120 replies to this topic

[Mjx]

I mentioned earlier that dinner was going to be dinner was fish and chips. I should say, fantastic fish and chips with a lovely view, preceded and followed by a drive through a landscape that is almost insanely photogenic and picturesque. There are still plenty of tiny Danish towns that are simply bursting with half-timbered and thatched houses, and interspersed with fields containing small scatterings of attractive livestock knee-deep in clover (or whatever it is they’re consuming). Unfortunately, most of it has no connection to our dinner or food, but I figured a few shots of the area around our destination, Fiskehuset (‘The Fish house’), were justified.

Our destination is somewhere in the cluster of houses in the centre of the picture:



And this is Fiskehuset, at the marina in Norsminde:









When they're open, which is only at certain times, the place is usually fairly crowded, so there's no guarantee of a seat:





The fish and chips were as fantastic as ever (the fish is hake); we also got one of the old, non-wobbly tables with an iron base and slate top:







Afterwards, we took a walk around the marina, and we noticed some kids crabbing:





A few more shots around Fiskehuset:









(No recipe for jellyfish, but give me a little time. . .)


Danes eat early: by 19.00 there’s hardly a soul in sight:



And something to finish with:

[FrogPrincesse]

Beautiful. I love fraises des bois; they have such a wonderful flavor.

[LindaK]

Wow. I don't know what I want more--a plate of that incredible fish and chips or ANY meal overlooking that lovely bay. Great photos.

Question about the photo inside Fiskehuset. What's in the display case? Looks like smoked fish but also other things I can't identify.

[heidih]

That fried fish looks wonderful. The browning on both fish and potatoes appears optimal. That is just coarse salt on the fish? I see the capers, onion and fresh dill on the front plate, but it there appears to be a small sauce dish on the other. Was there a dipping sauce option?

[Smithy]

I want to know all about that fried fish, too! My other question is about the water gates in the photo with the kids crabbing. What are the gates regulating?

[Mjx]

Beautiful. I love fraises des bois; they have such a wonderful flavor.

Oh yes, and we were lucky to find these :)

Wow. I don't know what I want more--a plate of that incredible fish and chips or ANY meal overlooking that lovely bay. Great photos.

Question about the photo inside Fiskehuset. What's in the display case? Looks like smoked fish but also other things I can't identify.

Thanks! I do love eating here.

There are several versions of both hot and cold smoked fish, and in the containers of things that are not smoked fish, going left to right, there are shrimp (small, square glass container), behind the shrimp are crab claws, quite large ones (metal bucket), then there are prawns (metal container), a mystery item that no one I've asked today could identify from the picture, but there are lemon slices and what appears to be a tomato based sauce, so I'm guessing that it's some sort of seafood appetizer (foil tart tins in glass container), fish frikadeller (glass container), and some lightly dressed shrimp (glass container to the right of the row of three triangular containers of various condiments, at the back).

That fried fish looks wonderful. The browning on both fish and potatoes appears optimal. That is just coarse salt on the fish? I see the capers, onion and fresh dill on the front plate, but it there appears to be a small sauce dish on the other. Was there a dipping sauce option?

It's just coarse salt, which has a tendency to roll off the fish, so you have to sort of dab it up from the plate. They offer several choices of sauce, including remoulade and ketchup (I'm not much of a sauce person, and really dislike anything creamy with savoury dishes, so I passed); that one is aïoli, which my boyfriend described as a very good take on it.

I want to know all about that fried fish, too! My other question is about the water gates in the photo with the kids crabbing. What are the gates regulating?

If you look at the first image, you can see a body of water in the middleground; the water gates regulate the flow of water from the bay to the inlet, and prevent flooding (I think it's just to protect homes, I don't believe there is any pisciculture going on). By the way, if you look closely, you can just make out something else that is very Danish: the row of ten windmills on the right side of the horizon.

[Mjx]

Breakfast today included Guinness Stout ginger cake, which you may notice is a little. . . dark:



Okay. The top is burnt black:



Even reducing the temperature to compensate for the oven’s tendency heat spikes didn’t help (although it seems to have interfered with the rise a bit ). Fortunately, the thing wasn’t incinerated, and with the thin carbonized layer trimmed away, and if it didn’t look beautiful, it still delivered in terms of flavour (it’s so good with coffee), and the recipe is one I highly recommend.

The cake is also a bit paler than usual, because at about 22.45 last night I discovered that I was out of molasses (difficult to find here), so I frantically racked my brains for a substitute, and hit upon a combination of cane syrup, pureed prunes, and cider vinegar. As a substitution, this was passable, but hardly ideal (but hey, I did promise at least one culinary fiasco).

