Posts under "Traditional"

Smörgås Chef at Scandinavia House, New York City

Posted by kari 3 Comments
Nov 26 2011

chef and owner

As Thanksgiving was just a couple of days ago and holiday parties are finding their way on my calendar, mat er temaet på denne tiden av året (food is the theme at this time of year).  I was fortunate to attend 3 Thanksgiving celebrations on Thursday, 2 of which I consumed full meals at.  Some of the mat we consumed include the following:

kalkun (turkey)

flere typer poteter (several types of potatoes)

grønne bønner (green beans)

brød (bread)

stuffing (translation?)

salat (salad)

gresskar pai (pumpkin pie)

søtpotet pai (sweet potato pie)

Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite helligdag (holiday) of the year because it´s all about god mat og godt selskap (good food and good company).  It´s not a religious hellidag and gaver (gifts) are not typically involved.

As you probably know, Norwegians do not celebrate Thanksgiving.  I simply have mat on the brain right now and so I´ve been searching for Norwegian restaurants to attend in various cities around the country if and when I end up there.  I discovered the Smörgås Chef at Scandinavia House in New York City.  There are 3 locations in NYC:

1) Wall Street

2) Midtown

3) West Village

Both the mat and the atmosfære (atmosphere) look and sound amazing!

Smörgås Chef  ”is proud to serve a fresh and unique menu based on the principles of “New Nordic Cuisine,” which is deeply committed to using local, sustainable, and all-natural ingredients. Smorgas owns and operates its own 150-acre farm in the Catskills.”

The 150 acre farm in the Catskills is called Blenheim Hill Farm.  The farm has a 2 acre lake which provides plenty of water for the livestock and also a place to swim on hot summer days.  There is an abundance of lønnetrær (maple trees) from which sirup (syrup) is extracted.

 

There are kuer (cows), griser (pigs), kyllinger (chickens), and sauer (sheep) and Blenheim Hill.  They roam freely.

 

 

 

Items you will find on the menu include Nordic Chips with caviar dip, Smorgas Sliders, Goat Cheese and beet salad, Aquavit Cured Gravlaks (Aquavit cured salmon), Wild Mushroom Omelette, Herring Quartet, Ham and Jarlsberg Skillet, Duck Leg Confit with Cherries, and for dessert, your options include riskrem (rice cream), raspberry almond cake, and various vafler (waffles) and sorbets.  Special drinks include Norwegian Wood, Viking Burial, Miss Bliss, and many other creatively named and mixed beverages.  There are also a number of Scandinavian beers, various kinds of Aquavit, sodas, and coffee drinks.

I can´t wait to go to one of the 3 locations and enjoy a delicious Norwegian meal in NYC!

Rakfisk Festival, Norway

Posted by kari No Comments
Nov 6 2011

If you had been in Norway this weekend, you might have had the opportunity to experience the annual Rakfisk Festival.  Every year in the town called Fagernes, which is in Valdres in eastern Norway (about 25 miles west of Lillehammer), tens of thousands of people gather to celebrate rakfisk (literally brine cured fish).  The fisk used is typically either ørret (trout) or røye (char).  The fish is salted and then left to brine for 2-3 months, at which point it is eaten rå (raw), perhaps on a piece of flatbrød (flatbread) with rå løk (onions) or purre (leeks), smør (butter) or rømme (sour cream) and poteter.

Rakfisk Festival always occurs in the first weekend of November, right around that time that the days feel really short and the amount of daylight is dwindling.  Every year there is different entertainment, but always loads and loads of fisk.  According to several sources I have consulted, Norwegians consume 500 tons of rakfisk every year.  The official website of Rakfisk Festival can be viewed here.  You can see the full program, which included several musical artists including Viggo Sandvik, Askil Holm, and Vassandgutane.  There is plenty of opportunity to chill out and listen to music or get on the dance floor and boogie.

