Curry Salad - Karrysalat

Curry Salad on pickled herring

Curry Salad is another traditional side for the Danish open faced sandwiches. Danes like fish, danes like pickled herring, but danes, for the most part, don't know how to make pickled herring, and this includes me. But I know how to make the curry salad to go with the herring, and it's so yummy. 

In Denmark you can buy pickled herring in a curry sauce, but sometimes homemade is better, And when you can't figure out how to pickle the herring, you can always make the curry sauce or salad, to get the homemade feeling at your lunch.

At my family's christmas luncheons the seafood part was the most important, we all loved pickled herring, smoked Salmon and fried fish fillets. Normally a danish christmas luncheons is a feast on all thing pork, but fish is a plays a big part too. 

Ingredients:

• 2 pickled cucumbers/gherkins (you can use 5 small cornichons)

• 3 eggs, hardboiled

• 175 g mayonnaise

• ½ cup (1 dl) sour cream

• 3-5 teaspoons curry powder (I use madras curry)

• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce (Lea & Perrins)

• a splash HP sauce

• ½ teaspoon turmeric

• salt & pepper to taste.

Directions:

Mix mayonnaise, sour cream, curry powder, Worcestershire sauce, HP sauce and turmeric. Dice the cucumber/gherkins and the hardboiled eggs in small pieces, fold it into the sauce. season with curry, salt and pepper.

Refrigerate the curry salad for an hour or so for the favors to blend better. This salad will keep for 5-6 days in the refrigerator. 

You can add diced apples for a sweeter taste, or diced red onions for a sharper taste.

Cherry sauce - kirsebærsauce

Cherry sauce - kirsebærsauce

This cherry sauce can be used on ice or puddings, but I always make this for my christmas dessert, risalamande. 

Growing up my parents had a cherry tree in their yard. Every year, my mom would preserve cherries to use for Christmas. The best part of my moms preserved cherries was the small nuts from inside the cherry-stone. After being preserved, the tasted like almonds, so yummy.

When I turned 9, my parents decided to move, and in their new yard, there were no cherry tree. And this was the end of homemade preserved cherries in my family. Now we had to eat store bought cherry sauce, like most other danes. 

Moving to the US, gave me a challenge with the cherry sauce, but one of my Danish friends, who moved to the US 4-5 years earlier than me, had the answer. You make your own cherry sauce from caned cherries. 

This is Mrs. Olsen's recipe for cherry sauce - well I might have tweaked it a bit, but the credits goes to Mrs Olsen. 

Ingredients:

• 1 can pitted cherries in heavy syrup
• 1 cup (250 ml) concentrated cherry juice
• 2-3 tablespoons sugar
• ½ lemon, the juice from
• cornstarch
• water

Directions:

Heat the cherries, cherry juice and sugar in a saucepan, bring it to a boil. Dissolve the cornstarch in cold water. Thicken the sauce with the cornstarch. Add lemon juice and sugar to taste. A spash of cherry liqueur only makes the sauce better.

Serve this sauce with ice cream, puddings or on risalamande.

Risalamande - Danish Rice Pudding

Risalamande - Danish Rice Pudding

December 22. - I think, I need to plan the hunt for the almond carefully this year. I really want the marzipan pigs from Summerbird.

Risalamande means rice with almonds, and even though the name sounds french, it is a danish dessert, dating back about hundred years.

This is the dessert 90% of danes have at christmas dinner on christmas eve. Normally the cook will put one whole blanched almond in the the bowl with Risalamande, which  is served family style. The person who gets the whole almond gets a special gift. In many families the gift is a pig made from marzipan, or at least some kind of sweet or candy. As if you need more sweets and candy at christmas time.

Before risalamande was invented the norm was to start the christmas dinner of with a bowl of rice porridge. Maybe to fill you up with an inexpensive dish, so you wouldn't have to eat so much of the more pricy goose or duck roast. The Danish royal family still to this day start their christmas dinner with rice porridge. 

Risalamande is served with a hot or cold cherry sauce.

This is how my mom made risalamande.

Serves 6-8 people

Ingredients:

• Rice porridge made from 1 l milk, cold

• ¼ liter heavy whipping cream (use organic, without any other ingredients other than cream/milk)

• 1-2 tablespoons sugar

• 1 vanilla pod, the seeds from.

• A large handful chopped blanched almonds

Directions:

Whip the cream in a large bowl, until stiff peaks are just about to form. If you over-beat the cream, it will leave you with butter. (been there, done that).

