Koldskål (2)

Remember the "cold bowl" ? After a long winter it's like it's suddenly summer in Sweden and we recently found ourselves craving a good cold bowl of.. well.. cold-bowl.

However, as I've lamented around here before, one cannot buy buttermilk in Swedish stores, and buttermilk is the cornerstone of koldskål as I've always known it. For other purposes I've tried substituting various kinds of thickened milk (fil as they are known in Sweden) for buttermilk, and I figured it might work for koldskål as well.

Ingredients:
- juice of ¹/₂ lemon (2 tbsp)
- 50 g (4 tbsp) granulated sugar
- vanilla sugar
- 1 L (1 quart) of fil

The sugar, vanilla sugar and lemon juice was whisked together and the fil was poured in with continued whisking.

Served chilled with either rusk or roasted oats.

Frikadeller - Updated recipe

I have a confession to make: I generally chop quite coarsely. And for the most part I am quite happy with the result.

But when making meat balls too coarsely chopped onions tend to towards undesirable effects when shaping and frying the meat balls. So, lately I've started chopping the onions for my meat balls not by hand as I've always done in the past but in the cutter that came with our new electric hand-held mixer/whipper/cutter unit (a purchase of debate in the household - while the need for a new one was indisputable, the type I bought met with some critique).

I've also recently discovered that making meat balls with bread crumbs and milk tends towards juicier meat balls (as opposed to flour and milk - or neither of the two). Here follows an updated recipe for frikadeller (a type of Danish meat ball).

Ingredients:
- 850 g (1 lb 14 oz) minced pork/beef^[1]
- 4 small onions, very finely chopped
- 3 eggs
- ~5 dL (~2 cups) bread crumbs^[2]
- 5 dl (2 cups) milk
- salt and pepper
for frying:
- margarine
to serve:
- rye bread
- red cabbage sauerkraut

The onions were chopped very finely using an electric cutter, then mixed with minced meat, eggs, salt and pepper. Milk was stirred in in portions until the texture was as desired (for frikadeller I usually aim for a little more on the liquidy side than I would for most other types of meat balls).

The meat balls were shaped using a teaspoon (see the original post on frikadeller for pictures of the shaping procedure) and fried in a large pan (medium heat) with some margarine, working mostly in batches.

As you can see I made a heap of them. We ate some right away on rye bread with red cabbage sauerkraut - a perfect combination. I put a lot of the rest in the freezer.


^[1] I used a 50:50 mix available from the local store. This kind of meat balls could also be made mixed pork/veal or even pure pork - but pure beef wouldn't be 'right' for frikadeller.

^[2] I don't buy bread crumbs. I simply grate some old dried out white bread. Whenever I buy fresh bread and don't manage to eat it all before it goes dry, I just leave the bread in a dry place for a couple of weeks (or even longer - it usually doesn't go mouldy if stored in a dry place) to make sure it is really dry - then it is easy to grate to bread crumbs.

Pebernødder

Having not found the time to bake a whole series of Christmas cookies this year, I opted for one cookie that really brings the holiday spirit for me: pebernødder (which would translate as 'pepper-nuts').

Realizing I had never made them myself, I requested my mother's recipe and once I had that I went looking for ingredients. The tricky part turned out to be the ground (dried) bitter orange peel that the recipe called for an ill-defined amount of. This I didn't manage to find before making the dough, so I substituted finely chopped candied orange peel - ironically, I did find it in the local store while the dough I had made was resting in the fridge at home. Which brings up another point: my mother's recipe strongly recommends leaving the dough in the fridge for a day or two before shaping and baking.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (~ ¹/₂ lb) flour
- 125 g (~ 4 oz) unsalted butter
- 125 g (~ 4 oz) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- ¹/₂ tsp ground ginger
- ¹/₂ tsp ground cloves
- ³/₄ tsp ground cinnamon
- pinch of white pepper
- zest of ¹/₂ lemon
- very finely chopped candied orange peel (about the same volume as lemon zest)^[1]

The butter was worked into the flour by hand, then all the other ingredients were added and kneaded to an only slightly sticky dough. The dough shaped into a ball, wrapped in film and stored in the fridge for a day before continuing.