[brucesw]

I am loving this. I am one quarter Swedish but all we have here in the way of Scandinavian food is the IKEA cafe so I love being able to learn anything about Scandinavian foodways and folkways. Thank you so much for doing this blog.

Yes, I want some of that fish 'n chips but I also want one of everything else on the menu. I see a couple of them are classic smorrebrod items.

[rotuts]

Yes, that does look like the perfect place to have seafood. the menu board had a price for the F&C of 60-

is that Danish Kroner? so about $10 US? that seems very reasonable for the plate and the spot!

[Mjx]

For lunch, we had an adaptation of smørrebrød.

Right before we started, my boyfriend remembered that lettuce was kind of required for dyrelægens natmad, se we went out and picked some greens in the garden:



This is the selection of ingredients we went with:



The sort of wet-looking pink meat in the centre is salt beef, then clockwise from the dark brown stuff, which is beef aspic, you have liver paste, the last two frikadeller, onion and dill for topping, baby greens, mustard, mayonnaise (I know, I know), smoked salt, and salmon.

The results:



Apart from the dyrelægens natmad (the one with the onion rings and slab of aspic), these are all improvisations, not anything formally recognized (@brucesw, if you're at all familiar with this, you probably noticed that this isn't close to a full-on, authentic smørrebrød), although it's still a good bit more elaborate than what we usually do. Tradition stipulates that shrimp and salmon are eaten on white bread, and most other things are eaten on rye bread, but that went out the window when my boyfriend stood firm on his preference for fresh bread.





Also traditionally, you eat smørrebrød with a knife and fork, but there was no way any standard table knife could make a dent in the crust of this bread, so we just picked them up and ate them.

. . . . the menu board had a price for the F&C of 60-

is that Danish Kroner? so about $10 US? that seems very reasonable for the plate and the spot!

DKK 90, actually, so close to USD15 (but that includes tax, and since wait staff are paid a living wage you don't tip, so the price includes everything).

[rotuts]

many thanks I love the open faced sandwiches!

are there
Smörgåsbord

in your area? are they popular? I recall some that had more types of herring than one could count!

(note the Copy/paste !)

[Mette]

This is great - I would have commented earlier, but just spent 2 weeks in Crete (away from the wet, cold Danish summer). It is so much fun to read an outside view on Denmark and the foods here. Even more so because I grew up in Århus (sorry, Aarhus ) and used to live just around the corner from the Market, and as a kid, we'd go to the harbour in Norsminde on a nice day.

You might want to try all-spice in the frikadeller for a boost of flavour..... Lovage is traditionally used for very little, but pop a sprig in when you boil those 'aquarium' (scrubbed, not peeled) potatoes, and it adds a lovely, summery flavour. Your take on smørrebrød looks good. By husband, an Englishman, get grief at all family events for having heering on white bread and gravlax on rugbrød (black rye bead).

Keep it coming !

[Mjx]

many thanks I love the open faced sandwiches!

are there
Smörgåsbord

in your area? are they popular? I recall some that had more types of herring than one could count!

(note the Copy/paste !)

That's Swedish (the ö instead of the ø gives that away)! In Danish it's called det kolde bord ('the cold table'), and basically, it's just the stuff that gets made for lunch, although more substantial and varied selections show up at events like julefrokoster (where you can find a fair number of different kinds of herring, but since by the end of the night it may well be being used for body sild, I'm not sure this really gets noticed).

This is great - I would have commented earlier, but just spent 2 weeks in Crete (away from the wet, cold Danish summer). It is so much fun to read an outside view on Denmark and the foods here. Even more so because I grew up in Århus (sorry, Aarhus ) and used to live just around the corner from the Market, and as a kid, we'd go to the harbour in Norsminde on a nice day.

You might want to try all-spice in the frikadeller for a boost of flavour..... Lovage is traditionally used for very little, but pop a sprig in when you boil those 'aquarium' (scrubbed, not peeled) potatoes, and it adds a lovely, summery flavour. Your take on smørrebrød looks good. By husband, an Englishman, get grief at all family events for having heering on white bread and gravlax on rugbrød (black rye bead).

Keep it coming !

Thanks! I actually enjoy the Danish summer and feel a bit guilty about it, because when everyone is looking out the window and wishing it would stop raining, I'm hoping it will just keep on

I made a note to give allspice a go in frikadeller, they really do need something to bring out the flavour.
And scrubbed, hm? I should have noticed that...

