, and salad leaves.

Brauðterta – Icelandic style sandwich loaf: Ham and egg

3 layers of bread (refer to the first sandwich loaf post for more information)

150 g mayonnaise
100 g sour cream
Aromat or Accent (may be left out)
Piquant seasoning
150 g thinly sliced ham
5 hard-boiled eggs
1/2 can green asparagus

Mix together mayo, cream and seasonings. Mash the eggs with a fork and chop the asparagus finely. Mix everything together. Put the spread between the layers of bread, spread mayo-sour cream evenly mixture over the loaf and cover with slices of ham. Garnish with, e.g. tomato roses, egg slices, cucumber, bell peppers, halved or quartered grapes, fresh parsley.

Brauðterta – Icelandic style sandwich loaf: Shrimp

Continuing from last'week's post:

4 layers of sandwich bread
300 g mayonnaise
200 g sour cream
300 g Arctic shrimp
1/2 red bell pepper
6 hard-boiled eggs
Aromat or Accent (may be left out or you can substitute garlic powder)
I also like to use a teensy amount of freshly ground black pepper in shrimp fillings

Mix the mayonnaise and sour cream until smooth and well-blended. Thaw and drain the shrimps well. Finely chop the pepper, mash the eggs with a fork and mix everything together. Put the spread between the layers of bread. Smooth a thin layer of mayo-sour cream mixture evenly over the loaf and garnish with large shrimps, egg slices and vegetables, e.g. bell peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes.

Brauðterta – Icelandic style sandwich loaf: Salmon and egg

I had planned to post a sandwich loaf recipe much earlier, but since I rarely make them and when I do I don’t use a recipe, I had to find a set recipe first. I finally did find it, in fact several of them, which I will be posting in the following weeks.

Sandwich loaves, or ‘sandwich cakes’ as they are called in Iceland, are an enduring presence at Icelandic celebrations where cakes are served. While not an Icelandic invention (I think they may have originated in the USA), they have been popular here for at least 50 years and there seems to be no stopping them. While the fillings change according to fashion and whim and we don’t use half as much mayonnaise in them as once was the case they continue to be a vehicle for cooks to display their talents with garnish, and a savoury palate cleanser in between nibbles of all the sweet cakes usually served at traditional birthday parties.

They are generally made from white bread, and you can buy the bread pre-cut for the purpose.

There are two kinds of sandwich cake bread available. One is basically a pan-baked loaf of white sandwich bread that has been sliced lengthwise, like this (for a bit of a laugh at the expense of yesterday’s cookbook authors, keep clicking the “next” button until you get to the end of the pictures).

The crusts are removed, leaving between 4 and 6 long slices of bread.

The other kind are rolls. These are big, thin slices of bread that look like the cake layer of a jelly roll before it's rolled up. They can either be rolled up or layered to make large sandwich cakes. In a pinch, the other kind can be used instead, but care is then needed when rolling them up.

These cakes can be made using any sandwich filling or anything you will find as a topping for Danish smörrebröd, but certain fillings are more common than others.

The most common are:
Ham and asparagus
Ham and egg
Shrimp salad (shrimp, egg, ham or shrimp, ham and pineapple)
Roast beef (roast beef with French-fried onions, remoulade sauce, and either sliced pickled cucumber or slices of canned peaches or apricots)
Tuna spread (tuna and egg and sometimes either chopped onion or sweet corn)
Salmon and egg

Traditionally, the fillings are held together with mayonnaise, and here arises a problem: Commercially made Icelandic mayonnaise is like no-other kind I have tried. It is not only thicker, but it is not as vinegary-tasting. I have on several occasions tried to make these kinds of fillings (in small portions suitable for sandwiches) with imported mayonnaise, but the only time it has worked out was when making tuna spread, and then only because I not only drained the tuna thoroughly, but I actually squeezed out all the juice before making the spread. Still, the flavour wasn’t as good. When I tried making shrimp salad with Hellman’s mayonnaise, the mayonnaise turned soupy and ruined the salad.

These days, a mixture of mayonnaise and sour cream is generally used, and sometimes the mayonnaise is dispersed with and cream cheese is used instead.

I never, ever use a recipe myself, but when you have never made one of these before a recipe is a good starting point. I rarely get the opportunity to make sandwich loaves, but I plan to take photos whenever I get the chance and will add them to show how these creations can be decorated. This and the other sandwich loaf posts are therefore going to become rerun posts, so if you leave comments, I will append your comments to the bottom of the appropriate post whenever I refresh it and bring it back to the top because Blogger erases the comments when you repost a blog entry with a new date.

And now for today's featured sandwich loaf:

Salmon & egg sandwich loaf
This is a delicious variation on the traditional salmon and egg salad loaf. A traditional loaf includes mashed hard-boiled eggs, but this uses scrambled eggs instead.

3 layers of sandwich bread

Salmon spread:
300 g smoked salmon, thinly sliced
5 eggs, hard-boiled
200 g mayonnaise
100 g sour cream

Keep back some extra slices of salmon

Chop the salmon and eggs into small pieces and mix well with the mayo and cream. Chill.

Scrambled eggs with salmon:
4 eggs
3 tbs cream
100 g smoked salmon
Salt and pepper to taste

Lightly whip together the eggs and cream and season with salt and pepper. Purée the salmon in a food processor and add to the egg mixture, stirring lightly together. Fry the scrambled eggs until well done and set aside to cool.

Put 1/3 of the salmon spread on the bottom layer of bread, top with the second bread layer, then the scrambled egg, then more bread and end with salmon spread. Smooth the remaining salmon spread on the ends and side of the loaf. Decorate with thin slices of salmon (or cover the whole thing with salmon slices) and garnish with vegetables, e.g. tomato roses, slivers of red bell pepper or cucumber. Egg slices are also suitable decoration.

Skyr dessert

200 g oatmeal biscuits/crackers (e.g. Graham crackers)
60 g butter
1 tbs sugar

Crumble the crackers finely. Melt the butter and stir into the crumbs with the sugar. Press into the bottoms of several small serving bowls.

4 sheets gelatin
The juice of 1/2 lemon
300 g plain skyr
100 g sugar
2 eggs
150 g sour cream
1 tbs sugar

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for 5 minutes. Remove from the water, squeeze out the remaining water and put the gelatin in a bowl or the top of a double boiler with the lemon juice. Heat gently until the gelatin is melted.

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Mix together sugar and skyr and add the egg yolks, one by one. Fold in the sour cream.

Lightly whip the egg whites with 1 tbs. sugar. Mix the gelatin into the skyr mixture and then gently fold in the whipped egg whites. Divide the mixture between the bowls and cool in the refrigerator.

This can also be made into a whole dessert, in which case use a large, deep pie dish.

Liver with bacon (Lifur með fleski)

I love liver with bacon. I haven't tried this recipe, but I plan to.

750 g liver
100 bacon
1 tsp salt
1/3 tsp pepper
1/6 tsp ginger
1/6 tsp ground cloves
60 g cooking fat
400 ml boiling cooking liquid
150 ml cream
40 g flour
200 ml cold water

Clean the liver and cut into thin slices. Mix together the flour, salt and spices and roll the liver slices in it to coat. Lay a rasher of bacon on each liver slice and roll up the slices. Tie together with cotton string. Heat the cooking fat ion a pan and brown the liver slices in it. Add the milk and water and cook for 15-20 minutes. Thicken the sauce with the flour (make a paste with a little cold water to avoid clumping). Cook the sauce for a couple of minutes, then add the cream.

I imagine this would be nice with mashed potatoes, redcurrant jelly and a salad.

Stuffed sheep's hearts - Fyllt hjörtu

5-6 sheep's hearts (or 4-5 pig's hearts)
10-12 prunes (stoneless)
600-700 ml mixture of equal proportions water and milk
50 g butter
50 g flour
salt and pepper
sauce colouring

Chop up the prunes and stuff the hearts with them. Sew closed. Melt the butter in a pan and brown the hearts in it. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the milk/water mixture and cook for 1-2 hours. Remove the hearts from the cooking liquid.

Make a paste of the flour and a little bit of cold water. Bring the cooking liquid to the boil and stir in the flour paste to make a sauce. Add sauce colouring if desired.

Cut the hearts into slices, and serve with the sauce on the side.

Christmas turkey

Nope, it's not a recipe, just a couple of very funny comics I came across. Just click the links to view. Best viewed in the order given here.

Is this defrosted?
Is it thawed yet?
Get your hand out of there!

Liver pate - Lifrarkæfa

I love liver pate, but I have never tried to make it, probably because you can get perfectly good liver pate in most supermarkets in Iceland. This sounds like a good recipe:

700 g liver
300 ml milk
2 cooked potatoes
1 tbs chopped, browned onion
3 eggs
100 g butter or 300 g fatty bacon
7 tbs flour
salt and pepper
dash of cardamom
1 fillet of spice-pickled herring (or about 10 anchovy fillets)

Soak the liver in cold water for about 30 minutes. Remove the membranes and blood vessels. Chop coarsely and put through a grinder 4 times, with the herring/anchovies, onion, and bacon (if using). Add the potatoes for the last round of grinding.

If you're using a food processor, dump everything above in at once and process into a smooth paste, using the chopping blades.

Mix together the flour and spices and mix into the liver paste along with the cooled melted butter (if using). Add the eggs and mix well. Finally stir in the milk, little by little.

Grease a pate mould and press the raw pate into it. Cover with a cheesecloth and cook in a water-bath(*) for about 1 hour.

May be served hot or cold. A classic delicious Danish smørrebrødrecipe calls for dark rye bread with warm liver pate, bacon and mushrooms.

I like liver pate best smeared on Danish rye bread and topped with pickled red beets. The first time I brought such a sandwich with me to school for my mid-morning snack, the other kids thought the sandwich filling was raw meat!
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(*) Water-bath: Heat an oven to medium temperature (about 180°C). Bring to the boil enough water to cover the bottom of an oven-proof pan (e.g. a jelly roll pan). Put the pate mould into the pan, pour the boiling water into the pan and put immediately in the oven to cook.