Coming right out of the fridge, the dough is fairly hard - but with a little patience you can pry off a chunk and roll it into a rod approximately 1 cm (²/₅ inch) thick. As the rod becomes thinner and your hands warm up the dough it becomes progressively easier to work. The rod was sliced into approximately 1 cm (²/₅ inch) thick pieces. Each little piece was rolled to a small ball and placed on a baking sheet lined with baking paper.

They were baked at 212 C (415 F) for 10 minutes - and should be allowed to cool off completely before eating. I sampled one while they were still warm and was afraid I botched them, but by the time they were old I could taste I had done it right after all.

^[1] As mentioned above the original recipe called for "a little ground (dried) bitter orange peel" instead of candied orange peel.

Easter 'Hen'

It's funny how sometimes nostalgia creeps up on you and you end up doing things that your parents used to do. Take Easter as an example: admittedly, I don't have a whole lot by way of Easter traditions, but recently I found myself wanting to bake this hen-shaped bread that I remembered my mother making for Easter. As I recalled it, it was mostly the shape that set it apart and I suspected that my mother had simply used her standard bun recipe for the dough. Upon asking I was informed that there was a special recipe, which I would receive via e-mail later.

After receiving said recipe and reading it, I concluded that it was in fact pretty close to the aforementioned bun recipe if only half portion, less sugar, more salt.
Ingredients:
- 50 g (1 ³/₄ oz) margarine
- 3.2 dL (1 ¹/₃ cups) milk
- 1 tsp sugar
- 50 g (1 ³/₄ oz) fresh yeast
- 1 + 2 + 1 eggs
- 700 g (ca. 25 oz) flour
- 1.5 tsp salt
- 1 walnut piece
- white and black sesame seeds
The margarine and milk was heated on medium until the margarine had melted, then the mixture was transferred to a large bowl and allowed to cool to about body temperature before adding the sugar and the fresh yeast. One egg was added and the first 500 g (ca. 1 lb) of flour was stirred into the dough. Then the salt was added and the rest of the flour was kneaded into the dough in portions. After kneading thoroughly the dough was left to rise for 40 minutes.


A baking sheet was lined with baking paper, and a hen was shaped - (NB: this was my first attempt and I'm sure there are other ways to do it) - a piece of dough was made into a flat, roundish piece to serve as the body of the hen, while two smaller pieces were cut to make them roughly resemble a tail and a head. For the nest, two rolled pieces of dough were braided. Still having more dough a piece was cut to roughly resemble a wing and with the odd bits of remaining dough some small 'stones' were added beneath the nest.

Two whole, raw eggs were washed and then placed so it looks like the hen is sitting on them in the nest. Finally the entire hen was brushed with a beaten egg, decorated with sesame seeds and a walnut piece (as the eye), and baked at 200 C (400 F) for 20 minutes.

Served while still warm. The baked eggs in the nest are very much like hard-boiled eggs and my mother would usually add one for each person taking part in the Easter brunch. As I made it just for two people, I only used two. If one wishes, one could easily get more creative with the decorations.

Juullip Immiaa

Someone close to me recently went on a business trip to Greenland and brought me back a bottle of Godthaab Julebryg (Nuuk Yule-brew).

Many elements of Greenlandic culture are in a sense also Danish - perhaps particularly the beers, as the brewing tradition was introduced to Greenland by the Vikings. Godthaab Bryghus (Nuuk Brewhouse) operated in close collaboration with a small chain of local breweries in Denmark, and true to Danish tradition they make this semi-dark Yule-brew. Fortunately for me bottles were still available when my friend was there in February.

Of course I'm interested in trying their other products, but it appears I may have to go to Nuuk and visit their bar to accomplish that...

Shrovetide Buns (Egg-free)

While it is pointless to whip up an egg-free dough for a bun filled with an egg-based custard, it makes sense if you remember that Shrovetide buns can also be jam-filled. For these I used extra margarine as well as extra milk to make up for the missing egg in the dough.

This is a wee bit late for the season this year, but here goes anyway..

Ingredients:
- 150 g (¹/₃ lb) margarine
- 1.5 dL (²/₃ cup) whole-milk
- 50 g (ca. 2 oz) fresh yeast
- 5 tbsp sugar
- 400 g (14 oz) wheat flour
filling:
- ca. 200 g (7 oz) raspberry jam
glazing:
- powdered sugar
- optional powdered cocoa
- water

The margarine and milk was heated on low heat in a small pot until the margarine had melted, then transferred to a large bowl and allowed to cool until lukewarm. The fresh yeast was crumbled into the lukewarm milk-and-margarine, then the sugar was stirred in followed by the flour. The dough was kneaded for some minutes, then covered and left to rise for 1 hour.

