Quantcast
Channel: Danish Open Sandwiches (Smørrebrød)
Viewing all 29 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Chocolate smorrebrod???

April 23, 2011, 6:25 pm
$
0
0
Chocolate smørrebrød anyone?
Everybody loves chocolate, right? And the Danes are no different. In fact, they love chocolate so much they eat it on open-faced sandwiches...for breakfast! Admittedly, it' mostly a thing kids do, but if you ever feel like indulging your inner Danish child, butter up a slice of Danish rye and eat it topped with a couple of thin slices of chocolate, and then go crazy!

Chocolate pålæg sent via airmail
Get this. In Danish supermarkets you can buy chocolate slices specially prepared for the purpose of placing atop bread! It is available in either a milk or a dark variety, comes thinly sliced, and is cut to fit perfectly on a half a piece of Danish rye bread. But don't worry, you can enjoy your chocolate slices on pretty much any kind of bread for that matter. This isn't exactly gourmet cuisine, so you can get away with murder here. Toasted english muffins, baguette, melba toast, heck croutons! Whatever makes you happy.

Homemade chocolate slices
But what if you are not in Denmark and want to treat yourself to a little slice of chocolatey breakfast heaven? Short of asking an uncle to send you a few packages in the mail (which is what I do), what are your options? Ah, worry not! You can make prepared chocolate slices yourself. All you need is some chocolate, a thermometer, and the technique I will describe in a moment. But first, I need to digress slightly...

All this talk of chocolate makes me want a cup of coffee. I, like many canadians of Danish origin, drink copious amounts of coffee (see per capita consumption data here for the main coffee drinking nations). And while there are many ways of preparing coffee - most of which I enjoy - I really enjoy coffee made using a Bodum coffee press. If you like coffee and haven't experienced this manner of preparing coffee, you have to check it out. And another thing, since the Bodum system doesn't keep coffee warm, many Danes also have a coffee thermos. I love these. They add a real "je ne sais quoi" - or a "det ved jeg ikke" as they (do not) say in Danish - to the morning breakfast table. Check out the classic Stelton thermos for a touch of retro Danish style.   

Bodum - Danish for great coffee...
   
Stelton: Great for keeping coffee warm!

   
Tempering Chocolate

Ok, now back to making your own chocolate slices for Chocolate open-faced sandwiches. The trick is to use tempered chocolate - chocolate that has been melted, cooled to a specific temperature and then heated slightly. This results in a chocolate that sets firmly and maintains a nice glossy sheen - just what you want when enjoying your morning breakfast! And it doesn't melt all over your fingers the second you touch it. Here is how to temper your chocolate and make pålæg:

  • Things you will need: You will need an accurate chocolate thermometer for tempering chocolate and a non-stick, heat resistant surface to work on (I like silpat silicone mats for this).

  • Ingredients: Start with about 500g semi-sweet bakers chocolate. If you are using chunks, you'll need to chop them up into small pieces. You call also use chocolate chips - but use dark chocolate. Milk chocolate can also be tempered, but requires a slightly different procedure (the temperatures are different). 
  • Getting ready: Prepare a small double boiler by placing one small pot in another pot containing water, heat the water until it starts to boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer.
  • Heating: Place about 2/3 of the chocolate into the double boiler and melt it until it reaches 45-47 degrees Celsius. You can go hotter, but then cooling takes longer.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler
  • Cooling: Remove the chocolate from the hot water, and, bit by bit, stir the unmelted chocolate into the melted stuff until you reach 26-27 C. Adding unmelted chocolate helps cool the whole thing faster.  

  • Heating again: Put the pot containing the chocolate back into the hot water and stir for about 30 seconds until the temperature reaches 32 C. Your chocolate is now ready to use.  

Chocolate, spread thinly

  • Forming: To form the slices, use a spatula to spread chocolate thinly across the silicone mat and then create rectangular segments using a dull knife. Allow the chocolate to cool thoroughly and peel off the mat. You're ready for a saturday morning delight with the kids!


Thin chocolate layer, segmented into rectangles

What else do Danes do with Chocolate?

Canadian flødeboller
While chocolate on your open-faced sandwich may seem like a revelation, Denmark has another interesting chocolate specialty - called flødeboller. These delights are basically cookie topped with marshmallow and then dipped in chocolate. If you like the sound of this, you can find an approximation, albeit a poor one, in Canadian supermarkets - they are called Whippets cookies. As a child visiting Denmark, I always had an amazing time - mainly because my father and I would make a point of visiting one of the many old-time candy shops located on Strøget (the central Copenhagen walking street) to gorge on flødeboller in their many different  shapes and sizes - some plain milk chocolate, some coated in dark chocolate, some stuffed with marzipan, and some adorned with shredded coconut - so many options - as a kid, it boggles the mind. Just to keep you guessing, I have not included a photo, but you can check here for a Danish website with really authentic looking flødeboller. This is not my speciality, so I am leaving these to the experts. Enjoy!




↧
Search

Frikadeller: Denmark's Most Closely Guarded Secret

May 1, 2011, 12:52 pm
$
0
0
Frikadeller smørrebrød - the perfect way of dispatching those leftovers!
Frikadeller are Danish meatballs and are commonly eaten as part of the evening meal, and served perhaps with boiled potatoes. They are also great placed either warm or cold atop smørrebrød. Flavourful and oh so light, there are as many frikadeller recipes in Denmark as their are households - and these treasured family secrets are passed on from one generation to the next. But, in fact, there is only one true frikadeller recipe - the one recipe to rule them all - and it is guarded deep inside the most secure vault in all of the Kingdom of Denmark.

The recipe itself for frikadeller is written in the original manuscript of THE definitive guide to Danish cuisine - Frøken Jensens Kogebog - handwritten by the venerable lady of the Danish kitchen herself in 1901. It is also said that the original copy of the unabridged handwritten manuscript (not the commonly published concise edition you can still find in stores today) lists and details the twenty-five "official"smørrebrød - if it is not in the original Frøken Jensens Kogbog, then it is not really smørrebrød. And while I have not seen it with my own eyes, the ancient tome purportedly contains an even lengthier list of things one must not combine together when making danish open-faced sandwiches (ham, blue cheese and pickled herring anybody? Frøken Jensen said "Nej!").

Secret location of frikadeller recipe...
While it is a closely guarded national secret, I can reveal to you here that the vault's location is actually in central Copenhagen, deep inside the basement of the beautiful Rosenborg Castle. The vault uses the most advanced anti-theft technology to ensure that Denmark's greatest treasures are kept safe and sound. Not coincidentally, this vault is also home to other precious national treasures, such as the crown jewels of the Danish royal family, which are on display behind thick bulletproof glass out of the reach of tourists and robbers alike. Hundreds of sensors are constantly vigilant for the slightest sign of trouble, and at the slightest whiff of risk, the ultra-secure environment shuts down tighter than Fort Knox - with 8 inch thick steel doors slamming shut in an instant - entrapping anybody caught inside the vault - long before escape is possible.

The frikadeller recipe is a closely guarded secret!
Ok, ok! So none of this is true about the secret location of the frikadeller recipe, the official smørrebrød list, or even the handwritten Frikadeller recipe, but Rosenborg Castle is real, it is highly secure, and it is in Copenhagen. As a child, my imagination was captivated by the seemingly impenetrable safe, and I assumed that it housed secrets even more wonderful than the priceless treasures actually on display - treasures like the secrets of smørrebrød.

Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen
Rosenborg Castle was built in the Dutch Renaissance style in 1606 and was used as a summer residence by King Christian IV as well as other Danish kings. Today, the castle serves as a museum, with many interesting historical artefacts on display including the original crown from the coronation of King Christian IV himself in 1596. Find out more about the Rosenborg Castle museum here.

All this is very interesting, but I am sure that by now you are dying to know how to make frikadeller! So enough of the suspense - here is what you need to know:

Use good meat and grind it yourself
To begin with, frikadeller can be made from different types of ground meat including beef, veal, and pork. I believe the best frikadeller have at least 50% pork, and to ensure the tastiest meat balls, you should use the best possible lean meat you can buy - for instance pork loin, veal cutlets, and so on. This means you'll have to grind the meat yourself (or ask the butcher to do it for you), since typical store ground meats are very high in unnecessary fat. You will find the recipe for frikadeller below.

In terms of using frikadeller for smørrebrød, this is very common in Denmark as a way of using up leftovers from the previous night's dinner, and there are actually a few different accompaniments that you can use - agurkesalat, rødkål, asier and even pickled red beets - all of these sweet and sour toppings compliment the light, savory flavour of meat balls when eaten on top of buttered Danish rye bread.

Variety is the spice of life!
Ingredients for making frikadeller:

Grind pork, veal and onion
together a few times

  • 250 grams of finely ground pork
  • 250 grams of finely ground veal
  • 1 medium onion, ground finely along with the meat
  • 1 large egg
  • 350 ml soda water
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp flour (rye or wheat)
  • a pinch or two of ground all-spice
  • freshly ground pepper to taste
  • Butter for frying
Instructions

1) Combine all the ingredients (except the butter) in a bowl. The mixture should be quite moist and soft.

Frikadeller ingredients - ready to mix!
Mixture too soft to handle
2) Place a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, and then melt a couple of table spoons of butter in the frying pan. You will be frying the meatballs in batches.

3) Using a pair of spoons, form the meatballs and place them, one-by-one, in the hot frying pan. Don't put too many frikadeller in the pan at once, or they will boil instead of fry! The frikadeller should not be touching.

Form frikadeller with a couple of spoons 
4) Cook the meatballs for about 3 minutes, and then flip gently (I use a couple of knives for this manoeuvre).  

Fried in batches - don't add too many to the pan at once!
5) Cook for 3 minutes more and then remove the frikadeller to a separate platter. Add more butter and then fry another batch.

6) Once you are  ready for smørrebrød, butter a pice of dark Danish rye bread, slather it with Dijon mustard, place a couple of sliced meatballs on the mustard, and then top it with an appropriate pålæg (for instance, agurkesalat or even dill pickles). Make sure you enjoy with a cold lager beer and a fork & knife.


↧
↧

Did Bog People Eat Pickled Herring?