Stuffed leg of lamb

This is a rather good Sunday dish. If you don't know how to bone a leg of lamb, either buy it boned or get your butcher to bone it for you.

1 leg of lamb (about 2 kg. before boning)
50 g prunes, stoneless
30 g dried apples
2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. pepper

Soak the apple slices to soften. Rub half of the salt and pepper on the inside of the leg of lamb and stuff with the prunes and apple slices. Sew closed. Rub the remaining salt and pepper on the outside of the meat.

Put meat into a greased oven pan and roast at 250°C for about 90 minutes, or until a meat thermometer inserted into the steak shows 160°C. Start by roasting for 10-20 minutes, then add water to cover the bottom of the pan, to a depth of about 1 cm. Baste the meat with the cooking liquid every 15 minutes or so. Top up the water when it starts to boil down.

About 10-15 minutes before the steak is done, remove it from the oven, pour the cooking liquid into a saucepan, through a strainer. Put the steak back into the oven until a nice crust has formed. While it is in the oven, make the sauce:

Skim the fat off the surface of the cooking liquid. Heat in the saucepan. Make a thin, smooth paste from a couple of tbs. of flour and a bit of cold water. When the cooking liquid boils, stir the flour paste into the boiling liquid, stirring with a beater. Pour slowly and when you feel the liquid starting to thicken, stop pouring. Gently simmer the sauce for a couple of minutes, to remove the raw flour taste. Adjust the flavour with salt and pepper, and if you use it, add a little sauce colouring to get a nice, brown colour.

Serve either whole or sliced, with potatoes (poached, caramelised or mashed), sauce and whatever other side dishes you like (I like redcurrant jelly, salad and peas).

Twice-baked buns - Tvíbökur

Twice-baked bread keeps well and is good in all kinds of sweetened soups, like Sweet Soup, Crowberry Soup, and Cocoa Soup.

250 g flour OR

100 g bread or all-purpose flour and 100 g whole-wheat flour

t tsp baking powder
1 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
75 g butter or margarine
100-150 ml milk

Sift together the flour, baking powder and cardamom and add the sugar. Add the softened butter or margarine and rub into the dry mix until the mixture is crumbly. Add the milk, no more than needed to make the dough stick together. Knead until smooth and roll up into sausage shapes. Cut into even-sized pieces and roll into balls. Arrange on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 180°C until light brown.

Remove the buns from the oven and cool until they can be handled, then cut in half, put back on the cookie sheet and dry in the oven at a low temperature.

Serve with the above-mentioned sweet soups or with coffee.

Flatbread II - Flatbrauð II

There is already one recipe for flatbread on this blog, but I came across another one that I thought would be interesting to post for comparison. The first recipe, which is the basic, traditional recipe, is just rye flour, salt and water, but this one is more elaborate, and would most likely have been made only in richer households, since it contains three types of flour, The use of a raising agent should also mean lighter bread.

200 g whole-wheat flour
200 g bread or all-purpose flour
200 g rye flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
450-500 ml milk

Mix together all the dry ingredients. Bring the milk to the boil. Add the milk to the dry mix, stirring it in with a wooden spoon while it is too hot to touch and then knead it. When fully kneaded (smooth and even), divide into 10 pieces. Flatten and cut out into round pieces to fit the size of the skillet. Prick and bake on each side until the bread looks dry.

A little message to my readers

Salting meat - Saltkjöt

Someone e-mailed me not too long ago and asked for a recipe for salting mutton. This is the recipe in my mother‘s old cookbook. I haven‘t tested it, but am relying on my grandmother‘s advice for the information that was missing, such as the minimum brining time and how long it will stay preserved.

The recipe contains saltpetre (potassium nitrate), the use of which has been mostly discontinued in Iceland due to health concerns. Saltpetre was used as an extra preservative and it also gives the food a characteristic pink hue. It may be safely left out, but the meat may not keep for quite as long as it would otherwise. The sugar tenderises the meat.

Meat may be dry salted or brined. Dry salting is best for lean meat and brining for fatty meat.


For 50 kg of meat (mutton, lamb, horse, beef, pork, etc.):

Salting mixture:
3 kg salt (coarse pickling salt works best)
250 g sugar
2 litres water
(30 g saltpetre)

The meat should be cut into in serving-sized pieces (half-cutlets, steaks, etc.). It should be clean and should preferably be brined or salted as soon as it has cooled after butchering.

Choose a clean, watertight container with a tight lid for the salting/brining (a barrel is traditional). Its size should depend on the amount of meat you want to preserve. It should always be as close to full as possible.

Method:
Dry salting:
Mix together salt, sugar and saltpetre (if using). Sprinkle a little of the mixture on the bottom of the barrel. Roll the meat pieces in the mixture and pack them tightly into the barrel in layers. Press down. Sprinkle a little salt over each layer and pour 100 ml water (2/5 cup) water over each layer. End with a solid layer of salt.

Put a lid or something that fits snugly into the barrel on top of the meat and weigh it down, e.g. with bricks. A brine will form as the juices leak out of the meat. Make sure that the meat is all under the surface of the brine (thus the weighing down). Leave the meat in the barrel for at least 3 weeks, in a cool place. Should keep for up to a year if kept cool.

Brining:
Brining is adviceable for warmer weather and fatty meat. To make the brine, mix salt, sugar and saltpetre in approximately the percentages in the recipe for the salting mixture, and dissolve in cool water until a raw potato floats in the brine. Pack the meat in layers as in the previous recipe, pouring in the brine when the barrel is almost full. Keep topping up with brine as it seeps into the meat layers, and weight down when the meat has settled and the barrel will take no more brine.

Before cooking the salted/brined meat, soak it in plenty of water as needed (overnight or longer, depending on for how long it has been in the brine, changing the water a couple of times).

This meat may be cooked and served with cooked potatoes and cabbage. The stock may be used to make pea soup.

Cod with roe and liver

Fresh cod roe becomes available in late winter, and is a lovely addition to the fresh seafood available year round.

My mother would serve roe with cooked cod's liver, cooked cod or haddock, and potatoes, sometimes with melted sheep's tallow (with cracklings) or butter, and rye bread on the side.

To cook the roes, drop them into boiling salted water and cook for 15 to 45 minutes, depending on their size. The roe is cooked when firm and of an even pale pink colour all the way through.

Drain well and serve warm or cold. Cold roe can be sliced and used as a topping for bread.

To cook cod liver, soak in cold water for about 30 minutes, to allow any nematodes to crawl out (this is why I do not eat fish liver). Remove the membrane from the liver, drop into heavily salted boiling water and cook for about 10 minutes. Some like to cook the liver, fish and roe together, but as the liver imparts a strong flavour to the cooking liquid, I recommend cooking it separately.

If the roe is to be served with fish, the fish may be cooked in the same pot. Filleted fish may be cut into pieces about 5 cm wide and cooked with the roes for the last 7-10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish pieces.

Cod roe omelet - hrognaeggjakaka

Cod roe should be available in fish shops now, and I usually treat myself to some once or twice during the season. (I really must check tomorrow). The traditional way of serving it is to cook the "bags" of roe in salted water, along with the liver from the fish and some fish, either cod or haddock. Everything then becomes greasy and slightly liver-flavoured, which I do not like at all. (Just take a sip of cod liver oil and then tell me if you honestly like the taste). But it is not the taste that I dislike the most about cod liver, it is the nematodes. I don't think I will say more on the subject, as I don't want to put anyone off their food. Just don't look up the word if you are going to eat soon.

I usually cook roe in salted water with some fish but without the liver. While leafing through one of my cookbooks looking for recipes, I came across this, which I really should try – it sound delicious:

1/2 kg cooked cod roe (use canned if you can't get fresh). If you can get fresh roe, clean well under cold running water. Don't remove the membrane that holds the roe together. Cook in salted water for 15-45 minutes, depending on size.
70-100 g butter
Salt and pepper
1 onion
4 eggs
3 tbs cheese, grated (I would use Gouda)

Slice roe and onion and brown in a frying pan. Season with salt and pepper and set aside. Mix eggs with salt and pepper and cheese. Pour into a hot frying pan and cook until the omelet is nearly done. Top with onions and roe slices, close the omelet and serve immediately.

Pickled beetroot and beetroot salad

Pickled red beets (beetroots) can be served as a side dish with all kinds of meats, and also in salads, such as herring salad and the salad I have included a recipe for below. This is a slightly different variety from the one I posted earlier.

1 kilo red beets
600 ml white vinegar
150 g sugar
1/2 tbs caraway seeds
a few mustard seeds

Cook the beets with the skins on, in boiling water or bake in the oven, until al dente but not watery. Peel and cut into slices, about 1/2 cm thick. Commercially pickled beets are usually cut into waffled slices, but if you don't have a waffle slicer just cut them with a knife.

Layer into a sterilised jar and sprinkle caraway seeds between the layers.

Heat the sugar in the vinegar until melted, bring to the boil and pour over the beet slices. Sprinkle some mustard seeds on top and close the jars.

Allow to ripen for at least a couple of weeks. Should keep for several months if kept cool.


Beetroot salad:

2 green apples, peeled, cored and diced (1-2 cm)
250 g pickled red beets, diced (1-2 cm)
250 ml whipping cream

Pat the beet slices dry before dicing. Whip the cream to soft peaks and add the apple and beets. Chill.

Best if made a few hours before serving. Great with smoked meats, e.g. hangikjöt.

Here is another variety

Cooked, fermented shark – Hákarlsstappa

I have no idea whether people still use this recipe, but I am publishing it here as a historical curiosity.

The shark is fermented as instructed here.

Remove the skin from the shark piece. Cook in boiling water until firm and cooked through. Remove and allow the liquid to drip off over night. Cut into pieces and mash in a cooking pot. Add sour butter (I never said this was good) or stale tallow. Serve hot with potatoes, or cold as a topping for rye bread.