After rising, the dough was rolled out to approximately 40 x 45 cm (ca. 15" x 18") and cut in 12 pieces. A largish tsp of raspberry jam was placed in the middle of each piece of dough and the dough was folded around the jam and the resulting buns were placed on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. The buns were then covered and left to rise on the sheet for 45 minutes.

The buns were baked for 10 minutes at 225 C (450 F) - and it appears I need to improve my technique for closing the buns as some jam ran out onto the baking sheet during baking.

The buns were served with a freshly applied glazing made by stirring together water and powdered sugar - approximate amounts (for one bun): 1 tsp water + 6 tsp powdered sugar (for a nice chocolaty variation substitute 1 or 2 tsp of the powdered sugar with powdered cocoa).

Green peas (in white gravy)

This is food I grew up with, and in my parents house it was simply known as 'grønærter' (literally 'green peas'), but in reality we're talking about more than just that. Peas and bits of carrot in a white gravy with parsley - to go with boiled potatoes and certain varieties of pork. Interestingly, my muse doesn't like it very much, so it went on the list of things-to-cook-while-home-alone. One of the things it is traditionally served with (and which goes well in my opinion) is the Danish speciality medisterpølse - a long, spiralling sausage which is first boiled, then fried. Sadly I haven't seen it here in Sweden, and for the moment I have no ambitions about making my own sausages - so I simply went for some nice bratwursts.

Ingredients:
- 300 g (²/₃ lb) carrots, peeled and diced
- 300 g frozen peas
- 50 g (2 oz) shortening
- flour
- milk (around 5 dL = 2 cups)
- salt and pepper
- parsley, chopped

The carrot pieces were boiled in a minimal volume of water for 5 minutes before adding the frozen peas. The pot was brought back to boiling and boiled for another 5 minutes.
In a separate pot, margarine was melted, then stirred in flour (the amount which I could take with my large ladle). This paste was stirred into the carrot and peas, adding milk in portions and stirring constantly until a decent texture gravy was obtained. Chopped parsley (NOT flat-leaf parsley) was stirred, the gravy was seasoned to taste with salt and pepper.

Served with potatoes boiled in lightly salted water and a bratwurst.

Cinnamon Rolls (Egg-free)

Now that I'm living in Sweden I partake in 'fika' on a regular basis - to fika is to sit down with friends/colleagues/whoever and have some coffee and cake (although in my case it's tea and cake as I don't drink coffee). The majority of my fika experiences take place at work, and a substantial part of them occur at our weekly group meetings, for which we take turns at bringing bread and/or cake. It's sort of an unwritten rule that it should be home-baked, but that should be doable for someone like me.

Then my new colleagues told me about the tricky bit: our boss is allergic not only to nuts, but also to eggs. Off the top of my head I couldn't think of a single cake recipe in my repertoire that didn't include eggs - although after thinking a bit more about it I came up with one. Naturally, I felt compelled to overcome this challenge. Upon researching the subject, I found that there are in fact lots of recipes for baking without eggs on the internet. Never-the-less, I will post about here about my experiences with it.

For the first round, I chose the perhaps most quintessentially Danish/Swedish cake: the cinnamon roll. These are ubiquitous (if in somewhat different versions) in both Sweden and Denmark.


Ingredients:
dough
- 50 g (2 oz) fresh yeast
- 5 dL (2 cups) milk
- 125 g (4.4 oz) margarine
- ½ tsp salt
- 125 g (4.4 oz) sugar
- 5 tsp cardamom
- at least 900 g (2 lbs) flour
filling
- 150 g (¹/₃ lb) margarine
- 12 tbsp dark brown sugar
- 6 tbsp cinnamon

The milk and the margarine was mixed in a small pot and heated on low heat until the margarine was melted. The lukewarm mixture (let it cool for a little while if too warm) was poured over crumbled fresh yeast before adding sugar, cardamom, salt, and flour. The dough was kneaded for some minutes until smooth. The dough was covered and left to rise for a couple of hours (this was definitely plenty of time - if allowed to stand until the volume has doubled it should be sufficient).