This year there were 9 individuals and organizations who contributed their rakfisk to the festival:

Rakfiskprodusentene

Lofoss Fisk

Telefon: 91844501
E-post: endre@roengard.no
Nettside: www.lofossfisk.no
Mer om Lofoss Fisk

Noraker Gård

Telefon: 61 36 23 64
E-post: nils@noraker.no
Nettside: www.noraker.no
Mer om Noraker Gård

Wangensten

Telefon: 61362300
E-post: jorn@wangensten.no
Nettside: www.wangensten.no
Mer om Wangensten

Some interesting facts about the festival include:

-40 tons of rakfisk are sold during the festival

-25,000 visitors attend the festival every year

-70% of attendees have experienced the festival before

-70% come with family and friends

-30% have attended at least 5 times

-in addition to rakfisk, hundreds of other booths are set up by local food producers and individuals who produce handicrafts

-the festival costs about 40 million kroner every year

Rakfisk Festival is one of the largest events related to food culture and supporting the production of local food.  It sounds like a whole lot of fun to me.  Norway is the only month that I have not experienced in Norway.  Next time I´m going to Rakfisk festival to eat fermented ørret with a glass of akevitt!

 

 

Lutefisk Season is upon us

Posted by kari 4 Comments
Oct 23 2011

Whether you like it or not, it is Lutefisk season for Norwegians and Norwegian Americas alike!  I must be honest, I have never ordered lutefisk at a restaurant and I have never chosen to eat it.  The St. Olaf (my alma mater) cafeteria serves it every year in early December during the St. Olaf Christmas Festival and I always chose to avoid the cafeteria during that time.  Again, I’m sorry to admit, but the lutefisk that I have been exposed to is vile and makes me lose my appetite.  This is actually quite strange for me as I actually can count the foods I dislike on one hand.  In any case, lutefisk…..I’ll try to promote it in this blog post just because I believe that it can actually be tasty if it is prepared well and paired with delicious accompaniments.

Most of you probably know what lutefisk is-that white jelly-like fish that has been soaked in lye, the same chemical soap is made of.  Lutefisk became popular due to the lye extending it’s shelf life. Soaking the fish in lye preserves the fish, which was an extremely important quality hundreds of years ago.  Although preserving the fish is not important today as it was when sailers were crossing the ocean without modern refrigerators, diners today still enjoy this fall delicacy.

From early October through Christmas Norwegians shell out the dough for good lutefisk.  A fair price for this delicacy at a good restaurant in Norway is in the 350 kroner (about $65 USD).  It isn’t just in traditional Norwegian restaurants that one can find lutefisk on the menu during this time in Norway.  The dish is so popular that even Chinese restaurants serve it!

Lutefisk is traditionally served with a purée of kremet erter (creamed peas), but the adventurous will try it with other accompaniments such as ferske erter (fresh peas), bacon, sennep (mustard), and even geitost (goat cheese), mandelpoteter (almond potatoes), or small gulpoteter (yellow potatoes) particularly in northern Norway.  Lutefisk is usually served with something salty, something rich, and something sweet (like honey for example).

Here is an example of lutefisk on a julemeny (Christmas Menu) in Oslo at Mona Lisa Restaurant:

 

Meny nr.2

Lutefisk med ertestuing, bacon, baconfett, geitost,sennepsaus, tyttebær, fransk sennep, sirup og lefse. Kokte poteter.

Multekrem med kransekake

kr 590,-

Sounds pretty tasty actually.  Lutefisk with mashed peas, bacon, bacon fat, goat cheese, mustard sauce, cranberries, French mustard, sirup and lefse.  Cooked potatoes, cloudberry cream and kransekake (a kind of Norwegian cake) for 590 crowns.

Depending on ones preference, vin, øl, or akevitt pair well with lutefisk.  Akevitt would be the traditional choice, but a god Norwegian lager or a German riesling would pair well.

The below is a simple lutefisk recipe:

 

  1. 1
    Place the lutefisk in a kettle, and add enough cold salt water to completely cover them(some people like to place the lutefisk in cheesecloth and tie the ends itno a bag, before placing in the kettle.).
  2. 2
    Bring gradually to a boil. (Caution: It will be done when brought to a full boil, and if boiled too long the fish will fall into pieces.).
  3. 3
    Remove from the burner, skim off any foam that appears and the let the lutefisk stand for 5-10 minutes.
  4. 4
    Drain well, and serve steaming hot on warmed plates.

Norwegian Suppe-Norwegian soup the answer to fall

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Oct 19 2011

I returned back home to Minnesota a couple of nights ago from Georgia and Tennessee to discover that høst (fall) is in full swing.  Temps were in the 70s and 80s about 10 days ago and the highs the last few days was in the 40s-a classic MN massive drop in temperature.  I´ve been trying to kick a forkjølelse (cold) for a couple of weeks now and this cold air certainly isn´t helping.  Norway or Minnesota, høst is time for suppe!