Blóðmör - Icelandic blood sausage

Blood sausage is an ancient dish and can be found in many countries where domestic animals are kept and there are no taboos against eating blood. This is the Icelandic version.

Slátur is the collective name for blood sausage and liver sausage, and also for the necessary ingredients. "To take slátur" means to buy the ingredients and make the sausages, and in fact Icelandic supermarkets sell boxes with blood, livers, suet and stomachs (sometimes also the salt, cereals, thread and needles) in the autumn when the summer lambs are slaughtered.

2 litres sheep's blood
1 litre water
50 g coarse salt
1 kilo rye flour
200 g flour
400 g oatmeal
2 - 2 1/2 kilos sheep's suet

Some people add raisins or chopped Iceland moss to the stuffing. If using Iceland moss, use correspondingly less rye flour and a little more water in the stuffing. If using raisins, use correspondingly less suet.

Cut each stomach into 4-5 pieces suitable for stuffing, or use bags of sausage skin or even plastic cooking bags if you can't get stomachs or they don't appeal to you (sorry, the recipe does not state how many sheep stomachs are needed and I can't tell you because I always use sausage skin bags and make a much smaller recipe).

Strain the blood and mix with water and salt. Stir in the flour, rye flour and oatmeal. Chop the suet - taste will decide whether finely or coarsely, but make the pieces no larger than 1/2 cm across. Mix with the rest.

Take the pieces of stomach and sew bags out of them, using blanket stitch or overcasting stitch, leaving a hole for stuffing. Only stuff each bag a little more than half full. Stitch closed (use pure cotton thread).

To cook, drop the sausages into plenty of boiling salted water and simmer for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. Turn over now and then, and prick gently if they look likely to burst. Remove from the water. If the sausages are to be served cold, let them cool in the skins. Store in the refrigerator.

Remove plastic cooking bags and sausage skins before serving. The stomach bag can be peeled off before serving or served and eaten with the stuffing.

Serving:
Serve hot with boiled or mashed potatoes.
Serve cold on the side with rice pudding or porridge or sliced on top of bread.
Fry and serve sprinkled with sugar and mashed potatoes on the side.
Pickle in whey for a month or more and serve cold. Blood sausage can actually go sour on its own, with a flavour similar to whey-pickling.

May be frozen if raw.

Snúðar og snúðakaka - Rolled buns and Bun cake

This is a nice cake that appeals to kids. The buns can also be baked and served separately.

25 g cake yeast OR 2 1/2 tsp dry yeast
100 ml milk, skimmed milk or water
400 ml flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
30 g butter or margarine, soft
1 small egg (or 1/2 a big one)

Filling:
1 tbs butter
2 tbs sugar
50 ml raisins or 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Icing:
4 tbs confectioner's (icing) sugar
1/2 tsp cocoa powder (optional)
2 tsp boiling water

Heat the milk to 37°C and dissolve the yeast in it.

Mix the flour, salt and sugar together in a bowl. Crumble in the butter. Add the egg and milk, mix well and knead well. Set dough aside to rise for 15-20 minutes. Meanwhile you can prepare the rest of the ingredients.

Punch down the dough and knead again. Roll out into a rectangular shape, about 20x30 cm. Spread with soft butter and sprinkle over the sugar and raisins or cinnamon. Roll up into a sausage shape and cut into 10-12 slices.

To make a cake, arrange the slices into a buttered cake pan so that they touch and let them rise for 20-30 minutes. If you want to make individual buns, arrange on a buttered cookie sheet with about an inch between them and let rise for 20-30 minutes.

Bake on a lower rung of the oven at 200-225°C for 15-20 minutes for cake and 10-15 minutes for buns. Pour over the icing while still warm.

Steikt síld - Fried herring

This recipe also works with mackerel and other fish of the herring family, just adjust the cooking times according to the size of the fish.

Serves 2:
2-4 fresh, whole herrings (depending on size)
1 medium onion
40 g butter or margarine or equivalent in vegetable oil
3-4 tbs rye flour or wheat bran
1/2 – 3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground white pepper
1/2 lemon
Parsley for garnishing

Clean the herrings (or get your fishmonger to do it): remove all innards and membranes from the body cavity, remove the spine and bones from the insides, cut off the tail and fins, scrape the slime from the skin. Remove the head if you would rather not have it on, but don‘t fillet the fish.

Peel and slice the onion. Mix together the flour or bran and the salt and pepper. Melt and heat half the butter and fry the onion in it until slightly browned. Set aside.

Put the remaining butter in the pan and heat. Roll the herrings in the flour mixture and put in the pan. Brown at medium-high temperature, lower the heat and continue frying for 3-5 minutes on each side. Remove and set aside.

Reheat the onion and spread over the herrings. Arrange lemon wedges around the fish and garnish with parsley.

Serve with boiled potatoes.

Oven-baked fish in cream sauce

This is a nice fish dish that my mother sometimes makes. I make no claims about its traditionality.

Serves 2:

400 g fish fillets (mom uses cod or haddock, but try plaice, sole, flounder or other white fish)
1/2 tsp salt
25 g butter or margarine
50 ml cream
100 ml milk
1 tbs breadcrumbs (Paxo crumbs look nice and colourful, but home-made ones are fine)
2 tbs grated cheese (mom uses Gouda, but I imagine Cheddar or a mixture of Mozzarella and some stronger cheese would be good)

Set the oven temperature to 175°C. Butter or oil a shallow oven-proof dish. Cut the filleted and boned fish fillets into pieces and arrange in the dish. Sprinkle the salt over the fish and dot with butter.

Put the dish into the heated oven and bake the fish for 8-10 minutes.

Mix together the milk, cream and cheese and pour gently over the fish. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs evenly over the top and continue baking for 15 minutes. Serve in the dish, with potatoes or rice and a fresh salad on the side.

Curried fish, 2 varieties

This is basically the same recipe with one ingredient replaced with another.
As I mentioned earlier, Icelanders embraced curry powder as an exotic new cooking ingredient when it arrived in the country and there are numerous recipes for food that call for curry powder.

Here are two that I like:

Serves 2:
400 g fish fillets (tradition calls for cod or haddock, but any lean white fish can be used)
1/2-1 apple OR 1 medium onion
25 g butter or margarine (or equivalent in the frying oil of your choice)
1/2 tsp mild curry powder
1/2 tsp salt

Remove the skin and bones from the fish fillets if necessary (or just buy them boned and skinned to save you the work). Cut into 4 even pieces.

Peel and grate the apple, if using. If you are making the onion version, peel and finely chop the onion.

Heat the pan and turn the heat down to low. Melt the butter (or heat the oil). Add the apple or onion and fry gently for a minute or so.

Add the curry powder and mix well. Top with the fish pieces and sprinkle the salt over the fish. Close the pan tightly and allow to gently cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes. Serve in the pan.

Sides: Cooked potatoes or rice, and a fresh salad.

Sætsúpa með sagógrjónum - Sweet Soup with sago

As with some of the other recipes on this blog, this is fairly recent, no older than 20th century and probably originated in Denmark. The soup is made with the kind of sweet fruit or berry concentrate that is meant for mixing with water for drinking. Because the concentrates come in different thicknesses and need different amounts of water for mixing to the right flavour I am not giving exact measurements. The soup can be made with different types of concentrate, but the Icelandic version is often made with mixed fruit concentrate.

When I say concentrate, I am not referring to the pure concentrated juices you can buy frozen or canned, but the sweetened stuff that is halfway to being syrup because of its sugar content, but I have no doubt that if pure juice concentrate were to be used it would yield a delicious soup. I suggest trying it with strawberry, raspberry, cherry or pomegranate concentrate, or some other red or reddish juice. If pure unsweetened concentrate is to be used, I suggest adding a little sugar to the soup.

To serve 4:

700 ml water
fruit or berry concentrate/syrup
50 ml white pearl sago (small pearls)
50 ml raisins or prunes
1 small cinnamon stick (optional)
2 cloves (optional)

Mix enough fruit or berry concentrate/syrup into the water to make the flavour slightly too strong for drinking. Bring to the boil and add the pearl sago, stirring constantly. Add the raising/prunes and spices and simmer for 10 minutes or until the sago is cooked.

For the Icelandic way of eating this soup, crumble some zwieback into the soup bowls before serving.

Holiday notice

I am off to India for the next 5 weeks. I will not be posting anything during that time. If you have any questions you need answered, go ahead and either post them in comments or send me an e-mail, but I will not be answering them until I get back.

Traditional Icelandic fish soup (halibut soup) - Fiskisúpa (lúðusúpa)

This soup is among the oldest recorded Icelandic recipes. It's sweet-sour taste is unusual for fish-based soups.

Traditionally, the recipe is given for halibut, but you can also use salmon, trout, wolf-fish or lumpfish, or other fatty fish.

1 1/2 kg fresh fish with bones, cut into pieces to fit in the pan
1 1/2 litre water
2 tbs white vinegar
2 tsp salt
2 bay leaves

50 g flour
100 ml cold water

1/2 lemon
20 prunes
1-2 tbs sugar
200 ml water

potatoes
parsley

If the prunes are dry, soak them in water for an hour or so, or cook them in a little sugar-water with the zest of the 1/2 lemon until soft. Keep them whole.

Put water, salt, vinegar and bay leaves in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the fish. skim off the scum when the liquid boils again. cook the fish until it loosens from the bones. Strain the cooking liquid into another saucepan, leaving a little in the pan with the fish to keep it moist.

Mix together the flour and cold water into a smooth paste. Bring the strained cooking liquid to the boil and pour in the flour paste in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Cook for 5-10 minutes.

When the soup is fully cooked, add the lemon juice and prunes, and if they were cooked, the prune cooking liquid with them.

Arrange the fish on a serving dish and surround with boiled potatoes, sprinkled with chopped parsley. Serve on the side with the soup.