While the dough was rising, the filling was made by mixing all the ingredients on low heat and then cooling the mixture to get a dark brown paste - if it's too runny it will cause problems later.

The risen dough was rolled out using a little little extra flour. The filling was spread evenly on the dough and then it was rolled into a log. The log was sliced and the slices were placed on a sheet of baking paper.

Tip: to prevent the rolls from uncoiling the outer end was stretched slightly and placed under the roll.

They were baked at 200 C (400 F) for 13-15 minutes.

Served warm - they can easily be frozen and re-heated in the oven. For the luxury version, they can be decorated with a frosting made from water and powdered sugar.

Danish Beer - Part VI / Bear Beer II

Danish brewery Harboe's is probably most famous for Bjørnebryg^[1] - which would translate as 'Bear Brew', but in the US I saw it sold under the name 'Bear Beer' (in Trader Joe's) - with the trademark polar bear on the label. Interestingly, when I bought Bjørnebryg in the US it was probably the first time in my life I ever bought it - and mainly for warped nostalgic/patriotic reasons. Thing is - to my mind Bjørnebryg has a rather dismal reputation: it's not famous for being a particularly good beer, but much more so for being a relatively cheap strong beer (traditionally 7.7% ABV). In short, it has the reputation of being a beer for alcoholics.


But if Bjørnebryg's raison d'être is it's comparatively good alcohol/price ratio rather than the taste experience itself, then that begs the question of why the Swedes seem to want a low-alcohol content version of that beer? While Systemet sells Bjørnebryg holding 7.2% ABV, some Swedish supermarkets sell a version with 2.8% ABV. Naturally, I was intrigued. Unfortunately, as I expected, there is no good reason for buying this beer. And the real one is so intensely alcoholic that I ended up mixing the two for a more drinkable (if not memorable) compromise.

^[1] While Danish brewery Carlberg also sells a strong beer leaning on the imagery of the raw power of exotic animals (Carlsberg Elephant Beer, 7.2% ABV) this sales tactics not unique to Danish breweries as witnessed by e.g. the Finnish Kahru and the American Rhino Chasers.

Yggenyk Cookies

When I was a child one of the stories I really enjoyed was the story about the yggenyks (which are three-legged birds) stealing the round tower in Copenhagen. The yggenyks then demanded a ransom of yggenyk cookies for returning the popular tower. The book even had the recipe for authentic yggenyk cookies - complete with a warning not to leave the window open when baking them since yggenyk might get attracted by the lovely scent. I, of course, loved these cookies as a child too.

Earlier this year, I felt like making yggenyk cookies myself and googled the subject. This is when things got complicated. Spellings varied 'yggenyk', 'yggenyg', 'ykkenyk' and I suddenly had three fairly different recipes all claiming to be the recipe for authentic yggenyk cookies. The three recipes were quite similar except for a few key issues: one didn't include eggs (seemed at the very least unusual), another didn't include any obvious leavening agent, while the last one called for both eggs and hartshorn.^[1]

It seemed the confusion stemmed at least partly from the fact that the author had in fact given two different recipes for authentic yggenyk cookies - one in the book I remembered, and another one in the book in which the yggenyks steal the queen's palace in Copenhagen demanding a cookie ransom (yes, a fairly similar plot).

After discussing the matter with my external consultant^[2] I opted for the recipe including both eggs and hartshorn... and was somewhat disappointed with the resulting cookies. They were not as hard as I remembered them, and in hindsight I guess I used too much hartshorn (the recipe calls for 'a pinch'^[3]). Some time went by and I tried again - the result was better, but still not quite to my satisfaction. On the third attempt I was finally learning to use sufficiently little hartshorn for the cookies not to rise too much.

Ingredients:
- 250 g (9 oz) granulated sugar
- 250 g (9 oz) margarine, chunks
- 100 g (3.5 oz) dark chocolate chopped
- 3 eggs
- pinch of salt
- pinch of hartshorn
- 500 g (18 oz) flour
optional coating:
- 130 g (4.5 oz) milk chocolate

The margarine was cut in chunks and worked into the sugar using a ladle.^[4] The eggs were stirred in one by one, and then the chopped dark chocolate. Salt and hartshorn were added and lastly the flour was stirred in in three portions.