There are so many delicious supper enjoyed throughout Norway, most of which have been around for a long, long time.  There are hearty supper with biff and poteter or more chowdery supper with krem and fisk, vegetarisk supper, as well as clear brothy supper and smooth creamy supper!  What is your favorite type of suppe?  I love them all.

I have found some really great oppskrifter (recipes) online that I´d like to share with you, both for supper that I have never tasted and supper that I have had the pleasure to enjoy:

Andreas Viestad´s Norwegian Red Onion Soup with Port and Jarlsberg, ´a lovely, slightly sweet, onion soup´

You can find the recipe here at Food.com.

Another soup from Andreas Viestad Beet Soup with Goose stock

Andreas Viestad on the beet soup:

This is a high north version of the Russian beet soup borscht. The sweet and aromatic goose stock makes it slightly more sophisticated than the hearty Russian versions. The first time I made it was in Svalbard, an archipelago halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Stock from wild Svalbard goose added a rich gamy quality. Stock from farm-raised goose has a milder flavor.

Goose and duck meat may be delicious, but most of the flavor lies hidden in the bones, Cooking leftover bones and meat in water with aromatic vegetables is a simple thing, yet the stock you get is rich and delicious. You can also use this recipe for turkey or chicken, making a somewhat lighter stock. The stock can be frozen for up to 2 months.—Andreas Viestad

You can find the recipe here.

Watch Andreas Viestad made vegetarisk suppe !

Other popular Norwegian supper include cabbage suppe, fiskesuppe (fish chowder), purresuppe (leek soup), mussel suppe, mutton stew, hearty hunter´s stew with some of the finest ingredients ever: Ingredients
8- 10 Potatoes, peeled
2 Parsnips, peeled
2 Carrots, peeled
3 Yellow Onions, peeled
3 Cloves of Garlic
1/3 pound of Mushrooms, Shiitake or other
10-12 slices of Beef or Venison
1 ¼ cup Dark Beer
1 Cup of beef stock or  cube beef stock
9 Juniper Berries
Butter and Oil

There are so many delicious norske supper to enjoy.  I suggest purchasing a kokebok of Andreas Viestad´s or just browsing online for deliciously sounding oppskrifter to try:)

And finally, for some classic norsk humor, click YouTube Preview Image to see a really funny clip (på norsk) on supperåd (soup advice).

Cod Liver Oil the Norwegian Health Secret

Posted by kari No Comments
Jul 12 2011

Are you as overwhelmed by all of the health tips you see on TV, hear on the radio, and read about in magazines?  There are certain products that claim to be the best for healthy skin, foods and herbs that are said to promote emotional stability, products that are supposed to make your teeth and bones strong, and so on and so on.  Why don´t we all just follow the Norwegian tradition of taking tran (cod liver oil), which kills a whole bunch of birds with one stone?!  I must admit I have yet to try tran myself, but if it were put in front of me, I´d do it.

Aside from the nasty fishy taste, I´ve heard so many great things about tran.  I don´t think it´s quite as common today as it was decades ago, but it is still popular among Norwegians.  Tran is made from the oil from cod liver.  In the olden days, cod liver was left in a vat in the sun to ferment and the oil was skimmed off of the fish.  In the last hundred years, tran has been produced by boiling cod livers and extracting the oil.

So what are the benefits of taking tran?  Cod liver oil is rich with Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and Omega-3 fatty acids, which together are responsible for healthy skin, teeth, bones, joints, cardiovascular system, nervous system, digestive system, and mood stability.  Wow!

The reason tran became so popular amongst Norwegians is because Norway is so far north and there are months with little to no sun at all depending on the location.  Therefore, people need extra Vitamin D supplements to take the place of the sun.

Believe it or not, this same product had multiple uses years and years ago.  In fact, it was one of Norway´s most valuable commodities.  Cod liver oil (originally called ´lysi´meaning light) was used in fuel lamps, to tan skins, and as an ingredient in paints and soaps.  Kind of reminds me of lutefisk which contains lye that is also an ingredient in soap.

Nevertheless, I´m going to try it this winter and drink lots of it if this coming winter is anything like last!

You can even take it in capsule form!

Back to the Top