Boiled and stewed rutabagas (swedes) - Soðnar rófur og rófustappa

This root is known variously as a rutabaga, swede, swedish turnip or yellow turnip.

I prefer rutabagas raw, but I also like them in lamb soup.

Poached rutabagas:

Wash 1 kg. the rutabagas in cold water and peel them. If small, leave whole or halve, if big, quarter and then halve or cut into wedges and halve those. Try to make the pieces a uniform size.

Bring 1/2 liter water with 2 tsp salt to a gentle boil. Drop the rutabaga pieces into the water and poach - or steam them for a stronger flavour - until soft. Take care not to overcook, of they will become watery and bland.

Serve with boiled meats and fish.

Mashed rutabagas:

1 kg rutabagas
salted water
(100-200 ml milk)
50 g butter
salt, pepper, (sugar)

Wash, peel and re-wash the rutabagas in cold water. Cook in the salted water until soft. Remove from the cooking liquid and mash thoroughly. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the mash and thin with the milk, if needed, to the consistency of thin mashed potatoes. Add salt, pepper and sugar, if desired.

Traditionally served, hot or cold, with traditional Þorri foods.

Whey soup

I have never tried this soup, so I am not taking any responsibility if you make it and hate it!

1 liter strong whey
4-5 tbs sugar
1 cinnamon stick

50 g potato flour or cornstarch
100 ml cold water


Cook the whey with the cinnamon and sugar for 5-10 minutes. Make a paste from the starch and cold water and stir into the soup to thicken. Pour into a bowl, sprinkle with sugar and cool. Red food colouring or crowberry (or redcurrant or cranberry) concentrate can be used to give the soup some colour.

Red beet salad - Rauðrófusalat

This is delicious with pork roast, ham, hangikjöt or salt herring:

Pickled red beets (beetroots)
Sweet apple
Beet juice
Lemon juice
Cream
Sugar
all to taste

The beets and apples are cut into small cubes and mixed into softly whipped cream, along with lemon juice, sugar to taste, and enough beet juice to turn the salad pink.

Pickled red beets

Red beets are traditionally served with meats, especially pork, but I like them best in herring salad, creamy beet salad (recipe upcoming) and with liverwurst on Danish rye bread.

Red beets
water
salt

100-200 g sugar
1 liter white vinegar

Wash the beets thoroughly in cold water, put into cold water, add salt and cook until done through. Remove from the cooking liquid and gently remove the skins with your hands and cut off the tops. Slice the beets into slices, about 1/2 cm thick (I like them crinkle-cut). Fill a pickling jar with the beet slices.

Cook together sugar and vinegar until the sugar is melted. Pour boiling vinegar over the beet slices. They will keep in sealed jars for 2-3 months.

Boiled lamb, mutton, veal or fish with curry sauce

My mother used to make this dish several time a year when I was growing up, and I liked it then, but now that I have learned to appreciate genuine Indian and Chinese curries, I never make it, simply because I detest pre-mixed curry powder (the only thing I use it for is sauce for marinated herring). The curry used is the mild type, but I imagine that a medium hot curry powder would be good with mutton, which has a stronger flavour than lamb or veal.

This is a relatively new but still traditional Icelandic dish. I think curry powder first appeared in Iceland in the 1940s or 50s, and this dish has been part of the Icelandic everyday diet ever since. Lamb or mutton is generally used, but this recipe is also suited to veal.

750 g lamb, mutton or veal
800 ml water
2 tsp salt
2 carrots

Curry sauce:
2 1/2 to 3 tbs flour
1 tsk curry powder
150 ml cold water
400-500 ml meat cooking liquid or stock


100 g rice
1 liter water
1 tsp salt

A cheap cut like shoulder can be used in this dish. Meat should be in small pieces, about 2-3 mouthfuls each piece.

Bring the water to the boil and drop in the pieces of meat. Skim and salt. Lower the temperature to simmer and cook under a lid until it is soft and just beginning to come off the bone (about 40 minutes to an hour for lamb, 1-2 hours for mutton). Clean and slice the carrot and cook with the meat for the last 10 minutes. When the meat is cooked, remove from the saucepan and keep warm while you make the sauce.

To make the sauce, sift together the flour and curry powder. Mix with the water to make a paste.

Strain the cooking liquid from the meat, return to the saucepan and bring to the boil. Add the salt. When the liquid is boiling, pour in the flour/curry paste in a thin stream, stirring constantly. Keep stirring until the sauce boils again. Simmer gently for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Cook the rice according to the instructions on the packet.

To serve with fish:
Poach the same amount of cod or haddock as there is meat in the above recipe, leaving out the carrots. Instead of cooking liquid from meat, make the sauce with the cooking liquid from the fish, fish stock or milk. Serve with rice.

Cod cheeks - þorskkinnar

The cod's cheeks are eaten both salted and fresh. this recipe will do for either. Salted cheeks must be soaked in water to wash out some of the saltiness.

10 cod cheeks
an egg yolk, lightly beaten
some breadcrumbs mixed with salt and pepper
100-200 g butter

If you have whole cod's heads, cut away the cheeks and clean them well. Roll in the egg white, and then in the brumbs. Melt the butter in a frying pan and brown the cheeks in the butter. They may also be fried in an oven-proof dish in the oven.

Serve with boiled potatoes.

Breaded lamb cutlets - Steiktar kótilettur í raspi

You can use either rib cutlets or leg cutlets to make this dish. This was one of my favourite Sunday dishes when I was growing up, and remains a comfort food for me.

The recipe works with pork or veal cutlets as well, but the traditional meat is lamb.

750 g of rib half-cutlets or leg cutlets of lamb
2 egg whites or 1 egg and 2 tbs milk
3 tbs bread crumbs (we generally use Paxo brand crumbs, but home-made or other brands are fine as long as they are unflavoured)
2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pepper*
100 g butter or margarine
20 g butter

1-2 onions
extra butter as needed
2-3 tbs water

Traditionally, the cutlets are beaten with a meat mallet, but if you have nice, tender lamb, it really isn't necessary.

Set up a mise-en-place: frying pan on the stove, dish with bread crumbs and spices, dish with egg, dish with cutlets.

If using egg whites, whip them until they begin to froth. If using a whole egg, break and stir vigorously with the milk until slightly frothy. Mix together the bread crumbs and salt and pepper.

Melt the butter/margarine in the pan and when it is hot, start frying the cutlets: coat each cutlet with egg and then with bread crumbs and drop into the pan. When the crumbs on top begin to look damp, turn over. When both sides are evenly browned, put pats of butter on top of each cutlet and fry over low heat for about 10 minutes. Leg cutlets need longer cooking than rib cutlets. Remove the cutlets and keep warm in the oven until the onions are ready.

Alternatively, arrange the cutlets in a single layer in an oven-proof dish and bake for 30-40 minutes at 180°C, turning twice. Dot with butter for the last 10 minutes.

Slice the onions, turn up the heat and brown the onions in the remaining butter, adding more of needed. When golden, add water and cook until it evaporates.

Arrange the cutlets on a platter and either pour the onions over the cutlets or serve on the side in a bowl. Serve with fried or boiled potatoes and fresh or cooked vegetables, rhubarb jam and cooked green marrow peas for an authentic Icelandic flavour. I also love mushrooms fried in butter with this dish, but that's not traditional, and, strictly speaking, neither are fresh vegetables.


Note:
* for seasoning, I add Aromat and a spice mixture called Kød & Grill, both made by Knorr. If Aromat and Kød & Grill isn't available, you can use Accent and Season-All, or just use the basic salt and pepper.

Old Icelandic bread moulds

These carved wooden moulds would be pressed on top of the bread prior to baking, to make patterns in the crust:










Both are on display in the museum in Skógar.

Traditional salt cod

Salt cod is made by filleting or butterflying cod and arranging in layers with layers of coarse salt in-between. The fish is allowed to stand in a cool place for 1-2 weeks. To increase the time it can be stored, salt cod is dried, traditionally by laying it in a single layer on clean rocks or gravel, in dry weather, until reduced in thickness and dry to the touch. If the fish is sun-dried, it can turn yellowish.

Small codfish are treated differently: they are gutted, their heads cut off and they are washed in cold water, then arranged in a barrel. A layer of salt is put on the bottom, then a layer of fish, with the backs down, then another thick layer of salt, taking care to fill the body cavities of the fish with salt. When the barrel is full, a final layer of salt is put in, a loosely fitted lid put in and a light weight put on top.

To cook salt fish, soak it in a generous measure of water for 12 hours, changing the water 2-3 times. It is then cooked in fresh water for 10-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the pieces. It is traditionally served with boiled potatoes and turnips, and butter or tallow (with cracklings).

Rye bread tops - Rúgbrauðstoppar

These little rye bread "cakes" are made to be served with milk soups or hot milk. Make sure you use the sweet Icelandic type of rye bread and not the Danish or German style unsweetened pumpernickel bread.

250 g rye bread, finely crumbled or grated
75 g sugar
100 g butter or margarine

Mix together bread and sugar and gently brown in the butter in a frying pan until it begins to harden. Press into egg cups or miniature muffin tins to cool. Serve with sweet milk soups or hot milk.

Spice-pickled herring

Spice-pickled herring is used both as it is and also as an ingredient in various dishes, especially salads and Danish-style open-faced sandwiches. The taste is similar to that of pickled anchovies.

3 kg fresh herring, gutted

pickling mixture:
750 g pickling salt
150 g sugar or brown sugar
20 g allspice
15 g bay leaves
30 g pepper
5 g saltpeter

Mix together all the ingredients except the herring. Take a container, e.g. a large pickling jar, and cover the bottom with the pickling mixture. Arrange the herrings tightly in layers, head to tail and belly up, with a layer of the pickling mix in-between, ending with pickling mix. Close the container and store in a cool place for 3-4 weeks.