May 7, 2011, 4:17 pm
$
0
0
Well preserved Danish fried herring...
Many people ask me about the history of smørrebrød, and how far back the tradition dates. For instance, we're these wonderful open-faced sandwiches popular in the 1800s? Or going back even further, did the Vikings enjoy eating smørrebrød? Or what about 2000 years ago? Do we have any way of knowing what early Danes were eating? Perhaps they were enjoying eating charred herring on unleavened whole-grain bread with the help of flint cutlery? Wouldn't that be amazing!?!

Tollund Man: Well-preserved Iron-age Dane
Luckily we do know something about the lives of Danes from 2000 years ago thanks, in part, to the discovery of the Tollund Man in 1950. This discovery is an amazing story, and I encourage you to read about it on Wikipedia or many of the other sites dedicated to these naturally preserved corpses found in Northern European Peat Bogs. But since I brought it up, I may as well give you a bit of info...These corpses, known as Bog People, were preserved thanks to the acidic quality and the lack of oxygen in the swamps in which their bodies were buried.

The Tollund Man, who appears to have been ritually sacrificed by hanging due to the presence of a noose around his neck, seems to have enjoyed a last meal that was 100% smørrebrød free (so much for my theory). In his stomach were the remains of what must have been a deee-licious iron-age porridge made from veggies and seeds and included barley, linseed, and chamomile, plus a couple of things I've never heard of - bristle grass, which doesn't sound that good, and "gold of pleasure", which sounds pretty darn good if you ask me. Actually, this porridge sounds kinda like something NOMA would serve these days.

OK, so I am a bit disappointed that there was no "Bog Herring" preserved in Tollund Man's stomach, but thanks to adventurous archeologists, I can at least debunk my own myth and safely state that Danish open-faced sandwiches were not eaten on a daily basis by iron-age Bog People - at least not in the 24 hours preceding their execution. Maybe the Viking diet included sandwiches, but that will have to be a topic for another day.

The search for ancient smørrebrød continues...
By the way, if you are interested in seeing the Tollund Man in the darkly preserved flesh (at least his head),  you should visit the Silkeborg Museum in Silkeborg, Denmark, a town about 10km from where the body was discovered. I've never made the trip myself, but what's not to like about a museum dedicated to bog people and other historical artefacts?

So what does all this have to do with smørrebrød? Well, frankly, nothing. But corpses preserved in acid got me thinking about edible things you could preserve in vinegar - like fried herring filets. And in fact, pickled fried herring is a classic topping for Danish open-faced sandwiches served on buttered Danish rye bread - it truly would have been a dish worthy of an iron-age Dane's last meal - but is easy enough to make that you can enjoy it any day.

Here is what you need to know in order to make your own pickled fried herring:

Ingredients Pickling liquid
Ingredients:

  • 250ml white vinegar
  • 200ml sugar
  • 1 tbsp coarse salt
  • 1/2 tsp whole all-spice
  • 1/2 tsp mustard seed
  • 1/2 tsp pepercorns
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 egg, beaten (optional)
  • 100 ml rye flour
  • 6 herring filets
  • butter for frying

Instructions

1) Gently heat the vinegar in a small pot until boiling, add the sugar and salt, and stir until dissolved.

2) Reduce heat, add the spices, and simmer for about 3 minutes, then remove from feat and allow to cool completely.

3) Meanwhile, while the liquid is cooling, dredge the herring filets in rye flour (after optionally dipping them in the egg). Shake of excess flour.

Dredge filets in flour - I prefer without egg
4) Place a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, add the butter, and then fry the herring filets for about 3-4 minutes per side.

Fry 'em up in batches
5) Place the fried filets in a glass casserole just big enough to hold the filets in a single layer.

6) Once the pickling liquid is cool, pour it over the filets and let them rest together for about 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Give it 24 hours to let the acidity and spice do its trick!
7) Serve on buttered Danish rye bread, garnish with a couple of slices of red onion and dill, and enjoy with fork and knife!

Yet another Danish classic - easy to make and oh so tasty!

↧

Tartarmad - Kickin' it old school

May 15, 2011, 12:01 pm
$
0
0
Tartarmad - good, old fashion smørrebrød
Sadly, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not, some wonderfully delicious delectables fall out of fashion and spontaneously disappear from dining room tables. Tartarmad - or Danish smørrebrød of steak tartare on hearty rye bread - is a perfect example of one such casualty of the fast-paced world of changing food tastes - it has been gone from popular cuisine for ages and ages. Whether it is due to fears of eating raw meat and eggs, or just because there are so many other yummy treats to eat these days, Tartarmad is definitely not on today's culinary radar.

Tartarmad:
Back on the culinary radar
But fear not! I love Tartarmad, and this week's post will show you just what you need to do in order to bring the oldie but goodie back into style in your home...

First of all, let's talk about ingredients. With tartarmad, probably more than any other sandwich in the pantheon of all-time great smørrebrød, you are relying heavily on the quality of its component ingredients - you absolutely need the freshest, highest quality ingredients, especially in terms of beef and eggs. The few extra dollars you'll need to spend on great meat from a top butcher is worth it, in terms of the final taste, and of course in terms of food safety. And the eggs - if you can get farm fresh, free-range eggs, the flavour will be that much better (and safer). And needless to say, it all comes together on thick slices of buttered Danish rye bread.

Ooey, gooey good!
Simply put, I love this smørrebrød. I love the way the ingredients come together harmoniously and combine to make an ooey-gooey-good lunch. With savoury, tender meat, smooth egg yolk, chewy rye bread, crunchy pickles, and potent horseradish you are getting an exhilarating sandwich experience like few others. It's like eating in a great French bistro, without the surly waiter. Add a bowl of pommes frites, and you have an unforgettable treat.

Clean is good...
A note on food safety and hygiene: I am no food safety expert, but I am not squeamish when it comes to eating things raw. I do realize that not everybody shares my zeal for "living dangerously". So here is my advice for those of you who are thinking of taking a stab at "extreme" tartare eating for the first time. If you have any doubt about the quality of the produce, don't take any chances. Avoid the back alley free-range egg merchants and the suspicious meat rack at the supermarket. Mad Cow and Salmonella have funny names, but that is where the humour ends.

So ends my public service announcement. Now on with the recipe...

Sirloin! Perfect for tartarmad.
So let's start with the meat. You want to go to a good butcher and get a whole (unground) piece of nice quality meat - I suggest sirloin here. It's tender and has a bit of fat to make it taste slightly richer than, say, filet mignon. 500g of sirloin will get you enough meat for 5 or 6 generous smørrebrød.

Once you've got your meat, you need to chop it by hand with a really sharp knife. This is for a couple of reasons. 1) It helps to ensure the best possible hygiene, as meat grinders are notoriously hard to keep really spick and span, and 2) you end up with a nicer coarse texture to the meat. Tender, high-quality meat need not be ground beyond recognition  - there is nothing to hide!

Chop sirloin by hand
Chopping sirloin is not hard, but it tasks a bit of patience. Make sure you work on a clean surface, work fast (without risking your fingers), and try to keep the meat as cold as possible to inhibit the formation of unwanted bacteria.

Once you've chopped it to the desired degree of coarseness, give it a dash of seasoning (salt and pepper), and even throw in a couple of table spoons of minced onion. Then wrap it up in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Nothing to hide  - Yum!
Meanwhile, prepare the other accompaniments:
  • Slice a small onion into rings 
  • Grate horseradish, if you can find it fresh
  • Dice pickles and red beets
  • Separate the egg yolks from the egg white (you'll need one egg yolk per open sandwich)
  • Put out 3-4 spoons of capers
When you are ready to build the sandwich, here's what you need to do:
  1. Start by buttering the rye bread.
  2. Cover the bread completely with a generous portion of seasoned chopped sirloin, then flatten the meat out evenly across the top of the bread using a fork.
  3. Place an onion ring atop in the centre of the meat.
  4. Place one egg yolk inside the onion ring.
  5. Serve with accompaniments such as horseradish, pickles, capers, and red beets. 
  6. Enjoy with fork and knife and large glass of Danish lager. Skål!

Tartarmad: old-school goodness and pretty, too!


↧

Summer salad, smoked cheese, Skagen and topless beaches

May 22, 2011, 3:02 pm
$
0
0
Sommersalat: smoked cheese and radish marks the beginning of summer
When the weather gets warm and the gardens are springing to life, it's the time of year to start making the delicious veggie smørrebrød called sommersalat (which translates to, drum roll.....summer salad). This distinctly Danish treat pops up at picnics across Denmark when the sun comes out and the weather gets warm. Personally, I have fond memories of enjoying smørrebrød with sommersalat in the garden of one of my uncle's my summer cottages in Hornbæk, on the Zealand coast north of Copenhagen. On those summer occassions, when the entire family would gather for enormous smørrebrød potluck, we could always count on my cousin Dorte to bring along the sommersalat. Thanks, Dorte!

Making sommersalat is very easy, but it requires one special ingredient - an unusually-prepared Danish dairy product similar to cream cheese but with one huge difference - it's been smoked! Called rygeost (or smoked cheese), you can find this in all Danish grocery stores, but if you live in Canada, you need to make it yourself - which is, of course, what I do.

There's more than one way to
smoke a cheese...
I don't have a proper smoker on my back balcony, but I have been known to jerry rig my bar-b-q into a suitable system for adding a modicum of naturally smokey flavour to foods (eel, herring, mackerel, and of course, cheese). For rygeost, however, you have to use cold smoke, so you'll need a way of transporting the smoke away from to heat source and into a secondary container in which you place the cheese. Smoking cheese doesn't take too long, maybe 30-45 minutes, and should be done with a mildly scented wood (no mesquite or hickory - you ain't cookin' ribs, partner - I'd recommend maple or apple wood instead).


Peder S. Krøyer
Self-portrait 1899
Given the fact that you'll probably need to smoke your own cheese, making sommersalat has a Danish Degree of Difficulty of Peder S. Krøyer Medium.

P. S. Krøyer (1851 - 1909), was a Danish painter and one of the most prominent members of the Skagen Painters, a community of Nordic artists who lived and worked in the picturesque Danish coastal town of Skagen (pronounced skay-en) at the end of the 19th century. He's best-known for his paintings depicting beach life in the Skagen area, using a color palette that brilliantly captured the magnificent summer sunlight  that bathed Denmark's most-northerly tip in the late-afternoons. His most famous painting is probably "Summer Evening on the Skagen Southern Beach with Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer" which he painted in 1893.