The dough was rolled into 50 balls which were placed on two baking sheets and baked sequentially on the top rack at 200 C (400 F) for 16 minutes each. Once out of the oven the cookies were transferred to a rack to cool.

The cooled cookies were flipped upside down and the bottoms were coated with melted milk chocolate (melted with three 20 second pulses in the microwave oven). The milk chocolate was allowed to harden before storing in cookie tins.


The resulting cookies were much like I remembered them (if still less hard), although the grown-up me has to concede it's basically just a chocolate chip cookie. I'm not sure I'd bother with the milk chocolate bottom coating next time - it didn't add that much to the overall result.

^[1] Hartshorn = Ammonium bicarbonate (aka 'powdered baking ammonia').
^[2] i.e. my mom.
^[3] In Danish 'a pinch' is 'en knivspids' - i.e. "as much as lies on the tip of a knife".
^[4] This part is clearly easier if the margarine is allowed to warm to room temperature first.

Danish Beer - Part V (Ærø)

On a trip to Copenhagen earlier this year, I picked up a selection of Ærø beers - that is: beers from Rise Brewery on the Danish island Ærø. For reasons that I can't very well explain I had high expectations - very high.

The stout was the most memorable of them - quite sweet, and very much to my liking. The pale ale and the dark ale didn't quite live up to my expectations (which, as stated, were very high), but the true shocker was the walnut bock - I found it anything but the harmonious that their homepage boasts. On the contrary, the taste had odd elements that would have been much more welcome if I was drinking a herbal bitter of some kind. Proceed with caution.

Swedish 'Danish' beer

At a social gathering with my work I noticed this gem of dubious labelling: "Dansk Fadøl" (Danish draught beer).

Regarding it's Danishness, I will just say that I have NEVER seen this beer outside of Sweden. And as for a can of 'draught beer'.. well, I guess I don't really need to comment on that.

To be avoided.

Swedish 'Danish' rye bread

As regular readers here will now, I have been going on about whole grain dark rye bread repeatedly on this page.

For the first time in years, I am now living in a place where I can buy freshly baked rye bread (yes, so far I have been too lazy to try my own luck with it), which I've always considered a special treat.


Many things Swedish are much like things Danish... with a twist. So also for the rye bread which - despite being sold as 'Danish rye bread' - is actually a little sweeter than the original. The Swedes do like putting molasses in their breads. I have been buying one of these almost every week since moving to Sweden, and I am still enjoying them immensely.

Hot dogs

No, there is nothing wrong with colours of your monitor: these sausages really are bright red.

I don't know why there's a tradition for bright red sausages in Denmark, but kids do seem to love them (I know I did). When I recently went to Denmark for a short trip one of my new Swedish colleagues - who is from Scania in south-western Sweden and therefore has been to Denmark several times - asked me to bring back some red sausages because he missed them so.^[1]

Since I was at it, nostalgia got the better of me and I decided to get a pack for myself and make some good old-fashioned hot dogs. I'm not sure what the colouring agent used is, but is has some water-solubility as the water I boiled them in was nicely red by the time they were done.

For the hot dogs I used ketchup, remoulade, roasted onions and cornichons - had I been in the mood for spending a little more time on it, I would have added finely diced raw onion and substituted the cornichons with home-made cucumber salad. Many next time

^[1] Since that I have discovered that a supermarket close to where I live actually does sell these, so hauling them back from Denmark seems silly...

Danish Beer - Part IV (Nørrebro Bryghus)

Over the past years, I've heard a number of good things about Nørrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen, but as it has only come into existence since I stopped living in Denmark (as a consequence of the relatively recent surge in micro-breweries in Denmark), it wasn't till recently that I had a chance to visit it myself.


When you enter you have the choice of going upstairs (restaurant) or downstairs (bar) - as I came mainly for beer I chose downstairs. I was happy to see that they have a good number of beers that they make themselves (I think 8), but from the way the menu was written I suspect there's isn't quite the same rotation of beers as certain other places I like (although clearly there was some rotation).