Cod tongues – soðnar gellur

The humble cod has been the dominant fish in Icelandic cuisine for centuries. An example of its importance is that there is an Icelandic name for every bone and muscle in the cod's head, more than forty terms in all, and every one of those muscles has been eaten.

Cod tongues aren't really tongues, but rather the fleshy, triangular muscle behind and under the tongue. They are available from all good fishmongers's shops in Iceland, both salted and fresh. When I was working in a salt fish factory in my teens, we could take home all the gellur we wanted for free. Salted gellur need to be soaked in cold water over night.

Take the gellur and scrape off the slime. Drop into boiling water (salted if they're fresh) for 10-15 minutes. Serve with plain boiled potatoes, rye bread and butter.

If there is anything left over at the end of the meal, you can try this recipe with the leftovers:

Fried gellur:

1/2 kg cooked gellur
2 tbs flour
Salt and fish spice mix
75-100 g butter

If you want sauce (I don't)
1/4 litre water
Sauce colouring
Salt and pepper

Roll the gellur in flour into which salt and spice has been mixed and brown in butter in a frying pan. Remove from the pan. Deglaze the pan and add sauce colouring. Cook until it is sufficiently thickened. Pour over the gellur. Serve on toast with fresh salad on the side.

Sometimes I make British fish batter (of fish-and-chips fame), dip gellur in it and deep-fry. Yummm!

Note:
The first recipe is traditional, the second is not.

Apple compote

200 g dried apples (slices)
1 1/2 liter water
75-100 g sugar

2-3 tbs potato flour or cornstarch
100 ml cold water

Wash the apples and soak in the water with half the sugar for about 12 hours. Cook until soft. Make a paste with the starch and cold water and stir into the compote to thicken. Add remaining sugar, or to taste. Pour into a bowl and sprinkle sugar on top. Serve warm or cold, with cream if preferred.

Kidney stew

500 g kidneys - sheep, veal or pork
flour mixed with salt, pepper and paprika to taste
50 g butter or frying fat
2 onions, finely chopped
3-4 carrots, sliced
250 g tomatoes

Clean the kidneys and cut each into 4 parts. Coat with spice-flour mixture. Brown in the butter/fat in a saucepan with the onions and carrots. Blanch and skin the tomatoes and add towards the end of the browning time.

Add enough water so that it barely covers the ingredients. Simmer over low heat until the kidneys are tender.

At the end, thicken the sauce with some flour paste and add a little cream if desired, to make a smoother sauce. Serve with potatoes.

This dish is also good with mushrooms.

Apricot compote

This is a simple and flavourful compote and delicious served with cream.

350 g dried apricots
1 liter water
100-200 g sugar

Wash the apricots and soak in the water with the sugar for about 12 hours. Cook in the syrup that forms during the soaking time, until the compote is thick and the apricots are soft.

Prune compote - Sveskjugrautur

There are many Icelandic recipes for fruit compotes made from dried fruit, some mixed, some using one particular fruit. Most common are apricot, prune and apple compotes. I have already posted a recipe for mixed fruit compote and compote of fresh rhubarb, and will be posting more over the next few weeks. These compotes are good both warm and cold, and are usually served with cream or half-and-half. They can be bought ready made in most supermarkets.

For those who like to do things themselves, here is a recipe for prune compote.

250 g prunes with pits
1 liter water
2-4 tbs sugar

3 tbs potato flour or cornstarch
100 ml cold water

Wash the prunes and soak in the water for about 12 hours, then cook in the water they were soaked in, until they are soft (if using prunes that are already soft, skip the soaking part). Remove pits. Add sugar to taste. Make a paste of starch and cold water and stir into the compote to thicken. Pour into a bowl, sprinkle sugar on top and serve warm or cold. Good with cream.

Crowberry soup

Crowberries grow all over Iceland and can in fact be found in many areas in the subarctic and temperate zones, including Denmark*, Alaska and northern Canada (according to Wikipedia, they are also found in the Andes). They are well worth picking because they make delicious jelly, a good drink concentrate**, taste good fresh with skyr, and then there is this soup:

1/2 to 1 kg crowberries, well ripened
1 litre water
1 cinnamon stick

2 tbs potato flour or cornstarch
100 ml cold water

100 g sugar, or to taste

Pick over the berries, removing any under-ripe berries and other unwanted objects (may include twig pieces, leaves, moss and spiders - that is assuming you didn't go to Vínberið*** and buy the berries already cleaned) and clean under flowing water.

Cook the berries in the water with the cinnamon stick for 20-30 minutes. Strain and re-heat to boiling. Mix potato flour/cornstarch and water into a paste. When the soup boils, stir in the paste and let boil again. Add sugar to taste. Serve warm with zwieback.
--

Notes:
* I tasted Danish crowberries once, and they didn't have nearly as much flavour as the ones that grow in Iceland, and neither were they as juicy. I'm guessing it's the soil that makes the difference.

**you can also make crowberry wine.

***a grocery and confectionery shop in Reykjavík and the only local shop where I have seen crowberries for sale.

Holiday notice

I am going away on holiday and will not be posting anything for the next 2 weeks, and neither will I be able to approve or answer any comments.

Cookbook review: The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann

While there are no specifically Icelandic recipes in this book, there are enough dishes in it that have passed into traditional Icelandic cookery (taken from Danish and Norwegian cookbooks of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries) to include it here.

Author Trina Hahnemann has, in co-operation with photographer Lars Ranek, produced a gorgeous tribute to Scandinavian cookery. The book is divided into chapters by month, and each month includes recipes made from local ingredients that are fresh at the given time of year. The recipes, when they aren't pan-Scandinavian, are mostly Danish and Swedish, with some Norwegian ones. My native Iceland isn‘t included, as while the culinary tradition is firmly Scandinavian, the country isn‘t actually a geographical part of Scandinavia. I did find several recipes that are very familiar to me, like fish cakes, gravlax, pickled cucumbers, marinated herring and Christmas pudding, to name a few.

The recipes are a mixture of familiar traditional recipes, variations on the traditional (like fish cakes in curry sauce), and new recipes using traditional Scandinavian ingredients. There are photographs of almost every dish, interspersed with photos of the raw ingredients and cityscapes, landscapes and people, all of them in glorious colour. The abundance of photographs means that this is not just a recipe collection, but actually a gorgeous coffee-table book as well. The recipes are, for the most part, easy to make, and most of the ingredients easy to find, although substitutions may sometimes have to be made, e.g. if one can‘t get hold of moose, reindeer or flounder.

At the back of the book there is a handy glossary of ingredients and a list of websites that will provide those interested with more information about Scandinavia and its foods. The author is a well-known chef and food writer and already has several cookbooks under her belt, published in her native Denmark.

While I have not yet tested any of the actual recipes given in the book, I have cooked a number of the dishes (from other cookbooks) and tasted several more. There is a good variety of recipes, for appetisers, main courses, soups, desserts, drinks and baked goods, and as I have already mentioned, many of them are ideally suited to the season the chapters cover.

All in all, I think this is a gorgeous cookbook that will give non-Scandinavians a good overview of Scandinavian food and cookery, and the photographs will certainly arouse an interest in visiting the region.

Finally, here is a recipe from the book that I plan to try soon:

Grilled leg of lamb with garlic and tarragon (serves 8)

1 boned leg of lamb
Salt and pepper
10 tarragon sprigs
6 cloves garlic

Heat the grill to medium.

Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste over the leg of lamb, the cover with the tarragon and garlic. Fold up the meat and tie it up with kitchen string to help it keep its shape.

Lay the meat on the grill and close the grill. Cook for about 2 hours, or until an instant read meat thermometer reads 160 to 175°F (70 to 80°C). Take care that the underside of the lamb does not burn.

When the meat is done, let it rest for 10 minutes before carving. Serve with potato salad and green cabbage salad with dill and peas (both are included in the book).

Quick and easy bread casserole

Hot bread-based dishes like this one are a popular party food in Iceland. I have rarely attended a birthday party, graduation, or other get-together in the last 10 years or so where the hosts didn’t serve at least one hot bread dish, either a stuffed bread roll or a casserole.

These dishes generally contain cheese, usually either mushrooms or asparagus (often both), and sometimes chopped bell peppers or crushed pineapple. In the beginning the sauce was usually a can of Campbell’s condensed mushroom or asparagus soup mixed with cream, and the dish was topped with cheese, but these days the sauce is usually made from scratch, using some combination of:

• melted white or blue mould cheese (e.g. Camembert or Brie), or
• melted flavoured block cheese, or
• cream cheese, or
• cheese spread

mixed with cream and/or mayonnaise and the liquid from the mushrooms and/or asparagus.

Protein is usually provided in the form of ham or shrimp, but chicken can be used as well.

The spices vary. I have seen recipes that use sweet paprika like this one, but also curry powder, Season-All, or garlic. This is the first and only dish of this kind I have tasted that uses mustard as a flavouring, and I have to say it stands out for that reason, especially if you use hot Dijon-style mustard. However, not everyone likes hot mustard, so if you want a crowd pleaser, use sweet mustard instead, or leave it out altogether.

Fresh substitutions can be made for the canned mushrooms and asparagus, in which case don’t forget to prepare some mushroom and asparagus stock to replace the liquid from the cans. Water will not do as a replacement for the liquid, and you will lose some flavour if you use extra cream or milk instead of the liquid.

The recipe:

• 50 ml cream
• 200 g mushroom-flavoured cheese spread
• 1 tbs mayonnaise
• 1 small can green asparagus, liquid included
• 1 small can mushrooms, liquid included (looks better with whole small button mushrooms, but the big sliced ones taste the same)
• 2 tbs mustard. The original recipe says to use sweet mustard, but I like the bite Dijon mustard adds to the dish

• 3-4 slices of bread. I prefer whole wheat, but white is fine too. Crusts may be kept or removed according to taste.
• 150 g chopped ham (vegetarians can use tofu or just leave it out altogether)
• Sweet paprika powder

Mix everything together in a saucepan except the bread, ham and paprika. Heat through (do not boil) and stir to mix well. Tear the sliced bread into pieces and put in the bottom of a casserole dish or small lasagna pan (don't line it completely, just sprinkle the bread over it). Remove the sauce from the heat and stir in the ham. Pour evenly over the bread, sprinkle a little paprika over the top, and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes at 200°C (180°C if you have a convection oven). Serve in the casserole dish/lasagna pan.