Summer Evening on the Skagen Southern Beach
with Anna Archer and Marie Krøyer, 1893, by P.S. Krøyer. 
Read more about the Skagen Painters at the Skagen Museum website.

I've never been to Skagen, but I've always thought of it as the quintessential Danish summer vacation spot. It was to Skagen that my father and his four brothers would travel as children in order to escape the humdrum blahs of summertime in post-war Copenhagen (playing with rusty nails in the mean back alleyways of Sydhavn), preferring instead to frolic in the frigid northern waters at the confluence of the Skaggerak and Kattegat. Brrrrrrr.... On the other hand, Skagen beaches, like beaches in the other parts of Europe, are topless, so maybe the kids didn't mind the chilly water that much after all. If you'd  like to know more about tourism in Skagen, check this out. If you'd like to learn more about topless beaches, ask the internet.

Windswept beach at Skagen - a great place to eat sommersalat!
Inspired by the beach?

As I mentioned, I've never been to Skagen  - it is too far out of the way for a quick trip from Copenhagen (takes about 5 and a half hours to get there with a ferry ride to Ǻrhus - another place I've never been to - so I'd be able to kill 2 birds with one stone on this trip). For now I have to content myself with a lovely Skagen watch!
Ok, so this doesn't have anything to do with the summer, open-faced sandwiches, or sommersalat, but I like Skagen watches. The company is actually US-headquartered, but is run by a Danish couple, and they make ultra-thin, lightweight watches with typical Danish-design simplicity. Check out Skagen Denmark watches here. Believe it or not, I do not get corporate sponsorship for the contents of my blog posts. I just post about things I like for free.



Skagen - one place I'd love to visit - but it always seems too far!
 Anyway, now that I've successfully avoided talking about food for several paragraphs, and shamelssly flogging a few Danish brands, we should get back to making this week's pålæg sandwich topping - sommersalad. Yum! Smokey, crunchy, delicously creamy, but somehow light all at the same time!

But before we do, here's one last gratuitous plug for Denmark in the summer - where the days are long, the sun is warm, the sandwiches are topless, and so are the beaches! Life in Denmark can be so hyggelig!

Topless beaches & topless sandwiches
Ah! Summer in Denmark ain't bad! 
OK, here's what you need to know if you want to make your own sommersalat smorrebrød:

Ingredients for sommersalat
Ingredients for sommersalat


  • 300 g rygeost (smoked cheese)
  • 3 heaping tbsp mayonnaise
  • 250 ml (1 cup) thinly sliced radish
  • 250 ml (1 cup) chopped seedless cucumber
  • 1 bunch chives, chopped
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • A few slices of frizzy lettuce
  • slices of buttered Danish rye bread
Instructions for making sommersalat


Sommersalat smørrebrød: a mini work of art on bread...
1) Combine smoked cheese and mayonnaise in a large bowl until mixed.

2) Add radish, cucumber, and chopped chives and then stir to combine.

3) Allow the mixture to sit in the fridge for an hour or so to let the flavours blend together.

4) Place a couple of heaping tablespoons of the sommersalat atop a slice of buttered Danish rye bread and then garnish with sliced radish and chopped chive. Enjoy with fork and knife and a crisp Danish lager. Skål!

Remember, if you can't find fresh cheese in your 'hood, you can always make it yourself. I won't go into it in this blog post, but you can basically get there with a yogurt machine and cheese cloth. Read about it here. Then all you have to do is smoke it. Lickety-split!
↧
↧

Tongue. Not just for breakfast anymore!

May 29, 2011, 7:11 pm
$
0
0

Tongue in a creamy, dreamy salad

It was my farfar (grandfather) who used to say that he never wanted to eat anything that had been in somebody else's mouth. He always seemed to say this just as the tongue salad was being served - yet he always ignored his own advice as he hungrily tucked in to what was probably one of his favourite smørrebrød.

Tongue: not pretty, but pretty yummy!

OK, I'll admit it right up front - tongue isn't my favourite smørrebrød to make, mainly because the actual preparation is pretty gross - I mean you can see where the tongue was ripped from the poor beast's head - ugh! And you can make out it's taste buds for heaven's sake. But soldiering on through the gnarly bits is worth it, as tongue is a tender, tasty cut of meat and goes very well on Danish rye bread in a number of different preparations - and, of course, washed down with cold Danish lager!

The most traditional manner of consuming tongue is in tongue salad, with finely chopped veal of beef tongue mixed into a creamy concoction that has a citrusy tanginess that stands up well to the meatiness of tongue. 

There are, however, other was of enjoying tongue. For instance, have it with a little Italiensk salat (recipe here), or even prepared in the manner of roast beef with horseradish and fried onions (recipe here). In all cases, it should be eaten with hearty, buttered Danish rye bread (recipe here).

You too can enjoy cow tongue smørrebrød in 3 easy steps...
1) Cow
2) Tongue
3) Smørrebrød

H.C. Andersen

Now, making tongue isn't very hard, but it is a bit time-consuming, mainly due to the lengthy simmering times needed to produce the deliciously tender meat. As such, the Danish Degree of Difficulty of Tongue is Medium - Hans Christian Andersen Medium.

As you probably know, Hans Christian Andersen was a tremendously prolific Danish storyteller of the 1800s. Born in Odense in 1805, H.C. wrote fairy tales which were to become international mega smash hits. He is in very rare company indeed when it comes to Danish celebrity... the Wayne Gretzky of Fairy Tale writers (and Aesop would be Mario Lemieux. The Brothers Grimm? Gordie Howe).

H.C. Andersen's stories 
include Thumbelina, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Match Girl, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, and of course, the Little Mermaid (Den Lille Havfrue). 

The Little Mermaid - Little is right!
Even before Walt Disney made the The Little Mermaid into a household name, she was a star - a life-sized statue in her likeness sits perched atop a rock in Copenhagen's harbour, and is surely one of Copenhagen's most visited tourist attractions. For me, this statue, while pretty, is in a dubious category along with the Mona Lisa, the Manneken Pis and a few other European tourist attractions - iconic, but disappointingly small. I know that makes me seem brutish and uncultured, but I'm just being honest.
If you visit the statue, and I do think it's worth it, you may find that it is closed off to the public. This is due to frequent vandalism that she endures at the hands of her "fans." She's been through it all: pushed into the harbour, doused with paint, set on fire. She's even had limbs severed! Which finally brings me back to cow tongue.   

Yes, it has been severed from a cow, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy eating it. And if you want to enjoy it, here's what you need to do to cook it...

1) First of all, buy a tongue. Most decent butchers will have something - most likely veal. Beef is fine, if they have it, but it takes longer to cook, since it's much larger than veal.

Tongue - Definitely not for the faint of heart 
2) Soak it in cold water for an hour or two, then drain.

3) Simmer slowly in a pot with vegetables such as an onion, a couple of carrots, a celery stick, parsley - that kind of thing. You can also add a few herbs and spices like bay leaf, thyme, mustard seed, all-spice.

Simmering tongue - this part is easy
4) Cook the tongue for about one hour per pound of meat - keeping the meat covered in water at all times. A veal tongue generally takes one and a half to two hour to cook. Beef can take much longer.

5) Remove the tongue from the cooking liquid and allow to cool slightly, then remove the thick outer membrane (this is the part that looks like taste buds - yuck!). You want to do this while the meat is still warm. 

Peeling the tongue - this is one of the grosser jobs...






6) Allow the tongue to cool thoroughly, and then slice thinly cross-wise, being sure to remove fatty bits, tough membranous parts, or any other nasty looking stuff. 

7) Prepare the tongue meat in your favourite 

recipe, like Tongue Salad!  Here's what you need to know in order to prepare a nice tongue salad smørrebrød:

smørrebrød 


Ingredients
  • 1 cup cooked tongue, chopped finely 
  • 1 tsp Dijon mustard 
  • 1 tbsp butter, softened to room temperature 
  • 1/2 tsp Paprika 
  • 1 egg yolk, boiled 
  • juice of 1 lemon 
  • a pinch of nutmeg
Instructions

1) Put aside the chopped tongue, and thoroughly combine all the other ingredients in a bowl.

2) Add the tongue, and stir to combine.

3) Serve 2 spoonfuls of tongue salad on a slice of buttered Danish rye bread with slices of onion for added crunch! Enjoy with fork and knife!
↧

Vote for your favourite meaty smørrebrød =====>

June 4, 2011, 5:59 am
$
0
0
It's been a while since the last contest (back in Februrary), in which readers resoundingly elected Gravad Laks (cured salmon) as their favourite seafood smørrebrød. Now it's time to cast your ballots in favour of your favourite meat treat. Here are the contestants:

Ham with Italiensk Salat
Liver paté with pickled beets
Tartarmad (beef tartare)
Dyrlægens Natmad
Hønsesalat (chicken Salad)
Medisterpølse with cucumber salad
Tongue Salad



↧

Tomatmad and cool Danish things that start with T

June 12, 2011, 7:59 pm
$
0
0

Delicious tomatmad - a summer delicacy not to be ignored!
Tomatmad is super delicious. Juicy and full of summer flavour. I think enjoying a tomatmad on your balcony with an ice cold øl is a very cool thing to do.

I know, I know. It doesn't sound that cool - in fact, to some it may even sound boring (shock and aghast!). "At least add some bacon," the skeptics say! Well I think they are totally wrong! Tomato, buttered Danish rye bread, mayo and chives, is about as yummy as any quick and easy lunch can get. You probably don't believe me, so I sought out an independent, unbiased opinion and asked a pretty Belgian woman to give me her opinion as she was enjoying a tomatmad with thickly sliced beefeater tomatoes, loads of fresh pepper and a bit of salt. She said: "Yum!" and went back to scarfing down her smørrebrød. I'm not making this up...

Yes, you need good ingredients - fresh summery tomatoes being vital as they are the tomat in tomatmad. So this smørrebrød should really only be eaten in the summer when local tomatoes are fresh, plump and at their best, the chives are plentiful, anf the rugbrød is chewy chewy good. And mayonnaise should be homemade if possible.

Availability of ingredients aside, tomatmad is to very easy to make - as easy as striking a match perhaps - though no cooking is requred. Therefore the Danish Degree of Difficulty is a Tordenskjold Easy. "And who is Tordenskjold," you ask?