I went for a 4-beer sampler and had Ravnsborg Red (ale), Golden Spike (IPA), Globe Ale, and La Granja Stout. While I quite liked both of the first two, I didn't find the taste of the Globe Ale as interesting as the concept (an environmental impact conscious beer) .. and the stout was clearly a mistake on my part. If I had read the description more carefully, I would have surely noticed that it contains coffee - which I don't like. If you want a coffee stout, by all means, check it out. For snacking I had some beer-roasted almonds - which turned out to be hotter than the name suggested as they also contained chilli.


The night ended with Stuykman Wit and Vårsaison ('spring season') both of which were in the Belgian style. Would I return to this place? Yes, indeed I would.

Karbonader (Danish Meatballs 3)

These breaded meatballs are another classic of Danish cooking .. although I don't seem to make them all that often. In fact I have no idea when I last made them (other than that it over 2 years ago).

Ingredients:
- 300 g (2/3 lb) minced pork
- 1 egg
- bread crumbs
- salt & pepper
- oil

The minced pork was pressed into firm balls using the hands, then flattened somewhat by applying light pressure with a knife (this part of the process identical to these other Danish meatballs). In a small bowl the egg was beaten lightly with a fork, and in a second bowl bread crumbs were mixed with salt and pepper (no, I did not have enough bread crumbs in the bowl in the picture - I needed about twice as much). The flattened meat balls were turned out first in egg, then in bread crumbs and fried in the pan until golden and cooked through.

Served with boiled potatoes and a simple salad.

Danish Christmas Lunch 2008

On Christmas day we had a couple of guests over for a Danish style Christmas lunch. The concept of a such a lunch is to sit at a table for several hours, eating a selection of cold and warm dishes served in succession while talking and drinking strong and/or dark beer (such as these) and aquavit ('snaps').


For this particular lunch we served...

To drink: Erdmandli Zuger Amber and Hopfemandli Lager Dunkel from Brauerei Baar in Baar, Switzerland. Both of these are nicely dark beers that go well with the food here.

To eat: First fish
1a. pickled herring with rings of red onion, curry sauce,^[1] and hard boiled eggs (on whole-grain dark rye bread).
1b. leek herring (on whole-grain dark rye bread).
1c. smoked salmon with mayonnaise and lemon wedges (on white bread).
1d. marinated salmon ('gravad laks') with honey-mustard sauce (on white bread).

Bonus drink (particularly to go with herrings): In small glasses, shots of our own import of Danish aquavit, Myrica flavoured aquavit ('porsesnaps') from Aalborg/Danish Distillers - a personal favourite of mine (and one of the few drink issues where I seem to agree with my mother).

After the fish followed a warm dish:
2. oven-warmed liver pâté with freshly sautéed bacon and mushrooms, and optional pickled beetroots (on dark or white bread as preferred).

Followed by a selection of sliced meats:
3a. horse salami.
3b. cold pork roast (on whole-grain dark rye bread with red-cabbage sauerkraut).
3c. cold duck roast (on whole-grain dark rye bread with red-cabbage sauerkraut).

At this point we were ready to entertain with with cheeses and fruits, but our guests looked about ready to burst already, so we decided to skip directly to the sweets:
4a. flourless chocolate-brazil nut cake
4b. cookie selection: Finnish breads, Swedish chocolate breads, Palestinian cookies, and pistachio shortbreads.

And so went the entire afternoon. One doesn't really need much of a dinner after such a lunch...

^[1] To get a more strongly yellow curry sauce I added pure ground turmeric.

My First Duck Roast

Traditionally the big Christmas dinner in Denmark is on Christmas Eve - and I guess most Danes would have duck roast.^[1] This year I decided to try my hand at a whole duck for the first time. Well, let me be frank: a few mistakes were made, so there's room for improvement ...

Since I was going to be cooking only for two I took the smallest duck I could find at the store, at 1.5 kg (~ 3 lbs). Traditionally the duck is stuffed with apples and prunes, but I decided to go for a different flavour: I stuffed it instead with onion, leek, and fresh sage. I closed it using a couple of wooden toothpicks. The skin was rubbed with generous amounts of salt.


One of the tricky parts is getting a crisp skin, while not drying out the meat. I read beforehand that a nice result should be obtained by roasting it first for 20-30 minutes at 225 C (450 F) with the breast up and then turning it over on the grid, filling a little water in the bottom of the pan and roasting at 160 C (320 F) for about 30 minutes per lb. This is exactly where I made my mistakes: for one thing, I don't think the early roasting at the higher temperature was sufficient. Worse, when I turned it over and poured water in the pan, the water reached the skin (because the grid was too low over the bottom of the pan). Consequently, the skin wasn't anywhere near crisp when the duck was roasted. I tried turning on the broiler for a some minutes, but I never got the skin quite right.