This dish also makes a nice little meal for 2-3 people, served with a fresh salad.

Variation:
You can use the sauce as a filling for a bread roll, in which case substitute the roll for the sliced bread, spread the slightly cooled filling on the roll and roll it up, then mix together:

• 2 stiffly whipped egg whites,
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (e.g. Gouda or Monterey Jack)
• 1 tsp sweet paprika powder,

and spread over the top and sides of the roll and bake at 180°C until the cheese is golden and bubbly.

This dish can be frozen before baking and popped in the oven when needed.

Skyr mousse

Here is the first of the modern skyr recipes.

Note on the measurements: I have rounded all the ounces to the nearest whole number. It does not make any difference for the recipe.

Mousse:
500 g / 18 oz. plain skyr
75 g / 3 oz. sugar
200 ml / 7 oz. cream
3 sheets gelatin
1 vanilla pod
50 ml / 2 oz. cream

Split the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Reserve the seeds and discard the pod (or reserve for making something else).

Soak the gelatin sheets in cold water for 5-10 minutes and lightly whip the large portion of cream.

Mix together the skyr, sugar and vanilla seeds.

Heat the small portion of cream, and cool slightly. Squeeze the water out of the gelatin and dissolve in the heated cream. Mix carefully into the skyr mixture and then fold in the whipped cream.

Pour into small mousse forms or individual serving bowls and freeze.

Serve with fresh fruit and fruit sauce.

Here is a strawberry sauce that’s good with skyr mousse:
150 g / 5 oz. fresh strawberries
50 g / 2 oz. sugar

Wash and hull the strawberries. Put the berries in a food processor and purée thoroughly. Pour into a saucepan, add the sugar and heat gently, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Cool before serving.

The mousse can be used as a topping for a cake: Bake a sponge cake in a springform tin, remove and cool. Put the cake on the dish you intend to serve it on, put the side part of the springform around it, pour in the mousse and cool until stiff. Remove the springform and decorate the cake with fresh fruit and whipped cream. Serve, if desired, with the strawberry sauce on the side.

Another idea: Crumble some Graham crackers and add a little cinnamon. Pour over a little melted butter, stir well and press into the bottom of a serving bowl and allow to set before adding the mousse. Decorate with fruit and whipped cream and serve with the strawberry sauce.

Skyr expanded

For centuries, Icelanders ate skyr mostly as it was, perhaps with some milk or water stirred in to make it go down more smoothly. In latter times it has usually been thinned with milk, sugar has been added and it has been served with cream or milk. If the season is right there might be bilberries or crowberries stirred in. If the skyr was the main course, a piece of rye bread with butter, or perhaps a piece of blood sausage or liver sausage would often be served on the side. Or it might be mixed 50/50 with cold porridge and served with cream.

But there are many other ways to serve or use it as an ingredient. I like it with half-and-half and brown sugar or maple syrup. The wife of the Icelandic president has declared that she loves it with honey. Some sprinkle muesli on it. Others prefer fruit.

You can get all sorts of flavours from the factory, besides the plain. The ones I can remember off the top of my head are:

• Strawberry
• Blueberry
• Strawberry-blueberry
• Peach
• Vanilla
• Raspberry
• Banana
• Apricot & vanilla
• Melon-passion fruit
• Cappuccino
• Pear
• Raspberry-peach

All of them are available in portion-sized containers, some with plastic spoons attached (depends on the producer). The flavoured types are best kept cool, but the plain variety will keep quite well for a couple of days at room temperature. I recommend the KEA brand.

You can even get skyr-drinks, which you should try if you like drinking yogurt.

You can also use skyr to make more elaborate dishes. Some time ago, a woman e-mailed me from the USA and told me about having eaten skyr brulée in a restaurant in Reykjavík. She liked it enough to ask me to find her a recipe for it. I still haven’t found a recipe, but I have been experimenting and will post the results here once I am happy with the recipe.

On my other food blog, Matarást, you can find a recipe for Moussaka made with skyr. The original called for using Greek yogurt in the topping, but plain skyr gives results that are just as good.

Skyr also makes an excellent ingredient in various kinds of tempting desserts. I don’t know who it was that first thought of using skyr in place of cream cheese in a cheese cake, but I salute them. Not only is it healthier than cream cheese by virtue of being fat-free, therefore reducing the fat content of the dessert considerably and hopefully the guilt of eating it as well, but it is also very, very tasty. The fresh, slightly tart flavour of skyr and its light texture make a nice alternative to the creamy taste and thick, heavy texture of cream cheese.

Some of the new (or new-ish) Icelandic recipes I am translating and testing for future inclusion on this blog include skyr desserts. I realise of course that if you don’t live in Iceland or in those areas of the USA where the Whole Foods Market chain is selling skyr, you will not have an opportunity to try these recipes (unless you know how to make skyr at home), but I would like to suggest using Greek yogurt, quark or fromage frais instead. It will not give you the exact flavour or texture of skyr, but you will get some idea of what the dishes are like.

Changes to the blog

I am changing the direction of this blog a bit. Henceforth is is going to be not only about traditional Icelandic foods, but about what Icelanders like to eat in general.

So far I have mostly written about traditional Icelandic food, most of which is still being cooked and served in Icelandic homes. But the food many of the younger generations like best can also be called Icelandic, even if it includes such obvious new imports as passion fruit, Parmesan cheese or prosciutto. Therefore I am going to change tack and start including more modern Icelandic recipes here. To separate the traditional food from the modern, I have labelled all the traditional recipes as such.

Some of the food I have labelled “traditional” is really rather new, like cocktail sauce, rice pudding and hot chocolate, but I have labelled it as traditional by dint of its either being so lastingly popular that it has been proven not to be a fad and therefore likely to continue lasting, or because it or its use is unique to Iceland. Do keep in mind when searching for recipes that “traditional” may have as little as a 20 year history behind it.

A number of the recipes may look familiar to foreign visitors, which simply indicates that Iceland is not a closed country and we like to try foreign recipes as much as the next nation.

Easter eggs

Easter will be here soon, and because we Icelanders have a notoriously sweet tooth I thought I would write about Easter eggs.



Icelandic Easter eggs are invariably made from chocolate, although you will find Easter decorations made from hen's eggs. A couple of months before Easter you will start seeing small chocolate eggs in bright wrappings in supermarkets, grocery stores and candy kiosks all over the country. These contain a piece of paper with a proverb or saying, and some also contain a few pieces of candy.



Then, about a month before Easter, racks upon racks of bigger eggs start appearing in shops. They range in size from goose egg to bigger than an ostrich egg and are generally made from milk chocolate, although you can now get at least one type of dark chocolate. They also come designed for diabetics and people with food allergies. All the eggs contain candy and a proverb, and are decorated on the outside, usually with an artificial baby chicken on top, but sometimes with plastic figurines for kids. At least one producer is boosting sales by hiding cell phones inside some of the biggest eggs.

Here is a typical Icelandic Easter egg. I'm planning to buy the dark chocolate type for myself and will post a picture later.

Hrærð terta - A white cake with jam

This cake is simply called "Batter cake", which is certainly descriptive, but not very poetic. It is an excellent base for a cream cake - in which case forget the jam and use canned fruit instead and pour a little of the juice into both layers, pipe on whipped cream to cover the cake and decorate with fresh fruit.

1/3 cup butter or margarine, soft
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla essence (this is my addition to the original recipe, as I think that without it the cake tastes eggy)

Separate the eggs. Whip together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add the egg yolks and mix well (and add the vanilla if using). Mix together flour and baking powder and add to the batter little by little. Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter with a spatula.

Pour into 2 round 20 centimeter/8 inch baking pans with loose bottoms and bake at 175°C/350°F (regular oven) until the cakes area rich golden colour, if possible with more bottom-heat than top-heat (if your oven doesn't have that setting, don't worry). No baking time is given in the original recipe, but it took 15 minutes in my convection oven at 165°C/330°F.

Turn out of the pans onto baking paper sprinkled with sugar, and allow to cool (original recipe), or turn out onto a cake rack and sprinkle sugar directly on the top of one layer while it is still hot (my suggestion). Sandwich with jam when cooled, putting the sugared layer on top.

This makes a cute little cake. The original recipe calls for 3 layers, in which case I suggest using 12 or 15 centimeter/5 or 6 inch pans so the layers will not be thin as pancakes.

I used strawberry-rhubarb jam when I made it, but I think strawberry or raspberry jam would probably be the best for this cake. I can also imagine it would be quite delicious layered with chocolate fudge icing.

Christmas gingerbread sandwich cookies

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Mömmukökur (Mama's Cookies)

My mother only makes these gingerbread cookies before Christmas, but they are excellent at any time of the year. When I was little, I really thought it was my mother's own recipe.

Different people have different ways of making Mömmukökur. My mother makes them very thin and bakes them until they are dark brown and crisp. Others make light brown, thicker cookies that soften quickly once the icing is on. Mother allows them to stand until completely cooled, before putting in tins for storage. This is to ensure that they will stay crisp. Then, just before Christmas - usually on Þorláksmessa (December 23rd) - the four of us (my parents, brother and I) sit down together and make cookie sandwiches, sticking the cookies together two by two with vanilla butter icing.

125 g butter/margarine
250 g golden syrup
125 g sugar
1 egg
500 g flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp powdered ginger
1 portion butter icing

Melt together the butter, sugar and golden syrup and mix well. Cool. Stir in the egg. Mix together flour, baking soda and ginger. Add the syrup mixture and knead until smooth. Store in a refrigerator over night. Flatten out until very thin and cut out shapes with cookie cutters or a glass. Bake at 200°C, until the cookies area a proper gingerbread brown colour. Cool completely before icing.