Tordenskjold matches - as Danish as apple pie is American
Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold (1691 – 1720) was quite possibly Denmark's most famous naval hero. No doubt because of his badass-ness, as maybe a bit because of the similarity to his last real last name, he was known far and wide as Tordenskjold, or Thunder Shield in Danish, indeed a cool name! Though he is well known for his victory over the Swedes in the battle of Dynekilen, today he is most definitely best known as the face of Danish matchsticks. A strange honour, to be sure, but he is certainly a household name all over Denmark. Learn more about the exploits of Tordenskjoldhere.

And just like Tomatmad, Tordenskjold begins with the letter T. That is all the commonality I need to draw comparisons! While I'm on the topic of T, here are a few other very cool Danish things that start with the magnificent 15th letter of the alphabet.

Tivoli. Tivoli Gardens is the original fairytale kingdom - sitting right in the heart of Copenhagen. Opened in 1843, Tivoli was to the 19th century what "Disneyland" or "6 Flags Great America" are to the 21st. As a child, I loved going to Tivoli, mainly for the food - fanciful smørrebrød (stjerneskyd was my favorite - I'll have to post about that one soon!!!)and incomparably ornate ice cream cones topped with flødeboller and other Danish candy delights! Check out Tivoli's website here.

Tivoli Gardens - Copenhagen's Fairytale Playground

Crazily-strong
Danish salt licorice candies

Tyrisk Peber - A typical Danish salt licorice candy. Not actually flavoured with salt, but rather ammonia (even better!), these candies are definitely an acquired taste. I love them, but when I offer them to friends, they usually end up dashing to spit them out in the trash. Whimps!    

 Thorvaldsen - The great Danish sculptor. Bertel Thorvaldsen (1771-1844) was the toast of Rome in his heyday for his fine depictions of heroic figures done in a Neo-Classical style. There is a beautiful museum in his honour - one that you must see if you are visiting Copenhagen - they might even have delicious smørrebrød in the museum cafe. If you aren't able to visit Copenhagen, check out his museum website here.  
Thorvaldsen's Venus - hubba hubba!

Thor - The Norse God of Thundser himself and one of the coolest Deities period. He always loved a good scuffle, and probably did not eat Tomatmad or any other smørrebrød for that matter (the only strike against him).

Mighty Thor - proving that blondes have more fun!
Tog - The Danish word for train. I love traveling by train in Denmark - you can always enjoy a good smørrebrød in the dining car - but I especially love the cool look of the the Danish national train map.

Cool Danish Train Map

So, yeah, this post was a bit rambling. And yeah, Thor and tomatmad have nothing in common. But trains, Tivoli, and Thorvaldsen's museum are all great places to enjoy Denmark, and maybe even a smørrebrød or two! Skål!


↧
Search

Stjerneskud (The Shooting Star)

October 4, 2011, 5:49 am
$
0
0
Stjerneskud - AKA "The Shooting Star"
I'm finally back from a long summer vacation full of Danish-inspired, soul soothing activities: rod fishing for herring in the Roskilde Fjord, making elderflower cordials and rosehip jam in Lolland, sunbathing topless in Skagen, bicycling around Bornholm... and I'm ready to get back to bloggin'. Think of this as the season premiere of Danish Sandwich. And what always happens in the season premiere? You start with a bang!!!

Now, when it comes to open-faced sandwiches, there is no bigger bang that the over-the-top Stjernesjud (or Shooting Star in English). So that is what this blog post is about...

Easily Denmark's craziest concept open-faced sandwich, the Shooting Star is both a treat to the eyes and an extravaganza to the taste buds. How can I describe this famous construction? Well, it's basically a combination of every known fish and seafood topping you find in the common sandwich toolkit - it's what the average Dane could potentially make with the leftover smørrebrød toppings from a large family gathering - and in fact, that is why I am making this very treat - loads of leftovers!

The concept is based on the 1st cardinal rule of gastrony: that if one yummy thing tastes good, then therefore it stands to reason that five yummy things must taste five times better!  

What makes up a stjernekud?
The essential ingredients are the following (recipes are available with other blog posts):
Basically, you pile it all up on the bread, fitting it all as best as possible, not worrying too much about spill over. Then go to town with fork and knife and beer. Decadent! Scrumptious! Awesome! Words can barely describe...

Anyway, you shouldn't take my word for it. Make it yourself and enjoy. However, if you aren't able to make this yourself, but you happen to be visiting Denmark, here are a few excellent spots where you can find a professional Danish-chef who will gladly make a stjernesjud for you.

NYHAVN - The postcard-beautiful 17th century street that sits in the heart of the Copenhagen harbour district is rife with tourist-friendly eateries (like Told & Snaps) that will gladly overcharge anybody for the pleasure of eating stjerneskud, and other, dramatically emblematic smørrebrød. Trust me. I’ve paid more than my fair share at a couple of these places – but it’s OK – I chalk it up to culinary research and move on.

Nyhavn
Told&Snaps: A fancy smørrebrød joint on Nyhavn

Ferry boat: Great place for smørrebrød
Scandline ferry from Germany to Denmark - Once upon a time, there was no quicker way of getting to Copenhagen from continental Europe than taking a ferry boat. My preferred route went from Puttgarden in Germany to Rødby on the Danish island of Lolland. As soon as the boat was a sea, I’d dash to the cafeteria ahead of the rest of the crowd (who were apparently more concerned with buying cartons of duty free cigarettes) so that I could be first in line to order the Scandline ferry version of the stjerneskud– usually a simple open sandwich of fried Plaice filet covered in a heaping mound of shrimp and a dollop of remoulade. Nothing said “Welcome to Denmark” more effectively. The blue neon sign in Kaastrup International Airport baggage hall is a distant second.



GILLELEJE - I love this picturesque little fishing village on the northern coast of Sealand (Copenhagen’s island). Here you can find local specialties like smoked eel and herring, Thai noodles, and heaping platters of stjerneskud. My advise – it’s all good, but don’t bother with the Thai noodles.






↧
↧

Bienvenue de L'Epicerie!

October 6, 2011, 12:47 pm
$
0
0

Sandwich danois de l'Épicerie
Bienvenue à tous les lecteurs qui ont découvert mon blog grâce au show “L’Épicerie” sur la chaine Radio Canada. Merci de prendre le temps de visiter ce blog. 

J’espère que vous allez vous régaler en lisant mon bouillon de culture mélangeant faits et fictions  sur la spécialité danoise des sandwichs ouverts connus sous le nom de smørrebrød.

Étant canadien d’origine danoise, j’ai toujours été intéressé par la riche tradition danoise des smørrebrøds.  A travers les années, j’ai appris et j’ai développé des recettes de sandwichs danois. Je les ai adaptées avec les produits disponibles dans les épiceries, les boucheries et les magasins spécialisés de Montréal.
Le but de ce blog est de publier ces recettes pour que les personnes qui partagent ma passion pour la cuisine danoise puissent l’apprécier dans leur propre cuisine (sans devoir se rendre jusqu’au Danemark) ou tout simplement en apprécier la lecture.

Bien que ce site soit en anglais, j’espère que les téléspectateurs de “L’Épicerie” qui ont pris le temps de visiter mon blog le trouveront intéressant.

J’ai écrit beaucoup de recettes sur ce blog mais j’aimerais vous guider vers les plus populaires.

-Pain Danois au seigle
-Hareng mariné
-Filet de poisson frit avec remoulade
-Saumon gravlax
-Crevettes
-Jambon et salade a l’italienne
-Roti de porc et chou rouge
-Boulettes Danoises
-Boeuf tartare

Il y a encore plusieurs recettes à venir, donc n’oubliez pas de revenir pour d’autres visites.

Encore merci de votre intérêt, laissez-moi vos commentaires. J’essaierai de répondre à tout le monde.
↧

Open Faced Thanksgiving with Syltede Graeskar

October 22, 2011, 8:09 am
$
0
0

Gettin' rid of Thanksgiving leftovers the Danish way!
Shhhhhh, don't tell any Danes, but I've been secretly experimenting in my subterranean smørrebrød lab looking for a way of transforming boring Thanksgiving leftovers into exciting open-faced sandwiches. So, what you are about to see doesn't qualify as an officially sanctioned Danish smørrebrød, but the concept adheres to the rules, and it tastes pretty darn good! Of course, if any Dane reports me to the Ministry of Smørrebrød Affairs, I may get my license revoked, but I need to do something to get rid of my leftovers, and I can't stand another Turkey Pot Pie - so I feel like it's worth the risk.

The real deal!
This blog post, however, isn’t a complete non-Danish flight of fancy, since there is one very important Danish ingredient that you will need if you want to make this open sandwich, and I’m pretty sure you won’t find it in your local grocery store. This ingredient is called syltede græskar (which means pickled pumpkin - perfect for Thanksgiving) and it’s a really old-school traditional smørrebrød topping that is awesome with leverpostej. Problem is...I've never seen it outside of Denmark (it's even tricky to find there nowadays). So, we'll need to make it ourselves. Here's how...





Ingredients for syltede græskar:
  • 1.5 kg pumpkin, peeled, seeded, and sliced into 1cm strips
  • Brine
  • Pickling liquid
  • 3-4 mason jars
Brine
  • 1 litre water
  • 100g salt
  • 200ml vinegar
You'll need some pumpkin...
Pickling liquid
  • 500ml vinegar
  • 350ml sugar
  • 5 cloves
  • 1 vanilla bean, pulp removed
  • 2 cinnamon sticks, broken into pieces
  • 2 cm piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced
Instructions
  • Soak the sliced pumpkin in the brine solution for 24 hours.
  • Drain pumpkin slices in colander.
  • Heat pickling liquid ingredients over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
  • Add sliced pumpkin to pickling liquid, and bring to a gradual boil.
  • Remove from heat, then distribute pumpkin and spice pieces between clean mason jars.
  • Cover with hot pickling liquid and seal jars loosely.
  • Seal jars tightly when completely cooled and store for 1-2 weeks before enjoying on your favorite smørrebrød.
Syltrede græskar - try finding that in a grocery store!
OK, now that you have your pickled pumpkin, you are ready to make the Thanksgiving leftover smørrebrød. 


Here is what I used, but for this one, feel free to adlib.
  • Sliced turkey breast
  • Pickled pumpkin (Syltede Græskar)
  • Fried onions
  • Cranberry sauce
  • Parsley
Slap all the ingredients together atop a slice of buttered Danish rye bread, serve with cold lager beer, and enjoy with knife and fork!
↧

New Nordic Open-faced Sandwiches

November 3, 2011, 6:23 pm
$
0
0
I've been thinking a lot lately about the whole New Nordic cooking craze, which is now getting a lot of attention thanks no doubt to the popularity of NOMA in Copenhagen.

