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Tag: norwegian cooking

  • Mutton in cabbage

     Mutton in cabbage, or Fårikål, in Norwegian, is one of the recipes that Norwegians view as traditional and Norwegian.

    It usually is made in the fall, and actually has a whole day dedicated to it. September 29. There are also groups dedicated to it, and friends will get together for dinner parties.

    It is about the simplest recipe to make, which everyone was eager to tell me as I was planning on making it, though it takes a while on the stove.

    The recipe below is translated and adapted slightly from Matprat – but all the recipes I’ve seen of this are similar in construction.

    It is traditionally served with potatoes.

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  • Norwegian Christmas Cooking: Sirupsnipper

    Or as a translation to English might be: Syrup Diamonds. Basically because they’re meant to be shaped like men’s cuff (hence the name in Norwegian) but actually look like the diamonds you find on playing cards. Well, they’re meant to. Mine just looks, er…, odd. But they taste good, and that is the most important thing, right?

    These are also the kind of Christmas cookies that have been a staple in my home – chiefly because my grandmother has been making them. My mother, who makes almost every Christmas cookie under the sun, have yet to attempt them.  For that reason, but also because the recipe said they were complicated to get right, I’ve been stalling over whether or not to make them. It did take some extra care, but I am glad I did, because I got lots of positive feedback on the taste. Including from my Dad, who, I swear, is the world’s pickiest Christmas cookie eater.

    It takes about two days to make, so that is something to take into plan.

    This recipe has been adapted from 7×7 Slag by Tove Diesen.

    Ingredients

    2 dl light syrup.

    1  1/4 dl sugar

    1 dl heavy cream

    225 g butter

    1 egg, whisked

    The zest of 1/2 lemon

    1/2  tsp  powdered cloves

    1/2 tsp powdered ginger

    1/2 tsp black pepper

    ca. 500 g all purpose flour

    1/2 tsp Ammonium bicarbonate/crushed hartshorn

    For decoration

    Scalded almonds. (White almonds)

    Day 1

    1) Bring syrup, sugar and the cream to boil in a saucepan

    2) Pour the hot caramel mixture over the butter, so that it melts it.

    3) Whisk until the mixture is cold and airy.

    4) Add the whisked egg, the spices and the flour with hartshorn.

    5) Let the dough stand in cold temperature (We used the fridge) until the next day.

    Day 2.

    1) Take only as much of the dough as you can comfortably roll out at the time. The warmer the dough is, the harder it is to work with, so use small portions. Leave the rest in the cold temperature-space.

    2) Put the oven on, at 200 degrees celcius.

    3) Roll the dough out fairly thin (how thin you roll should depend on whether you want soft cookies or crisp. Roll thin for crisp, and a bit thicker for soft.)

    4) Cut out diamond (as in cards) -shaped cookies from the dough by using a cutting wheel. Or simply a cookie cutter.

    5) Add the diamond shaped cookies to baking trays.

    6) Paint the cookies with a bit of egg white, and add half an almond to the middle.

    7) Bake for anything between 6-10 minutes, depending on oven. Ours were done after 6 minutes. The cookies should be golden brown, but not have black edges.

    8) After the cookies come out of the oven, make sure they stay flat until they turn cold. Otherwise they will get a funny shape.

    I had a bit of trouble getting the “proper” diamond, or cuff shape, of the cookies, so a few of them ended up as triangles, or squares.

  • Norwegian Cooking: Serina Cookies

    The finished product
    The finished product

    When I was younger, I thought that these cookies were just a tradition in our family. See, my great grandmother was called Serina, and I obviously thought that was the reason for why we were making them. At any rate, they are a delicious butter cookie that you just keep eating and eating… and uh… soon there is nothing left. This recipe has been doubled from the original recipe, from Meierienes Prøvekjøkken.
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  • Norwegian cooking: Sitronfromasj

    Or, lemon mousse in English, of which there seems to be oodles of recipes on the internet.

    I think the first time I really made this dessert, was back in home ec. in seventh grade. I remember it, because the other dish my group had to prepare, boiled fish of some sort, ended up being inedible, and so it was really pure luck that the lemon mousse turned out splendidly.

    This time around, many things seemed to go wrong, and it did not turn out perfectly in consistency – the mousse refused to set properly. But as it tasted absolutely delicious, and tart, I’m still sharing 🙂

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  • Norwegian cooking: Pearl Porridge

    Growing up, I always loved going to my grandmother’s to eat. Not just the Sunday steak, where dinner was followed by dessert, which in turn was followed by coffee and cakes, but also for some of the more everyday meals. One of those meals was sago porridge, or pearl porridge as we used to call it.

    According to Wikipedia, an ever reliable source, I know, the sago is “a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stems, Metroxylon sagu.” It is a small, round grain, looking like a pearl, that apparently can be substituted for tapioca pearls.

    This weekend, my sister and I decided to see if the porridge was as tasty as what we could remember from what we were younger, or if we just were idolizing the memories.
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