Note: Don't use this recipe to make gingerbread houses – this gingerbread is too fragile.

Sarah Bernhardt cookies - Sörur

Like several other great artists, most famously the ballerina Pavlova and opera singer Nellie Melba, actress Sarah Bernhardt had some sweet desserts named after her. There is a Sarah Bernhardt cake, and then there are these delicious confections called Sarah Bernhardt cookies, invented by a Danish pastry chef who wanted to honour the actress.
These cookies, which we usually just call "Sarahs", are a great favourite of mine, and I try to make some every year for Christmas.



Note:
I have updated the recipe. The original has one thing wrong with it, which is that the buttercream icing has a tendency to separate when made like the recipe tells you to. I found more precise instructions on how to make this kind of icing in my trusty cooking encyclopedia, and have added them into the original recipe (in closed brackets) for those interested. The downside to the new version is that it does not yield enough icing for all the macaroons (at least if you like to use as much as I do). A little extra butter (50 g or so) and syrup (maybe increase it to a cup of sugar and and a cup of water) and one more egg yolk should take care of it.

400 g blanched almonds, finely ground
2 1/5 cup icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
5 eggs, yolks and whites separated
2/3 cup sugar
2 tbs baking cocoa
2/3 cup water
300 g butter, soft
250 g chocolate for coating - use dark
2 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)

Mix together ground almonds and icing sugar. Whip the egg whites until they are stiff and form peaks and fold into the almond/sugar mixture. With a teaspoon, put small dollops of dough on a baking sheet covered with baking paper, and bake at 180°C for about 15 minutes, or until the cookies begin to take on a golden colour. Remove the cookies from the baking sheet with a spatula while still hot and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Buttercream icing: Put the water and sugar into a saucepan and cook until the sugar is melted and a thin syrup has formed (for an icing that does not separate, cook the sugar to the soft ball stage, that is 115°C or 239°F of you prefer to use a candy thermometer). Remove from the heat and cool. Beat the egg yolks and slowly pour the cooled syrup into them, stirring constantly. Add the softened butter and mix well. Add cocoa and instant coffee powder (if using). Put in the refrigerator to cool. Spread the cooled icing on the underside of each cookie, forming a small mound in the center. Put in the refrigerator. The icing needs to be cold and stiff before proceeding on to the next step.

Coating: Melt the chocolate in a bowl over boiling water. Cool to about 40°C (use a candy thermometer or finger test). Dip the icing-covered part of the cookies in melted chocolate to coat. Serve cool or frozen with hot cocoa or strong coffee.

Notes:
-These cookies should be stored frozen if they are not meant to be eaten immediately.
-Try different flavours of buttercream fillings.

Spicy gingersnaps - Piparkökur

The Icelandic term for gingersnaps and gingerbread cookies literally means “pepper cookies”.
These unusual gingerbread refrigerator cookies not only contain pepper, but also paprika. My mother modified the recipe from one she found in an old recipe booklet.

500 g flour
500 g brown sugar
250 g butter
2 eggs
5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered cloves
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/4 tsp paprika

Mix together the dry ingredients. Add soft butter and eggs and knead until smooth. Cool in the refrigerator overnight. Roll out into sausage shapes of even thickness, pinch or cut off small portions and make little balls out of the dough. Put on a cookie sheet covered with baking paper and press your palm on top of each ball to flatten slightly. Bake at 200°C until browned.

Update: I made a batch on Saturday. These are very good gingersnaps. Instead of making balls and flattening them with my hand on the cookie sheet, I cut the dough rolls into thin slices (about 5 mm - 1/5 of an inch thick):



They do not spread much when they get in the oven, so a space of about 2 cm (4/5 inch) between them is enough. I baked them at 180°C in my convection oven. The cookies took only 4 minutes to get to the stage where I like them best: golden but with a slightly chewy center. If you plan to store them for more than a week I recommend 2-4 minutes more in the oven to get them dry through. They will be a darkish medium brown by that time. Any longer than that and they will burn, unless you go for the ball method, which will yield thicker cookies that will need slightly longer baking.

Cinnamon 'snails' (Kanilsnúðar) & Jewish Cookies (Gyðingakökur)

An anonymous commenter requested a recipe for Cinnamon 'snails', so here it is. This first recipe is the way my grandmother makes them. The second recipe is included for those who can not get their hands on hartshorn (baker's ammonia).

This is originally a recipe for Jewish Cookies, which are a Christmas staple in many Icelandic homes. I have included instructions for both cookies and 'snails'.

Cinnamon 'snails'/Jewish Cookies

175 g flour
100 g butter or margarine
1/2 tsp hartshorn powder (baker's ammonia) – see Note
60 g sugar
1 egg
1 tbs sugar

For cookies:
10 almonds

For 'snails':
Sugar and cinnamon, mixed together, approx 4 parts sugar to 1 part cinnamon (or more, if you like an intense cinnamon flavour)

The dough:
Mix flour and hartshorn. Add sugar and margarine and mix everything together with your hands until you have a crumbly mixture. Add the egg and knead until solid. Cool in the refrigerator for a couple of hours at least.

To make snails:
Flatten the dough quite thin with a rolling pin and try to keep it an approximately square or rectangular shape. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. Roll the dough up into a roll, then slice into approx. 1 cm thick slices. Arrange slices on a cookie sheet and bake at about 200°C until golden brown.


To make Jewish cookies:
Finely chop the almonds and mix with sugar. Flatten the dough and use round cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. Brush beaten egg on the cookies and dip into sugar/almond mixture. Bake in a medium oven until golden brown.

Note: Hartshorn can be hard to find outside Northern-Europe. In the USA, you may be able to find it in German or Scandinavian markets, drug stores or baking supply stores, or through mail order catalogues. It may be labelled either as hartshorn or as baker's ammonia (do not confuse with regular ammonia!).
Hartshorn gives more lift to cookies than baking soda or baking powder, and cookies made with it turn out very light and crisp. It may be substituted thus: 1 tsp baking powder for 1 tsp hartshorn (the cookies will probably not be quite as light or crisp as when using hartshorn) OR 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda for 1 tsp hartshorn (this is supposed to yield similar results to hartshorn, but I have never tried it, so I don't really know if it's true).

---

Alternative recipe for Cinnamon snails (no hartshorn):
This recipe is from my home economics recipe book from school. I made these once – they looked beautiful but had very little taste. If I make them again, I will use more cinnamon than the recipe states and perhaps add a little vanilla to the dough.

400 ml flour
100 g margarine
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbl sugar
1 egg
50 ml milk

Cinnamon sugar:
2 tbs sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Follow the above direction to make kneaded dough. Melt the margarine and brush over the rolled dough. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the dough. Roll up and store in the refrigerator for about an hour. Cut into slices with a sharp knife. Arrange the slices on a cookie sheet and bake at 200°C until golden brown.

Rice Pudding - Hrísgrjónagrautur

This lovely pudding is served for lunch at my parents' house almost every Saturday, and we all love it. This is a cheap, nourishing, tasty meal, which I make much too seldom in my own home.

At Christmas, we have a small serving of rice pudding before the main meal of hangikjöt. According to tradition, my mother hides a peeled almond in the pudding and we each choose one bowl. The person who finds the almond (usually my brother) gets a small gift, typically some chocolate.

1/2 litre water
200 gr. rice (do not use quick-cook or instant)
1 1/2 litre whole milk
1 tsp salt

Cook the rice in the water until it's almost completely absorbed. Add the milk and lower the heat to simmer. Continue cooking until the rice is tender (the whole process takes about an hour). Add salt and serve with cinnamon sugar.

- cook a handful of raisins with the rice for a few minutes before serving, for an authentic, old-fashioned "rúsínugrautur" (raisin pudding).

- The pudding is usually eaten with milk or "saft" - a sweet drink made with berry syrup (raspberry, red currant or crowberry tastes best). Some people serve the pudding cold with hot caramel sauce at Christmas.

Half-moon cookies – Hálfmánar

My paternal grandmother always makes these for Christmas.

500 g flour
250 g sugar
200 g margarine
½ tsp hartshorn powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
100 ml (2/5 cup) milk
Cardamom essence to taste
Rhubarb or other jam

Mix together sugar, baking powder, hartshorn powder and flour. Add soft butter and mix until crumbly. Add egg, milk and cardamom essesnce and knead until smooth. Store in a refrigerator until cold through (overnight is usual). Flatten with a rolling pin and cut out cookies with a glass or circular cookie cutter. Put about a teaspoonful of jam in the center of each cookie, fold cookies in half and press edges together with a fork. Arrange on a lightly floured baking sheet and bake at 200°C for 7-10 minutes, or until golden.

Currant cookies - Kúrenukökur

I don't particularly care for these, as I don't like raisins in food and the currants remind me of them, but my grandmother loves them.

375 g butter, softened
375 g sugar
7 eggs, yolks and whites separated
a few drops of lemon essence
500 g flour

For decoration:
Currants, chopped blanched almonds, extra sugar (no amounts are given in the original recipe)

Cream sugar and butter, then add the egg yolks one by one, mixing well in between. Gradually add the flour, then the lemon essence. Whip the whites separately until stiff and fold into the dough.

Put the doughonto a baking sheet and spread evenly over the sheet, using a spatula. Sprinkle a mixture of currants, almonds and sugar on top. Bake at about 180°C until golden and cut into squares while still warm.

Coconut wreaths - Kókoshringir

My mother used to make these every Christmas when I was little. They have a buttery, coconutty taste and are great with tea or cold milk.