By blog has always been about traditional Danish open-faced sandwiches, so I can safely say that I am completely clueless on this new-fangled Scandinavian cooking movement, but people keep asking me about the relationship between my recipes and those of, say, NOMA, and I'm tired of dodging the questions. So now I am really curious to know more about what New Nordic cooking is all about.

Juicy Red Currents in Danish Backyard
I did a little digging and here's what I learned...

The movement began to take root after NOMA was founded in 2003 by head chef Rene Redzepi and Claus Meyer. It was basically a backlash against the bland eveness of food created from hundreds of years of puritanical eating habits, the latest in mega-farming agro efficiencies as well as the institutionalized concepts that only great foods from Europe's culinary meccas meritted the attention of smart local foodies. Olive Oil, Iberico Ham, Truffles, and Foie Gras were all the rage, yet had nothing to do with the local Scandinavian ingredients. Could these be the only foods worthy of eating? Meyer, Redzepi and other great Nordic chefs did not think so. And so, they created the New Nordic Kitchen manifesto, which has allowed Nordic food culture to take its place among the giants of culinary tradition.

As best I can tell, there were three main concepts at the root of the New Nordic manifesto:
  1. Use only local ingredients - they have such rich and diverse foods to choose from, why go elsewhere?
  2. Use seasonal ingredients - to better live harmoniously with nature
  3. Prepare healthy foods - rich in grains, fish, fruits and vegetables - without being bland. Good food is meant to delight and give pleasure to the eater
But perhaps, most importantly, they needed small and large food producers in Scandinavia to buy in to the concepts - this was not meant to be elitist - it was all about the quality of the primary ingredients.

And I couldn't agree more! I've tried, with the recipes in my blog, to use high-quality local ingredients to produce beautiful and delicious open-faced sandwiches.

Here are a few of the names (that I know) in today's New Nordic Kitchen movement:

Claus Meyer - Co-founder of NOMA and Danish culinary enterpreneur. Meyer has hosted TV shows such as PBS's "New Scandinavian Cooking" and runs several differnt food-related companies. Learn more about Meyer here.

René Redzepi - Co-founder and the genius head chef of NOMA, the world's current #1 restaurant. I've watched a number of his videos on Youtube, and have found it fascinating how he is able to create beautiful looking meals from locally forgared ingredients. Check out one of his Youtube videos about oysters here.

Contemplating the NOMA cookbook - things I will probably never make
By the way, the name NOMA is a contraction of nordisk (nordic) and mad (food).

I know it's random, but the name NOMA always made me think of the Roberto Duran quote after his last fight with Sugar Ray Leonard. ("¡No mas!")

Trine Hahnemann Cookbooks
Trine Hahnemann - Chef, enterpreneur and caterer to the rich and famous, Trine Hahnemann has authored a number of great books on Nordic cuisine including one of my kitchen bookshelf favorites - The Scandinavian Cookbook - with seasonal recipes from different parts of Scandinavia (including several open-faced sandwiches and useful bread recipes). Maybe if I had her books 10 years ago, I wouldn't need my blog today! Learn more about Trine Hahnemann at her website.

Adam Aamann - Possibly my favorite of the bunch due to his excellence in smørrebrød, Adam is the owner and head chef of Aamanns, a Copenhagen restaurant focusing on the open sandwich, using organic and seasonal ingredients. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary diploma from the Danish Academy of Gastronomy for his efforts to raise the open-sandwich to an art form. I love eating his art! He has recently opened an Aamanns restaurant in Tribeca in New York City - if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere!

Outside Aamanns in NYC:
I guess they don't eat smorrebrod for dinner in NY either!

Use seasonal, local ingredients
OK, so why am I thinking about all this stuff at this point? Well as much as I love the traditional open-faced sandwiches that I've described and documented in the blog, I feel like it's time to begin exploring a few new ideas, based on many of the same principles of New Nordic cooking, but of course, using ingredients that are more commonly found in my part of the world - Montreal and the Quebec region (which has it own culture of locally-produced and seasonal ingredients). Who knows? Maybe I'll end up opening a new eatery showcasing the finest in Montreal area foods. If it happens, I'll be naming the place MOFO for sure!

I'm not sure what I'll come up with yet,  but I'm looking forward to delving into the new possibilities. Meanwhile, I've still got a few traditional recipes to work on - think CHEESE - so keep following and hopefully you'll find a recipe or two you might actually want to make yourself one day.  
↧

A New Take on Tartarmad

November 12, 2011, 6:45 am
$
0
0
I love a good tartarmad as much as anybody and have already posted about the traditional way of preparing it, but I've been stricken with the uncontrollable urge to explore non-traditional variations of classic smørrebrød, and wanted to share a recent discovery with fans of Danish Sandwiches!

A delicious treat for lunch and day of the week!
Just looking at it now makes my mouth water!
First of all, I have to acknowledge Aamanns restaurant in Copenhagen as the source of this new tasty treat. I was perusing the various blogs with posts about smørrerbrød and I came across a great post about some food-savvy tourists who were visiting Copenhagen and ended up spending some quality time at my favourite smørrebrød joint. In the blog, they went into painstaking detail on the many sandwiches they ordered, taking close-up photos of each. It is from one of these photos that found my inspiration.


One of the things I love about Aamanns, and its especially true with this sandwich, is how the various ingredients so thoroughly complement each other - texture, flavour, and appearance are all harmoniously in balance and wonderfully unified by the Danish rye bread. I also love the way Aamanns comes up with new variations on traditional themes in a way that allows the old and the new to co-exist together.


From a design & architecture standpoint, this is something I pick up on when I visit Denmark. Sure it’s a very old country with a rich history, but the people don’t live in the past – they are constantly updating their environment to bring the old and the new together in ways I find very cool. For instance, you can see many examples in Copenhagen where new modern structures (say the Metro system) stand in juxtaposition to the historic landmarks (say Kongens Nytorv), in a way that enhances the overall appearance. (This is just my non-scholarly opinion – there may be groups of design advocates out there who will want my head on a platter for saying this – who knows???)

Here are a couple of architectural examples of the old and the new living side-by-side in Copenhagen:
 
Metro system at Kongens Nytorv:
Pyramids provide entrance for lighting in undergound system
UNIBANK Headquarters, Copenhagen:
New modern architecture, part of its surroundings
OK, let’s get back to the topic at hand – something I feel a lot more comfortable bloggin about - a new tartarmad sandwich. You'll need:

Fancy tartarmad: What you'll need to make it

  • Buttered Danish rye bread
  • Chopped uncooked beef
  • Creamy egg sauce (though egg yolks would be just fine, too)
  • Cornichon
  • Red onion rings
  • Fresh tarragon
  • Crispy sliced potatoes

Buttered Danish rye is the foundation upon which this great sandwich is built. Homemade is best, but don't let that get in the way of enjoying this masterpiece - store bought is better than nothing.

Chopped beef: It only takes a few minutes,
but watch your fingers! 
Chopped beef - When making tartar, you want to get a great piece of meet from an excellent quality butcher. Ask for something like flank steak or sirloin of you want something with a bit of fat (i.e taste). Use filet mignon if you want the ultimate in tenderness. You need about 200g for 4 sandwiches. Then you want to take that tasty meat and hand chop it with a sharp knife as finely as you can reasonably manage. Season with salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to use.

Egg yolk or "Magic Sauce" - Egg yolk, with its rich velvety texture, goes so well with raw meat it's scary. Cooked egg yolks, on the other hand, don't work at all and are a very poor substitute for the real raw thing. And while I love eating raw egg yolks with tartar, some people get all weird about possibly poisoning themselves, so here are a couple of alternatives:

·    Quickly pasteurize the egg yolks in a double-boiler until they are warm, but not cooked. Careful that the yolks don’t seize up.
·    Whip up a batch of what my friends and I mysteriously call Magic Sauce – basically a rich custard-like mixture with a slight hint of mustard. Here’s my recipe:
 

The things you'll need for Magic Sauce...
Ingredients for Magic Sauce:
  • 3 egg yolks, beaten
  • 125ml whipping cream
  • 1 heaping TBSP Dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper to taste
What to do:
1. Gently heat the cream until it is frothy and very hot
2. Pour a little bit of hot cream into the yolks, stirring constantly, to temper the yolks. This will ensure that they do not curdle when added to the rest of the cream.
3. Add the yolks into the rest of the cream and heat over a bain-marie while stirring constantly until the mixture has thickened (about 5 minutes).

Whip it good!
4. Remove from heat and allow the mixture to cool completely.
5. Add the mustard, salt and pepper and refrigerate until ready to use. It should have the consistency of mayonnaise.

Red onions, cornichon, tarragon, and crispy potatoes– These ingredients should all be readily available to you. If you want to be really fancy, you can deep fry your own potato slices, but my taste testers were more than happy to eat this sandwich topped with potato chips (use a good unsalted kind of chip from a company like Miss Vickie’s or Cape Cod)

Some Assembly Required

To assemble the sandwich, you simply spread out enough chopped up beef to cover the rye bread, add a dollop or two of “Magic Sauce” and cover artfully with the remaining ingredients. Enjoy with a cold beer, fork and knife!

This smørrebrødlooks great, tastes great, and is easy to make. What more can you ask for!
↧
↧

Blue Cheese with Apples and Bacon

November 28, 2011, 10:37 am
$
0
0
Smørrebrød with blue cheese,
apple, bacon, chives and a
savoury spread (so good, I can't believe it's not butter!)
There are not many Danish food products that are widely known outside of Denmark, but, for some strange reason, Danish Blue cheese is certainly an exception!

I've always found this a bit odd, since in my experience, most North Americans are not big Blue Cheese fans. Instead, the palate on this side of the ocean seems to lean heavily towards milder cheesy tastes like those found in cheeses like Cheddar, Brick, Monterey Jack. So why is Danish Blue (known as Danablu in Denmark) so well known here?

In truth, I have no idea. But I do know that I personally love the stuff - from the mild, creamy kind to the most pungent, tear-inducing varieties. In North America, most of the Danish Blue cheese we can purchase is made by the giant Danish dairy company Arla under the brand name Rosenborg. They have apparently won numerous awards for their cheeses, and claim to use the highest quality ingredients. You can find the link to the Arla Danish Blue website here if you are interested in knowing what they have to say about themselves.

