Icelandic cooking, recipes and food

I came across this photo guide to cutting leaf bread recently. Saved me the effort of making one myself. Enjoy!

Click to enlarge This used to be my brother's favourite cake, but is now in second place after a confection called a Dream Cake. Here is the recipe: The way my mother makes this cake is actually a marriage of two recipes: for a sponge cake and for something called a Sunshine Cake with caramel topping . The caramel topping from the Sunshine Cake goes on top of the sponge cake.  The caramel in the recipe is enough for one sponge base, baked in a 24 cm flan tin, the type that has a raised centre and a deeper trench along the rim, so that when the cake is turned out top-to-bottom there will be a raised rim along the edge. Since the two recipes were not made to be used together there may be a bit of sponge batter left over when you have poured it into the tin, depending on how deep the tin is. If you are using the recipe below and a shallow tin, I therefore recommend using small eggs and short measures of flour and sugar. (You can, of course, just use your own preferred sponge c...

This is a nice dish. I imagine the sauce would be quite good with other dark, gamy meats, like wild duck,  wild goose or possibly wild boar. To serve 6: 6 lamb's or sheep's hearts 100 g flour butter for frying salt and pepper 6 well ripe plums (it doesn't say which kind, but the photo with the recipe shows red plums with yellow flesh - BTW, don't expect to see any such thing when the dish is cooked, since the luscious plum wedges shown in the image are a fiction of food photography) 1 large yellow onion, chopped 100 ml sweet white wine meat broth (e.g. lamb, chicken or vegetable) or water 2 tbsp cornstarch (or potato starch, or Maizena sauce thickener) First, here's how I had to compromise on the recipe: The week before I made it, I saw at least three varieties of plums in every food shop I entered and they always seemed to be so ripe as to be on the verge of becoming liquid inside their skins. The day I actually went to buy them all I could find were r...

This is a nice recipe for lamb's or sheep's hearts. Hearts from an adult sheep will need slightly longer cooking than lamb hearts. To serve 4. 4 lamb or sheep hearts Marinade: 100 ml table vinegar 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried) 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped 3 laurel leaves salt and pepper For cooking: 100 g butter 100 g smoked bacon, finely chopped 10-15 shallots, sliced 1-2 tbsp flour 400-500 ml red wine 100-200 ml water salt and pepper 200 g whole small mushrooms, sautéed Cut the fat off the hearts, flush them well under running cold water and cut lengthwise into four parts each. Make the marinade and marinade the heart pieces for 4-6 hours. (I found 4 hours sufficient, but 6 will give a more intense flavour). Melt the butter in a Dutch oven or deep frying pan. Remove the hearts from the marinade and brown in the butter. Add bacon and onions. Sprinkle the sifted flour into the pan and let it soak up the butter. Add red wine and water, stir t...

I thought it was about time to post a recipe, since I remembered a very old, traditional one I have not posted before. This is a very old Icelandic dish. Since it is made in pretty much the same way as liver sausage, except using fish products, I suppose you could call it fish-liver sausage (or pudding) in English.   For 1 person: 2-3 fresh cod’s stomachs 1 cod liver Rye meal Salt White pepper (optional) Water There are two basic methods of making kútmagar . In one you use rye meal and in the other you don’t.  Since I don’t expect you can buy fresh fish stomachs just anywhere and may therefore have to buy or catch whole fish and then remove the stomachs, I have included instructions on how to clean them: You take them and rub them inside and out with sand or coarse salt until you have removed the slime and anything else that may stick to them.  Both methods: Soak the liver in cold water for a while (30 minutes or so), then re...

Happy New Year! May the new year bring you good health, much happiness and great food!

Ages ago I promised to find a recipe for skyr brulée – well I finally found one! The recipe comes from chef Steinar Þór Þorfinnsson of the restaurant Einar Ben. I haven’t tested it, but here goes: Skyr- and white chocolate crème brulée with blueberry schnapps Skyr-crème brulée: 100 g cream 100 g pure skyr 40 g egg yolk 40 g sugar 80 g white chocolate The juice of 1/2 lime 1 vanilla pod Split the vanilla pod lengthwise and put in a saucepan with the cream. Bring to the boil, remove from the heat and add the skyr. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler and add to the warm skyr mixture. Stir together the egg yolk and sugar and add to the skyr mixture along with the lime juice. Put into crème brulée ramekins and bake in a water bath at 120 °C for 30 minutes. Cool. Sprinkle with demerara sugar and melt the sugar with a crème brulée torch. P.S. Before making this, please take a look at the review in the comment. Blueberry schnapps: 125 g puréed blueberries 500 ...