Icelandic cooking, recipes and food

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 sugg...

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.

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 coo...

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 suga...

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.

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.

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.

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 shou...

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.

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 sa...

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.

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 minu...

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 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.

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 ...

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.

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.

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.

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. Goo...

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 running cold 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. Ad...

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.

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 reci...

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 recip...

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. s...

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...

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 uni...

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 pl...

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 possibl...