I have absolutely nothing against this cheese and in Denmark it is frequently used to make tasty smørrebrød - but in an attempt to adhere to New Nordic concepts, for my smørrebrød I prefer using locally produced Quebec blue cheese - of which there are many varieties. 


Great Quebec blue cheeses right along classics like
Danablu, Rochefort, Fourme d'Ambert and Bleu D'Auvergne
RANDOM SIDEBAR: A brief side note about the name Rosenborg. Clearly this is a reference to the famous Royal castle/museum which sits in the heart of Copenhagen. I already mentioned this castle in my blog post about Frikadeller and Denmark's closely guarded secrets, so, randomly, I'll use this as a segue to mention my other favourite Danish castle - Fredericksborg. This enormous castle is located in the town of Hillerød to the north west of Copenhagen. It was built in the early 1600s and served as the residence of King Christian IV. Today it is a museum - the Museum of National History. If you go to Denmark, I highly recommend visiting this beautiful landmark.

Fredericksborg Castle in Hillerød, cool but nothing to do with Blue Cheese
In order to make the smørrebrød described in this blog post, I wanted to try a number of locally produced Blues to see which would be most similar to a typical Danablu. Here is what I found:

3 Quebec Blues: Bleu Benedictin, Bleu Ermite, Rassembleu
Rassembleu Aged blue with a potent smell reminiscent of ammonia. The taste, on the other hand, is very mild and slightly bitter. Not very blue in my opinion, and not ideal for a Blue smørrebrød.

Bleu Benedictin A light and creamy blue cheese that crumbles easily. It has a nice, mild blue flavour that is perfect for smørrebrød.

Bleu Ermite Drier texture, with a very light, almost imperceptible blue flavour. Looks blue, but taste more like an italian Romano or some other aged dry cheese. While, I like it, I wouldn't personally use this one for a Blue smørrebrød, but you might like it.

So once you've settled on your blue cheese, you need gather the rest of your ingredients. What you need for this sandwich:

  • Danish rye bread
  • Savoury spread made from bacon fat, apple, onion, and thyme
  • Bacon (sliced thinly and fried)
  • A couple of apple slices
  • Chive for garnish
  • and, or course, the star of the show...Blue cheese!
A few comments on these ingredients...

As always, I recommend making your own Danish rye bread, because it tastes so much better than what you can buy in North American supermarkets.

Delicious and bacony, savoury spread for smørrebrød
The savoury spread is a delicious puree made from bacon apples and onions. This type of ingredient can be used on numerous other smørrebrød as a way of providing a richer flavour-base. Try it with pickled herring to see what a difference it makes. You can find the recipe in the following blog post.

Take the time to find a butcher that has a good, locally produced smoked bacon. I like to get mine at "La Maison du Roti"- a great destination in Montreal for all my fresh, cured and smoked meat needs. 

With the apples, I find that a nice sweet apple is ideal as it provides a nice contrast to the cheese and bacon flavours. In the autumn in Quebec, there are so many delicious apple varieties that go well with the blue cheese - try Empire, Cortland, or McIntosh when they are in season. So good! 

To make the sandwich, simply pile all the ingredient up as artfully as possible and enjoy with fork and knife! Nothing to it!

↧

Savoury spreads: More to Life Than Butter?

November 29, 2011, 7:03 pm
$
0
0
Yes, it's called smørrebrød, and yes that means buttered bread in Danish. But, believe it or not, you can occasionally replace butter in your smørrebrød using a variety of different delicious bread spreads slathered thickly on your rugbrød. These rich alternatives (while not exactly low-fat, but then neither is butter) add depth and complexity to many a Danish open-faced sandwich. Mayonnaise is a good example of an alternative. But there are others and there are plenty of opportunity to experiment and come up with your own ideas.

Savoury spreads: there is more to life than butter!
In this blog post, I'll show you how to make a traditional-style savoury spread using readily available ingredients, as well as a Quebec-inspired version that I made up while jogging home from work the other day (I was pretty surprised that it worked out as beautifully as I had hoped when I actually made it). I think of food when I jog! Anyway, making your own sandwich spreads is a breeze. From an equipment standpoint, all you need is a frying pan, a blender, and something to contain the final product. Danish Degree of Difficulty = Easy!

Traditional Savoury Spread for Smørrebrød

The traditional spread is based on rendered bacon fat. Need I say more? The ingredients for this recipe have been around in Denmark for centuries, and might even have been enjoyed by hungry Vikings after a genial pillage of some poor unsuspecting Frisian village. I am not a food historian, so maybe I'm wrong about this, but there is something about bacon fat on bread the evokes begone times at least as far back as the Late Middle Ages, if not the good ol' Dark Ages when the Vikings were running amok in Europe.

Bacon savoury spread - the ingredients you'll need 
So here are the ingredients you'll need to make a delicious, bacony savoury bread spread:

  • About 300g of bacon, coarsely chopped (or, better yet, lardons if you live in Montreal)
  • 1/2 an onion, sliced
  • 1 apple, peeled, cored, and sliced
  • 3-4 sprigs of thyme
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Here are the steps:


1) Begin by frying the bacon over medium heat in a medium-sized frying pan. Continue frying until most of the fat is rendered out of the bacon.

2) Strain out the grease, putting aside the bacon pieces (which you'll no doubt want to enjoy on another piece of smørrebrød).
3) Return the bacon grease to the frying pan and add the other ingredients.

4) Cook over medium heat until the onions are brown and the apples are very soft.

1) Fry up the lard to render out the fat, then strain
2) Add onion, apples, thyme and pepper and cook in bacon fat
3) You're done when it's all caramelized and yummy looking!
5) Pour all the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.

6) Put it in a suitable container, for instance in one of these perfect Danish clay crocks, and cool thoroughly before spreading it on Danish rye bread and enjoying heartily.

Fedt - Danish for "fat"...Yum!
As I sit here, noshing on my primordial fedt and rugbrød, re-reading my blog post wistfully, my mind wanders back to the time I was hitchhiking around the Jutland peninsula one summer ending up in the small Danish town of Jelling (population 3,200) about 80km south of Århus. 

I had almost no money and was hungry and wet. It was late evening and drizzly, yet still greyishly broad daylight, and I sauntered into the first tavern I passed. It was quiet, and my arrival did not go unnoticed. I asked the barman if I could get a beer and something to eat for the few kroner I had in my pocket. He smiled and gave me a few thick slices of rugbrød and a clay crock pot of fedt. "No charge." I thought he was making fun of me, but he urged me to try, so I did. It was better than perfect. I still love it to this day.

One of the Jelling Stones
After, I ventured out into the town and discovered, to my amazement, the presence of the famous Jelling Stones and burial mounds. The two Jelling Stones are covered with Runic inscriptions, which are probably the best known of their kind in Denmark. These stones were raised by King Gorm the Old and his son, Harald Bluetooth, to celebrate their conquest of Denmark and Norway. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Could this be part of an ancient Viking recipe?
What does it mean?
While the Jelling Stones do not provide an ancient runic recipe for bacon fedt (as far as I know), I would not be surprised to learn that there are, in fact, runes somewhere in Denmark that contain the ancient traces of a recipe for the savoury bacon grease bread spread I enjoyed years ago in Jelling. And I'll bet there were generations of Vikings who handed down their recipe runes so they too could enjoy their smørrebrød just like I am today!

By the way, if you want to write your own name in Viking runes, check out the following PBS web site.

Wow! That was a long digression. At the start of this post, I promised that I'd share two recipes. So here is the second, non-traditional, very tasty version that I dreamed up while jogging home one day. It's made from duck fat, which is readily available in Montreal supermarkets, prunes, onions, and cider vinegar. The ingredients come together in a smooth, dark puree of sweet and sour goodness. It almost looks like Nutella and tastes like nothing else! 

Ingredients:
  • 3 TBSP duck fat (easily found in Montreal grocery stores)
  • 1/2 cup pitted prunes
  • 1/2 onion, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
  • 3 sprigs of Thyme
  • 2 TBSP apple cider vinegar
  • A bit of water
  • salt to taste

Steps:
1) Heat duck fat over medium heat in a medium-sized frying pan.
2) Add onions, garlic, thyme, and prunes.
3) Cook until the onions are brown and soft. About 10 minutes.
4) Scrape ingredients into a blender, and puree, adding vinegar (and water, if needed).
5) Adjust seasoning with salt.
6) Place in a suitable container, and cool thoroughly.
7) Enjoy on Danish rye bread with your favourite smørrebrød.

One fo these days, I'll get around to posting a vegetarian spread. I just have to wait for the inspiration to strike me. If you have your own ideas, please let me know!


↧
Search

Rye Bread Guillotine

December 4, 2011, 11:17 am
$
0
0

Rye bread slicer
One thing about Danish Rye bread that used to drive me crazy...it can be a pain to slice, especially if you eat it all the time like I do! The dense, thick loaf practically requires a saw and a burly lumberjack just to hack it into rough-hewn pieces. And yet, the Danes use this bread sliced thinly, with near surgical precision, as the base upon which they build their delicious smørrebrød sandwiches. I used to wonder how they did it!

I should have known that the Danes had solved this little problem with an ingeniously medieval-looking device called a rugbrødsmaskine. This device, which could serve many a nefarious purpose from the looks of it - is used in Denmark for quickly and easily slicing Danish rye bread. And what a joy it is!

Check out this video of my rye bread "guillotine" in action!


I imagine you can still find these cool kitchen devices today in better Danish kitchenware shops, but I found mine at a Danish flea market. It cost me about 100 kroner (about 20 bucks) and has been worth every penny!

A company called Raadvad, which today is known primarily for its knives, has been making this device since the late 1800's. Check out their web page for an amazing picture of one of the originals - it's hardly changed in over a hundred years!!! 
↧

Variations on Agurkersalat

December 10, 2011, 9:01 am
$
0
0
I love a good agurkersalat - the popular Danish condiment made from freshly pickled dill cucumbers. For me, the wonderful tart freshness of the sour/sweet cucumber dish is a perfect complement to many an open-faced sandwich. And while it is available in shops in Denmerk, here in Canada, you need to make it yourself if you want to experience this deliciously-Scandianvian taste (which for me is a complete no-brainer, since it easy, and tastes so much better this way anyway).