[Mjx]

We made a quick trip to a small ‘farm shop’ nearby, which manages to be a sort of greengrocer/general store: the owners sell an intriguing array of things, in addition to their own produce (and others’):













Various juices and some ceramic ware:



A terrific selection of liquorice:





Some cook books,



and the omnipresent scrubbed (thanks, Mette!) potatoes in water.



They also sell chalk paint, slippers, watering cans and garden gnomes (that’s just the tip of the iceberg).

There’s a good-sized green house right next to the shop, where you can get various flowers and herbs in pots, and there’s a very substantial grape vine occupying about a third of the roof (the green mass at the far end):






Dinner was venison with the fennel and carrots I picked up at the farm shop. There were a few changes to the original plan, and the hokkaido-chestnut soup was broken down into hokkaido puree and caramelized chestnuts.





Tonight, we had dinner with my boyfriend’s parents:





And now I’m sitting here, finishing off the last of tonight’s wine ;)

[JeanneCake]

So, how's about another week of blogging ! This is great!!!

[rotuts]

[Rebecca263]

Your blog has been so gorgeous, visually and otherwise, The way that you pair your foods fascinates me. Although I eat very differently than you, there is such a common feeling to your habits- the homemade breads and attention to fresh vegetables especially. Thank you so much for sharing with us here!

[liuzhou]

This has been a great blog. Fascinating and informative. Thanks.

[Smithy]

That last meal looks wonderfully tasty, and that table setting is beautiful: simple, connecting nicely to the summer outdoors. Thank you for sharing your week with us!

[Mjx]

Thanks to everyone who followed along this week (and to Kristoffer, Inge, Helene, Lasse, and Mads, who have invariably answered my apparently endless questions about Danish food with apparently endless patience)! I hope you enjoyed seeing this tiny bit of a Danish summer through the eyes of a foreigner as much as I have, and I leave you with my latest find, pineapple strawberries (yep, they smell of pineapple):

[rotuts]

Many thanks for such a fine week!

[ambra]

It's been fantastic!! thanks for showing us your world!!

[Kerry Beal]

Surely it's not over yet - say it isn't so!

[Shelby]

Pineapple strawberries! I want!

[annabelle]

Thank you so much for a beautiful blog, Michaela!

[Peter the eater]

Michaela, thanks for all the informative words, gorgeous photos and exquisite seafood.

[SylviaLovegren]

Those strawberries are just stunning. Beautiful!

That jellyfish looks like a lion's mane -- powerful stingers. Be careful!

Thanks for a wonderful and interesting blog. Are you sure it's supposed to be done? I don't think it is...

[patrickamory]

Dinner; rice with chicken sausage, shrimp, and duck, with baby greens on the side:

(A bit late to the game but:) Ha! I have that exact same bottle of Penzey's dried fennel seed, and used it in two different recipes today. Most likely bought it at the same stand in Grand Central - I live 6 blocks away. Shock of the familiar.

Margarine in Denmark? I always associate the country with Lurpak, since that's the brand of butter I usually buy.

I like the look of the open-faced sandwiches. Or have they just not been topped with a second slice? I see later you say you haven't done smørrebrød yet. We had tons when we were in Copenhagen, but that was 12 years ago. For a long time, my partner made them for me and company on my birthday, using the book from this restaurant:



Markets look excellent. Produce looks excellent. Enjoying this blog already.

[ruthcooks]

Nobody ever mentioned elderberry pie.

And, once upon a time I won the 4-H "bouquet of the day" at the Illinois State Fair, with a bouquet of elderberry flowers and bittersweet berries in an iron skillet!

Thanks a bunch for blogging from a person who almost always prefers dairy with her meat.

[Mjx]

. . . .

Margarine in Denmark? I always associate the country with Lurpak, since that's the brand of butter I usually buy.

I like the look of the open-faced sandwiches. Or have they just not been topped with a second slice? I see later you say you haven't done smørrebrød yet. . . .

Most of the Danes I've met seem to favour margarine (when my boyfriend's mother needs butter for a recipe, she usually borrows it from me, since she rarely buys it). Lurpak is a popular brand , but mostly because it's almost the only brand of butter you find in many supermarkets.

The thing about smørrebrød is that it simply means 'buttered bread' (smør is 'butter', and brød is 'bread'), so it effectively covers a really broad range, from plain bread and butter to the most elaborate sandwiches (these are always open-faced). On festive occasions there is often at least a gesture towards the formal, traditional combinations, usually as part of a larger kolde bord (the Danish equivalent of the Swedish smorgåsbord), but the general trend in sandwich-making here is pretty much the universal 'let's see what we've got in the refrigerator... oh, better use that up!'