Icelandic cooking, recipes and food

This side dish is good with many kinds of roasted and broiled meats. For many it is a necessity with the Christmas ham or steak. I don't particularly like vinegar pickled cabbage so I haven't tried this recipe myself, but I'm told it is good. 2-3 tbs butter 1 kg red cabbage, shredded 1/2 cup white vinegar OR red wine vinegar 1/2 cup sugar 2-3 tsp salt Melt the butter at medium temperature. Add finely shredded red cabbage and stir to coat with the hot butter. When the buttered cabbage begins to sizzle, add vinegar, sugar and salt. Simmer until the cabbage is limp and boiled through (about 45 mins. to 1 hour). Serve with ham, pork roast, roast lamb, duck, goose or turkey. Some people will eat this with hot dogs as well.

This is a lovely cheesecake, rich and smooth. It is commercially available in Iceland. I just love it, and I'm grateful for The Icelandic Dairy Produce Marketing Association for providing the recipe for the public. The cake is relatively cheap when you buy it ready-made, but I think making it yourself adds to the enjoyment of eating it. While this is not a Christmas recipe per se, it is so time consuming that I would only ever make it for special occasions like Christmas or a special birthday party. Serves 10-12 (or 6-8, depending on how much self-control you have :-) 1 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs 5 tbs sugar 5 tbs butter, soft 90 g lemon flavoured gelatine 1 cup boiling water 500 g cream cheese, unflavoured, softened at room temperature 1 tsp vanilla essence 1/2 cup sugar 1 cup cream, whipped (measure before you whip) 1 can (480 g) mandarin orange sections 1/2 cup juice from mandarin oranges 2 tbs lemon juice 2 tsp unflavoured gelatine powder OR 2 sheets unflavoured gelatine Mi...

The Christmas meal that is traditionally served in my family. I have received a question about traditional Icelandic Christmas dishes and as it’s a subject I’m sure many are curious about I decided to make a blog entry about it. Traditional Icelandic Christmas food is a somewhat complicated subject, as there are several traditional Christmas dishes and there is no one Christmas dish that is served in every home. Even the leaf bread, which is uniquely Icelandic and as traditional as it gets, is not served in every home. The most common main dishes served for Christmas in Icelandic homes are hangikjöt (smoked and salted lamb or mutton), ptarmigan (see recipe), lamb roast (see recipe for Sunday roast), roast goose, Hamborgarhryggur (smoked pork center rib roast), and American style turkey (relatively new, but has become a tradition in many families). As a starter or dessert, many serve either rice pudding (recipe will be posted soon) or ris a la mande (will also be posted soon) whi...

You may ask why I am publishing a recipe for Danish food when this is an Icelandic recipe blog? Well, this is something that has become an inseparable part of Christmas in my family, ever since I returned from a six month stay in Denmark and offered to cook rib-roast on Boxing Day. I have done it every year since then, and I know other Icelandic families serve rib-roast for Christmas, New Year’s or Easter. This is my variation of the recipe: Recipe (serves 4) 1 kg pork rib-roast, with skin and fat and with or without bones. I don’t know if this cut is available in the USA, but from having looked at American posters of pork cuts I don’t think so. This is what it looks like: Salt Pepper 2 bay leaves Whole cloves Water Take the roast and make cuts into the skin and fat almost down to the meat, with about a finger width between the cuts. Make either strips or diamond-shaped pieces (see images below). Do not cut into meat. Heat the oven to 250°C. Boil some water, put the roast into an ove...