Agurkersalat: Ready to eat!
Here are the basic ingredients you will need to make your agurkersalat (but as you will see, you can experiment):
  • 1 whole seedless cucumber - sliced thinly
  • 1 TBSP salt
  • 1 1/2 cups vinegar
  • 2 TBSP sugar
  • 3 TBSP chopped dill
  • A bit more salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions for Making Agurkesalat
  1. Using a sharp knife, thinly slice the entire cucumber.
  2. Place the sliced cucumber in a bowl and toss with the coarse salt. The salt will help suck out the liquid from the cucumber flesh.
  3. Put a small plate on top of the cucumbers in the bowl and weigh it down with a jar or other weighted object.
  4. After about 2 hours, you will notice that the cucumber slices are basically sitting in a bowl of salty water. Drain the salty water, squeezing out as much excess liquid as possible (without crushing the cucumber).
  5. Combine vinegar and sugar, heating slightly if necessary to dissolve. Make sure to cool thoroughly before adding to sliced cucumbers.
  6. Pour in the vinegar/sugar and stir in the chopped dill. Allow the mixture to sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours (or overnight) before using to allow the flavours to blend.
OK, so that was la methode traditonelle - Anyway, I decided to play around with different locally available vinegars, to see what the resulting agurkersalat would be like. A delicious revelation? A disgusting aberration worthy only of contempt? Risks aside, this seemed like a good idea to me, since pickled condiments are such a big part of smørrebrød and I wanted to get a sense of whether I could improve my recipes by simply modifying the basic ingredients.

I went to the local supermarket to raid the vinegar section, thinking there would be a good selection of artisanal vinegars, but was dismayed to find about 25 varieties of Maille French vinegar a few boring looking Pastene options. So I left and went to my favorite green grocer. Here I found a couple of what seemed like worthy options. They were:

L'Ancestral Apple Cider Vinegar - A commonly available Quebec cider vinegar, which for my taste buds is a little too rough around the edges - but who knows, maybe it's great in agurkersalat (costs about $5 a bottle). Read more about it here.

Verger Corriveau Apple Cider Vinegar - A high-end artisanal vinegar with an exquisitely balanced fruit apple flavour - so nice you can almost drink it. (costs about $13/bottle)

I also decided to use a bottle of Allen's White Vinegar as my control.

BTW, if you are interested in really fine vinegars, check out the vinegar offerings from Claus Meyer's Nordhavn Vinegar Brewery in Copenhagen - I wish we could get these vinegars in Quebec!


Contestants in the agurkersalat vinegar death match
Next, I had to make some choices around the sweetener I would use to balance out the tangy vinegar. Normally, I'd just use a couple of table spoonfuls of organic sugar, but in the death match, I needed something more interesting. I opted for an  amber maplesyrup and buckwheat honey from Miels d'Anicet (awesome locally-produced organic honeys - not cheap, but so good. You can find out more about it here). And of course, plain white table sugar as the control substance.

The three different pickling liquids (left to right)
1) White vinegar and plain sugar
2) L'Ancestral vinegar and maple syrup
3) Verger Corriveau & d'Anicet honey
And of course the cucumber. For this I used a seedless English variety, but I like the idea of trying the Lebanese kind becasue of its smaller size (something for another day).


Once the cucumbers were salted and drained, I divided them up along with the chopped dill between the three pickling liquid "contestants" and let them sit overnight to absorb the lovely flavours.
The three contestants, ready for their moment in the spotlight
Finally, it was time for the taste test. I gathered up my small group of smørrebrød experts and prepared our tasting samples. We used small, canapé-sized, slices of Danish rye bread with leverpostej (liver paté) as the base upon which to taste the agurkersalat. And then we went to town!

The main event!
So, who was the winner?

The judges were split, but we unanimously agreed that the maple syrup + Ancestral Cider Vinegar came in last of the three  - it just didn’t taste right - adding bitter flavours that in my opinion were not complementary to the smørrebrød as a whole. On the other hand, the other two contestants both received high scores for providing that clean, tart taste we love with agurkersalat. For my money, the pickling liquid made from the Verger Corriveau cider vinegar was more interesting with complex fruitiness and the perfect balance of acid to sweetness, but in reality, the agurkersalat made from white vinegar and plain sugar did just fine in terms of making a good, fresh tasting condiment. All in all, it was a great battle!

And now, since I always like to toss a bit about Denmark in my posts, you'll notice that in the background of one of the taste test photo above there is a Danish flag. This type of adornment is a common thing to do in Denmark for birthday parties and holiday meals - basically to add a festive atmosphere to the food and dining table. I think this is just another example of one of those small details that goes in to making the Danish meal experience "hyggelig" (or cozy). 

Regarding the Danish flag, known as the Dannebrog, you probably didn't know it, but this is the world's oldest state flag in use by an independent nation, dating back to the early 1200s. The word Dannebrog litereally means "Danish Cloth." The flag features a white cross on a red background (the white cross for Christianity, the red probably for the armed forces or some such thing). Read more about the Danish National Flag here.  
Of course, in true Danish tradition, there is a good story behind the origin of the flag. Here it is: Danish forces were engaged in a fierce fight, and were getting thumped badly, during the Battle of Valdemar in Estonia (in 1209). They were about the surrender, when the flag literally fell from the heavens. The King grabbed the falling flag before it hit the ground, then waved it magestically to motivate the troops to victory. The Danes have used the flag ever since.  

There is a painting by Christian August Lorentzen from 1809 that is located in the Copenhagen museum Statens Museum for Kunst depicting the legendary moment that the Dannebrog fell from the sky. You can see it here.


↧
↧

Weinerbrod: How Danes Say Pastry

December 18, 2011, 6:21 pm
$
0
0
Open-face Danish Pastry
This blog post is a bit unconventional for me, discussing a topic not especially related to open sandwiches, but a topic that is very Danish nonetheless. If you've come here seeking smørrebrød, I hope you will not be disappointed!


But first, let me explain the inspiration for why things are a bit different in this post. It stems from the fact that this past week I had the pleasure of interacting with some real Danes here in Canada. Yes, indeed! I travelled all the way to the Royal Danish Embassy in Ottawa to get a new GPS tracking chip implanted in the base of my cerebral cortex. I don't know if the Danish embassy is considered Danish territory or not, but I left there feeling strangely happy - it was like I had just set foot in a little slice of Denmark, the happiest country in the world - and as I wandered away through Ottawa's Byward Market I was accutely aware of my own semi Danish-ness. 
Proud to be Danish...
So in honour of my visit back to the "Danish motherland", I thought I would dedicate this blog post to what is among the most Danish of Danish culinary traditions...that's right, the Danish pastry!


Yuck! So-called American "Danish"

For anybody who has lived in a cave all their life, a Danish (in Canada and the USA at least) is a sort of pastry-like substance - a justifiably maligned dessert, often disgustingly cheese-filled or maybe adorned with an apricot or some bloated sultana raisins. They are the kind of thing you find in gas station convenience stores along side greasy-looking Mae Wests, Ding Dongs and other gnarly cake-like horror shows. These Danishes are never good and have probably done more harm to the fine reputation of the Kingdom of Denmark than any other thing. Here's what I've always wondered: why doesn't the Danish Trade Commission do something about this terrible abuse of their intellectual property!


Actually, it begs a more important question: why are these bland, doughy things called Danishes anyway? I don't actually know the true history of the name in the USA, nor did I feel like figuring it out, but I can tell you that Denmark does in fact have a rich tradition of creating wonderfully delicious buttery puff pastry confections. So the name isn't totally random to me - it even makes sense a bit if you've ever been to Denmark and seen the many pastry wonders with your own eyes. Sadly, the execution on my side of the Atlantic is rarely what it should be.


Professional Weinerbrød Pastry:
from Lagekagehuset in Copenhagen
In Denmark, the generic name for pastries is not Danishes - just like nobody in Shanghai calls their food "Chinese Food". Instead the Danes call their pastry weinerbrød, which means "bread from Vienna". This is interesting, as Viennese bakers are credited (according to the Larousse Gastronimique) with the invention of the croissant to commemorate victory in battle over marauding Turks. 


Note any similarities? Viennese bakers did!
Anyway, I guess these inventive Austrian bakers figured out a thing or two about making flaky pastry and the Danes were acknowledging that in good faith. It got me thinking that maybe in Vienna people generally refer to their pastries as "parisiske boller" (Paris Buns) or something like that. Turns out that they don't, so I guess that means that the Viennese either really did invent pastry - or they are loathe to give credit where credit is due. Anyway, I am not a pastry historian, so I'll end the bogus "history lesson" now.

So where does one go in Denmark if one wants to buy weinerbrød? One goes to a place called a konditori, and one can locate these heavenly dens of pastry delights at a distance from their easy to spot symbols. To the untrained eye, these symbols look like unsalted Bavarian pretzels, but don't be fooled, they lead to a haven that offers so much more than dry, salty bread snacks.  



I know it looks like a pretzel, but in Denmark it means pastry!
Once inside a konditori, many wonders await you! But I will not discuss them all (there are so many that it would require a new blog named "Danish Pastry"). Instead I will focus on but one common treat: the spandauer. This, more than any other weinerbrød, most closely resembles what we call a Danish here is North America. I love spandauers! They are a delicous combination for buttery pastry, sweet fruit preserves, and just the right amount of icing. Spandauer and a coffee together are one of the primary reasons why Danes are the happiest people on Earth.


Inside the konditori - So many delicious choices!
Throughout the rest of this blog post, I hope to teach you how to make your own spandauers (or the best approximation I can produce myself - Alas, I'm no pastry chef...)

The process is a bit time-consuming and sometimes finicky, but it is not particularly hard. It involves five basic processes:
  1. Making a yeast dough
  2. Rolling and turning to create dozens of buttery layers of pastry dough
  3. Shaping and rising
  4. Baking
  5. Finishing and eating
Making yeast dough
Let's start with making the yeast dough. Here what you need to do for 12 spandauers.
  • 1 TBSP dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 1/2 TBSP sugar
Combine these ingredients and let stand until the yeast becomes frothy and active.
  • 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 TBSP Sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup warm milk
Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, then add the yeast mixture followed by the milk (reserving a few tablespoons to add as you knead). Combine with a wooden spoon into a mass, turn out onto a floured work surface, and begin kneading and folding the soft, sticky blob. If it seems stiff, add a few drops of milk bit by bit. Work the dough roughly with one hand at this point until it becomes elastic and less sticky. This should take about 3 minutes.