200 g flour
200 g dessicated coconut
150 g sugar
200 g butter, softened
1 egg

Mix flour, coconut and sugar. Fold in the egg and butter and knead. Run through a cookie press, taking lengths of about 8 cm. and forming them into circles. Put on a baking sheet and bake at about 180°C for about 8 minutes, or until they are a light golden colour.

Crullers or twisted doughnuts - Kleinur

While technically they are everyday pastries, I think kleinur deserve to be included in the Christmas fare. I have added a second recipe for those who do not have access to hartshorn.

In many homes in Iceland a large cooking pot lurks in a kitchen cupboard. Its sides are black with burnt-in fat, and a guest might be excused for thinking that their hosts simply forgot to throw it away. Occasionally, in some homes as often as once a week, this pot will be pulled out from its hiding place and put to good use for frying doughnuts in. It is not unusual for a doughnut-maker to make a double or even triple recipe in one session.

Twisted doughnuts are not a specifically Icelandic phenomenon, but neither are they as common in other countries. Making these delicacies is no small undertaking. It is time consuming and hard work, and therefore the batches are usually large to save time and effort.

This is not a good recipe if you have never deep-fried anything before, as the frying fat must to be very hot, and certain precautions must be taken to avoid accidents. They include not letting the hot oil get into contact with water, never leaving the frying pot or deep-fryer unattended, and, in case of accidents, having a fire-blanket and/or fire extinguisher at hand. An experienced doughnut maker can make this look as easy as A-B-C, but don't be fooled, and don't try this unless you are used to deep-frying and know the rules!

I am including 2 recipes, one with hartshorn and one without it, as hartshorn seems to be quite difficult to find outside Europe. Both recipes are mixed and handled in the same way.

1st recipe:
500 g flour
40 g margarine/butter, soft
2 tsp baker's ammonia/hartshorn salt (ammonium carbonate)
2 medium eggs
1 tsp baking powder
150 ml milk, sour milk or buttermilk
150 g sugar
2 tsp essence of cardamom

2nd recipe:
1 kg flour
150 g butter
250 g sugar
3 eggs
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp powdered cardamom
a few drops of vanilla essence
250 ml buttermilk or cream

Mix together dry ingredients. Mix in the margarine/butter and then eggs and milk/cream, followed by the essence of cardamom or vanilla essence. Knead into a fairly soft dough. Avoid over-kneading, as this will make the doughnuts tough.

Roll out the dough until fairly thin (2-3 millimeters thick), cut into strips (these should be anything from 5-10 centimeters wide, depending on weather you want small or big doughnuts) and then cut diagonally across the previous cuts to make diamond shapes. Cut a small slit in the centre of each diamond and gently pull one end through the slit, to make the twist in the doughnuts.

Heat the frying fat. It must be very hot, and will have reached the right temperature when a doughnut browns and cooks through in about 1-1 1/2 minutes.

Genuine Icelandic twisted doughnuts are fried in sheep tallow, which leaves a special taste, but this is now considered unhealthy because of all the saturated fat. Use instead about a litre of vegetable cooking fat that can be heated to a high temperature, for example canola or coconut oil. The doughnuts will not have that special tallowy taste, but neither will they clog up your arteries quite as much.

Note:
Most deep-fryers can not get the oil hot enough for frying kleinur - but they are safer than using a pot on the stovetop. If you do use a fryer, heat the oil to the maximum temperature, and allow the oil a short time to heat up again after each round of doughnuts.

Interesting tidbit:
I found an American recipe for twisted doughnuts in The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker (New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1989). The recipe is taken from an old American cookbook, and although the twisting method is quite different, the recipes themselves are clearly related.

Siggi's cookies - Siggakökur

I don’t know who Siggi is or was, but the recipe is for dry chocolate chip cookies that can be stored for several months. It is one of three types cookies my mother always makes for Christmas. They are excellent dipped in coffee.

1/2 cup margarine or butter (softened at room temperature for no more than 40 minutes, or the cookies will spread too much)
6 tbs sugar
6 tbs brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts. My mother uses hazelnuts, but I bet it would also be good to use cashews, peanuts or macadamias.
1/2 cup (100 g) chopped chocolate or chocolate chips (dark, semi-sweet is best)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Dash of lukewarm water, if needed

Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt and add gradually to the batter. Fold in nuts and chocolate, adding a little water if the dough gets too thick to stir easily. Drop teaspoonfuls of dough on a baking sheet bake at 180-200°C for about 10 minutes. This dough will keep in the refrigerator for 2 days.

I'm back...for a while at least

It has been months since I last posted here, for several reasons that I will not go into. Because Christmas is getting nearer, I will be posting some Christmas recipes (mostly for cookies) in the weeks leading up to the holidays, and also bringing back to the top some (or all) of the Christmas recipes I have already posted.

The poll I posted about having ads on the site showed that most of my visitors do not object to the milder forms of online advertising, but in the end I decided that since I would not have full control over the kind of ads that would appear here, I am not going to have any ads at all.

Lifrarpylsa - Liver Sausage (Icelandic “Haggis”)

I made some liver sausage with a friend of mine yesterday. This is a popular Þorri food that is available year round in Iceland. It is the season for making liver and blood sausages right now.

There are many ways of preparing liver, and the following is one method of preparing a good, nutritious meal from lamb's liver. This delicacy has relatives in various other countries. The most famous is do doubt the Scottish Haggis. This is an original traditional recipe. Below the instructions you will find a tip on how to make it lighter and healthier. Pork liver can be substituted for lamb's liver, and beef suet for the mutton suet, but for genuineness, you need lamb's liver and suet.

1 kg lamb's liver
50-100 g flour
approx. 450 g rye flour
750 ml milk
150 g oatmeal
30 g salt
1 kg sheep suet
Sheep's stomachs/tripe (optional), large sausage skins, or cooking bags

Wash and clean the liver and remove all blood vessels and membranes. Mince the liver thoroughly into a paste. Mix with milk and salt and then rye flour, oatmeal and flour (best done using one’s hands). The mixture should be thick. Chop the suet, finely or coarsely, depending on your tastes, and mix with the liver paste. This mixture is traditionally sewn up into sheep's stomachs that have been cut down to size, but sausage skins or plastic bags that are suitable for cooking in can be substituted, and are much quicker. Fill the bags and close them well. One lifrarpylsa should be about the size of a man's clenched fist. They can be made larger or smaller, but the cooking time given is for this size.

Drop the sausages into boiling salted water and cook for 2-2 1/2 hours. Right after the sausages are dropped into the water, it is a good idea to prick them few times with a pin to prevent them from bursting. Turn over occasionally.

Health tip:
To make this healthier, halve the amount of suet you use in the recipe. To keep the paste thick, use 1/3 less milk to begin with, and if it needs more, add a little at a time until you reach the desired thickness.

Serving:
Eat hot with boiled or mashed potatoes, cold with porridge or skyr, or use as topping for bread.
Frying is a good way to use up leftover sausage. You can either brown slices of it in a frying pan with some sugar, or sprinkle some sugar on it before eating. Serve with mashed potatoes.

Liver sausage is often preserved in skyr-whey, along with other traditional foods, such as blood sausage, sheep's head jam and whale blubber. This pickling produces a sour flavour that is definitely an acquired taste. Food preserved in this way is traditionally eaten during the old month of Þorri, at festivals called Þorrablót.

convert measures from metric to your preferred system

A personal restaurant review: Jómfrúin

A friend and I meet for lunch a couple of times a month, and recently we decided to try a new restaurant or café once every month, instead of always going to one of the same three places over and over. This month’s choice was Jómfrúin, a Danish-style smørrebrød (open-faced sandwiches) restaurant in Lækjargata in the heart of Reykjavík. Neither of us had eaten there before, but I have eaten party food from them on several occasions (at my workplace we sometimes order canapé versions of these bread dishes to serve to special guests).

The place is small and bustling with activity. The environment is in the plain café style, with old Danish advertising posters on the walls, dim lighting and paper tablecloths. The floor is tiled and there was too much noise in there for us to have a quiet conversation. The service was fast, efficient and friendly.

You can get most of the dishes in "full" and "half" portions, which is good, because a full portion is really a meal in itself and there are so many tempting things on the menu that it is nice to be able to order half portions of 2-3 dishes, rather than just one dish.

For variety I decided to order a half-portion of a dish we have never ordered in at work, namely pastrami, and a half-portion of an old favourite, the classic "Shrimp pyramid".

The pastrami was served on French (white) bread, and topped with sauerkraut, Dijon-mustard, a slice of tomato, miniature gherkins and fresh herbs. The pastrami itself was very good and the sauerkraut went well with it, but the Dijon was a bit overpowering considering the mild flavour of the pastrami.

The shrimp pyramid was served on white bread, with Thousand Island sauce on the side and a wedge of lemon to squeeze over the shrimp. The shrimp were overcooked and therefore slightly tough, but tasted good nonetheless.

My friend had a "Bombay": toasted French bread with butter, curried chicken salad, tomato, egg, smoked salmon and caviar, and the classic herring with egg: rye bread topped with butter, spice-pickled herring, egg, tomato, onion and dill. The Bombay was okay, but she did not like the herring, said it was not as good as the herring she had tasted in Denmark (at the original bar where smørrebrød was invented).

All in all, the lunch was a bit disappointing, but I would go there again, and then I would order dishes I know to be excellent: "The Veterinarian's Supper" (liver pate, port aspic, salt pork, onions and dill on rye), roast beef (on rye with tomato, egg, fried onions and remoulade), plaice (on rye with remoulade, shrimp, asparagus, smoked salmon, caviar, and lemon), smoked eel (on rye with scrambled egg, tomato and chives) or ham (on rye with spicy beetroot salad, egg and leek).

The Jómfrúin website. The website is in Icelandic, but the menu is in English as well. To see the menu (with photos of the dishes), click on the link “Aðal matseðill” and to see the choice of hot lunch courses, click on “Heitir réttir í hádeginu”.

In the summer the restaurant offers live jazz from 3 to 5 p.m., out on the patio behind the restaurant.