The meat, however, was delicious - I really liked the hint of sage. It was served with peeled, boiled potatoes, broiled green beans, red cabbage sauerkraut, gravy made from the drippings, salad (made from corn salad, cucumber, tomato, caper berries, and roasted pine nuts), and a pinot noir Burgundy wine with a very Christmas like label (click picture to enlarge).

For dessert this heavy flourless chocolate-brazil nut cake.

^[1] It's not uncommon in larger families to find both duck roast and pork roast.

Real Pork Roast (Flæskesteg)

You know, the irony isn't lost on me: For over 5 years I lived in the US, where I believe myself to speak the language more or less fluently. Not once did I try to enter a butcher's shop to ask for one of the right cuts of pork to make Danish pork roast - I just got by using the pork bellies that I did find at stores. Despite this, after having been in Switzerland for less than a year, I decided to actually go and ask for a more appropriate cut of pork .. in my broken beginners French, no less.


So here it is - Danish pork roast, the way it's supposed to be. The actual recipe is like that for the pork belly, so this is mainly just for the pictures.

The cooking time is approximately 1 hour per kg (30 minutes per pound). The procedure of having the skin down in the water for the first half hour or so not only softens the skin so it is easier to score, but it also cooks out some of the fat which makes it easier to crisp the skin the right way at the end of the procedure.

I have a different oven now, one that has the broiler in the actual oven room, so for the final crisping of the skin I could use that - in less than 4 minutes the skin bubbled up very nicely and became perfect... and only a little burned. OK, so I should have kept a better eye on it, but I didn't realize trouble arose that quickly. And yes, the gravy isn't brown - I don't have gravy colouring here and didn't have the time to experiment with alternatives for this.
 

'Palestinian' Cookies ver.1

One of the cookies traditionally served in Denmark around the Yuletide is Jødekager ('Jew cookies'),[1] and I remember a few years ago overhearing that these had fallen a bit from grace due to their name. I recently learned that in a effort to make the Christmas cookie-jar more politically acceptable these Palæstinenserkager ('Palestinian cookies') had been invented. Like other cookies presented here the actual Palestinian character of the cookies is somewhat doubtful.

Actually this didn't pan out quite as expected, but more on that below.

Ingredients:
- 140 g (5 oz) sugar
- zest of 1 lemon, grated
- 7 tbsp water
- 225 g (8 oz) unsalted butter, cut in chunks
- 400 g (14 oz) flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
toppings:
- 2 tbsp aniseed
- 100 g (3.5 oz) cane sugar
- 2 tbsp caraway seeds
- 1 tbsp ground cardamom
- 2 tbsp ground coriander
- 2 tbsp sesame seeds


Sugar, lemon zest, water and butter was mixed till homogeneous using a hand-held mixer (this took a little while). In a separate bowl flour, salt, and baking powder was mixed and then stirred into the butter mixture. The somewhat sticky dough was shaped into a log, about 30 cm (12 inches) long, 5 cm (2 inches) thick, wrapped in film and stored in the fridge for 4 h to make it firm.

Half of the log was cut in 0.5 cm (1/5 inch) slices, the other half was cut in 0.2 cm (1/12 inch) slices. All were placed on baking sheets and sprinkled with the pre-mixed toppings. The thicker kind was baked at 180 C (360 F) for 15 minutes while the thinner kind was baked at the same temperature for 12 minutes.


The result wasn't bad - cookies with a rather different taste from the typical arsenal of Danish cookies. And there isn't really an interesting difference between the thicker and thinner kinds. However, in order to get a dough of a texture I could actually roll into a log I had to use a lot more flour than the recipe called for (like 33% extra) - and I think the less sticky dough obtained this way is then less than ideal for making the topping stick. I think I should try again, either making the dough as the original recipe and shaping them in different way than done here or simply brush the cookies with a little beaten egg before sprinkling with the topping.

[1] And I will not be making Jew cookies this year, as some are being kindly donated by Mrs. Throat-Erator's mother.