Let the dough rise in a clean, covered bowl until it doubles in volume (about 1-2 hours depending on the room temperature).

Once the dough has risen, turn it out onto a sheet of wax paper and flatten it out. You then need to chill it for about 20 minutes. Chilling and resting the dough is something you do over and over when making pastry. It helps to relax the gluten, making it possible to roll out the dough, which would otherwise be tougher to roll than a two-dollar steak. 

Once the dough is ready, flatten it out.
Creating pastry dough
The next major step in the process involves adding butter to the yeast dough. You do this in a process of rolling and turning so that you create a laminate of alternating butter-dough layers. This, when baked, creates the separated layers of flaky pastry typical in great Danish weinerbrød. Here's what to do:

Take 1 1/2 sticks of cold unsalted butter and hammer it down with your roller into a flat, square disk about 15 cm wide. Hammering the butter makes it malleable, even when cold, which is needed if you hope to roll it out into dozens of micro-thin layers. You need to do this quickly, as you do not want to let the butter warm up.


Note: Make sure you keep the surfaces well floured to keep dough from sticking to either the board or the rolling pin. 


Next, you wrap the butter inside the dough, making an envelope to completely enclose the butter, and then using a rolling pin, roll the package out in one direction until it is about 3 times longer. Once complete, fold the ends over into three layers (like folding a letter), turn the dough 90 degrees, and roll out again until it reach the same 3x length. Fold in three again. 


1) Flatten butter
2) Put butter in a dough envelope
3) Roll it out
4) Fold it in 3 and repeat
Now you need to let the dough rest a while. Wrap the dough in wax paper, then place it in the fridge for 1.5 hours. 


You can then repeat the process. In other words: roll it out, fold it, turn it 90 degrees, roll it out, fold and refrigerate about 2 hours. At this point, your laminated dough is done. Afterwards comes the part where you prepare the actual individual pastry delights.  

Making the pastry
After the dough has rested, you can roll it out to a sheet about 15 cm x 50 cm then cut it in half (into two 15x25cm pieces). Refrigerate one piece while you work on the other. You can trim the uneven edges to get something that is more evenly rectangular. 


(Don't forget: you'll need to repeat this part of the recipe on the other half of the dough as well)



Roll out finished dough and cut in half


After cutting, you can see all the layers. Count them if you can!
Cut like so...
Turn the dough and roll it out until its about 60cm x 30cm, then cut the dough into 6 square pieces that are 15x15 cm each. From these pieces I like to round out the edges using a cookie cutter or a knife. This gives the finished pastries a nice rippled edge, but you can simply use the square pieces as is. 

Frankly, not being a pastry chef, I find this part fraught with peril. It's important to get the dough rolled out to the right thickness to produced the desired puff effect. To thin, and you end up with a cracker. Too thick, and you get a huge puffy undercooked blob. Somewhere between half and one centimetre thick seems to be the right thickness to aim for. (If any reader has advise on how to get this right each time, please let me know. I will happily update the recipe).  

Once rolled out, you then shape the dough by pinching up all the edges in towards the centre, making a "bowl" that can eventually hold the fruit preserves. More on this in a moment. 

Shape the pastries and let them rise
Baking the pastry
Place six shaped pastries on a paper-lined baking sheet and leave them to rise for about 1 hour. If you like, you can paint the pastries with an egg wash after they've risen, but I usually skip this part. You can also add a dollop of fruit preserve at this point, but I like to wait until right after baking. Place the baking sheet in the oven pre-heated to 475 F and bake for 11-12 minutes (watch them closely towards to end to make sure they are not burning). 

Finishing and eating the pastry
The moment that you remove the pastries from the oven, place a generous dollop of room temperature fruit preserves (strawberry or raspberry are ideal) in the centre of each pastry. I find that there is still enough heat at this point to "melt" the preserves evenly over the spandauer. Remove each of the pastries from the baking sheet and allow to cool thoroughly on a wire rack.

Once cool, drizzle a simple icing made from powdered sugar with a few drops of water or lemon juice on the pastry (for the icing, you want a consistency that is fluid without being runny). Now, you are ready to enjoy your marvellous creations. I find that it's best enjoyed with coffee and friends and family.

Bake until flaky and golden

↧

Aebleskiver: a great Christmas treat

December 24, 2011, 10:42 am
$
0
0
I suppose that technically speaking, I should only be blogging about Danish smørrebrød, given that my blog is called Danish Sandwich and every single post to date has been on that very topic, but it's that time of year (Christmas), and I'm feeling reckless and crazy, so I thought I'd just do exactly what I feel like doing and blog about one of my favorite Danish Christmas treats: æbleskiver.


Danish pancake balls
Served with powdered sugar and raspberry jam

So what exactly is æbleskiver?

Basically, æbleskiver are round Danish pancakes that are typically eaten during Christmas for breakfast(though my family and I enjoy these treats years round - since we live in Canada, we can do crazy things like that).

The name æbleskiver means apple slices, which makes no sense to me, but I'm told that this is because one traditionally serves these treats with pieces of cooked apples on the side (or even with a piece of apple cooked into the middle of the pancake ball). Today, I find that it is much more common to serve æbleskiver with powdered sugar and fruit preserves such as strawberry or raspberry jam. (Anyway, that's how I like to eat them).

Making æbleskiver is really easy, about as easy as the regular flat variety of pancake, but it does require a special piece of equipment which is not common in most North American households - a cast-iron æbleskiver pan. I have one of these pans that has been around our family for decades - legend has it that it was one of the few possessions my father brought with him on the boat when he emigrated to Canada from Denmark in the 1960s (along with a transistor radio, a hair brush, and some decorative Danish flags).

Enamel-coated, cast-iron æbleskiver pan
Luckily, if you don't live in Denmark, you can still get one of these pans easily in North America - to my great surprise, æbleskiver pans are available on Amazon.com. Everyhting else is easy to find at any old grocery store.

Here's how to make æbleskiver:

Gratuitous Danish Christmas Tree Photo
Ingredients
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups buttermilk
  • 2 TBSP sugar
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs (whites and yolks separated)
  • butter for cooking
  • Powdered sugar and raspberry jam to serve
Instructions
1) In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla.

2) Combine yolks and buttermilk, then add to flour mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon until smooth.

3) White egg whites to soft peaks, and then fold in to the rest of the batter.

4) Place aebleskiver pan on medium heat.

5) When hot, add a bit of butter (about 1/2 teaspoon) into each cup and then fill with batter until just below the top.

6) Allow to cook until golden and then, using a couple of knives, gently flip the dough over. Keep cooking until golden brown all around.

1) Add batter to pan
2) Cook on both sides
3) Sprinkle with powdered sugar
7) Remove the aebleskiver from the pan, add more butter, and repeat...

8) Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with a spoonful of jam and plenty of coffee. And then for lunch, have some smørrebrød.

↧

The Perfect Sandwich: Roast Beef, Remoulade and Onions

December 26, 2011, 4:28 pm
$
0
0


Once in a while, we all just want something that is easy to make and tastes great, right? When I'm in that kind of a mood, this smørrebrød, a variation on the classic roast beef with pickles and fried onions, is a completely delicious treat that is both a personal favorite of mine and a sure-fire crowd pleaser.
Roast beef with remoulade and fried onions! Amazing!
For this sandwich, you'll need:
Sliced Roast Beef - I recommend roasting the beef yourself, ideally using a meat thermometer to properly gauge when the meat is cooked. It's pretty simple: Coat the roast with salt, pepper, and thyme then brown on all sides in a frying pan. Then pop it in the oven at 350F until you reach 145F on the meat thermometer. This gives you a roast that is cooked to medium.
Roast until a 145F internal temperature
Once the roast is cooked, remove it from the oven and set it aside while you prepare the other ingredients. Also, I find it much easier to slice thinly once its cooled off a bit. 
Cool roast and slice thinly
Remoulade - Remoulade is a condiment that is something like tartare sauce. I add one good dollop to each sandwich, which has a tart taste and crunchy texture and goes so well with roast beef.
Remoulade: Before and After
You can make enough remoulade for four sandwiches by combining:
  • 1/4 cup Mayonnaise
  • 1 TBSP Dijon Mustard
  • 3 TBSP Diced Pickles
  • 1 TBSP Chopped Capers
  • 1 TBSP Chopped Taragon
  • 1/4 tsp powdered tumeric (to give a yellow color)
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Fried Onions - Crispy and addictively delicious on their own (like potato chips), fried onions provide the perfect savoury flavour and crisp to round out this (and probably any other) smørrebrød. To make them, take half a large white onion and slice it thinly. Dredge the onion slices in a few tablespoons of flour (I like to use rye). Meanwhile, heat about a cup and a half of canola oil in a heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the floured onions in 2 batches. Stir occassionally with a slotted spoon (not plastic!) The onions are done when they are golden brown. Remove from oil and place them on paper towel to soak excess oil. Continue until all onions are fried.
1) Flour the sliced onions
2) Fry them in canola oil
3) Remove to paper towel and enjoy atop smorrebrod
And if you're feeling crazy, you'll want to add some shaved horseradish root to give it a little extra kick! Now you are ready, so combine all the ingredients atop buttered Danish rye bread and enjoy with fork and knife sitting at your kitchen table. A cold beer to wash it down, and all is right in the world.
To be enjoyed heartily - always with fork and knife
Or better yet, pack a roast beef & remoulade smørrebrød picnic basket and head out in search of a magical spot - preferably somewhere in the Danish countryside, somewhere where Vikings roamed the lands. Maybe even find a spot marked by Viking burial stones arranged into the shape of a longship. Then, once you've found this spot, wait for a rainbow to appear. And then, only then, enjoy your picnic while contemplating the fact that the mighty Thor himself may have once travelled to Earth across Bifrost (the Rainbow bridge) to this very spot and handed a reasonable facsimile of the sandwich that you are now eating to a passing human. And imagine that it was thus that the gods gave this wonderful smørrebrød to be enjoyed by all who can make it!!! 
Yes, I was really present when this phenomenon occurred!!!
Was it perhaps Odin passing on the secrets of smørrebrød to me?

↧
Viewing all 29 articles
Browse latest View live
Search