Spilt the vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife. Using the knife, mix the seeds with some sugar. This helps the seeds to distribute in the risalamande. You want an even distribution of seeds in the risalamande, like small black freckles.

In another bowl mix the rice porridge, sugar and vanilla. Use s couple of dollops of the whipped cream to soften the porridge. Fold in the whipped cream and the chopped almonds a little at a time. Taste the risalamande, so you won't put in to much. You want a fluffy light dessert, but not a bowl full of whipping cream.

Serve the risalamande cold from the refrigerator with hot or cold cherry sauce.

Enjoy.

Peppermint Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Affogato

Peppermint Ice Cream and Hot Chocolate Affogato

December 4th and the cold front hit northern California. So what is the best drink for keeping warm? Normally I'm not a big hot chocolate person, I would rater have a good latte. But the peppermint lightens up the hot chocolate and makes it scrumptious . My husband loves ice cream, so we made this treat as a compromise. I really hope you will enjoy it.

In December you see peppermint everywhere, and I learned that peppermint is the holiday flavor of choice for americans. And why not adapt the seasonal flavor in a decadent dessert? 

I love a normal affogato, an espresso poured over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It's a perfect ending to a great Italian dinner. So combining the affogato and the peppermint hot chocolate, I see in every coffee shop this time of year, must be a perfect match.

Here I flavored a classic ice cream with peppermint and topped it off with a decadent hot chocolate. 

Ingredients:

Ice cream:

• 1¼ cup (300 ml) Heavy whipping cream

• ¾ cup (180 ml) whole milk

• 4 egg yolks

• 85 g sugar

• 1 pinch salt

• 1 - 1¼ teaspoon peppermint extract

• crushed candy cane

Hot chocolate:

• whole milk

• milk chocolate (use a good one like Valrhona)

• dark chocolate (use a good one like Valrhona)

Directions:

Making the custard:

Pour the cream into a metal bowl placed in a larger bowl of ice, set aside.

Warm milk, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Make sure the sugar and salt is dissolved completely.

In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, while whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan, and heat the mixture over medium heat, until it thickens. Stir constantly in this process and make sure to scrape the bottom of the saucepan. 

Pour the egg/milk mixture through a sieve into the cold cream. 

Cool the custard in refrigerator. 

Add the peppermint extract, ½ teaspoon at a time, taste the custard.

Pour the custard into a ice cream maker and freeze it according to manufacturers instructions. Sprinkle with crushed candy cane just before you scoop out the ice cream.

Freeze the ice cream in the freezer a couple of hours before serving.

The making of the custard is a basic step in the ice cream making. You can flavor your ice cream to your liking after the custard is made. It's also possible to add flavor to the milk while heating.

Hot chocolate:

Heat whole milk and chocolate in a saucepan, whisk while heating.

Serve the ice cream in a glass, pour the hot chocolate over and sprinkle with crushed candy cane.

Danish Baked Omelette

Danish Baked Omelette.

The Danish baked omelette is an old-fashioned lunch dish served with rye bread and a cold beer.

I my family we had baked omelette for dinner, well my mom made it in a skillet on the stove. Turning the omelette was quite a hassle. Sliding the omelette onto a large lid, and flipping it is not for me. I found that putting the omelette in the oven works like a charm.

The omelette is so easy to make, and is great for a weeknight where time is limited. Sometimes it's just nice to make a quick and simple dinner and it doesn't hurt that it's rather cheap. This night I wanted to clear out some of all the eggs in the refrigerator, so I just bought a pack of bacon and some chives, and done.

Here's my moms recipe for omelette:

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 1½  tablespoons milk (½ tablespoon pr. 2 eggs)
• 6 teaspoons all-purpose flour
• salt & pepper
• extra virgin olive oil
• bacon
• chives

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400℉ (200℃).

Separate the egg white and the yolks. Mix the yolks with milk, flour, salt and pepper.

Whisk the whites until stiff using a hand mixer or a stand mixer. Fold the whites in the yolks.

Heat a skillet with oil over medium heat, pour in the batter. Put the skillet in the oven. Bake omelette for 15-20 minutes. Do not open the oven, the souffléing will stop.

Fry up the bacon, and wash the chives.

Serve the omelette with a piece of rye bread.

The Danish version:

Æggekage

Ingredienser:

• 6 æg
• 1½ spsk mælk (½ spsk pr. 2 æg)
• 6 tsp hvedemel 
• salt & peber
• olivenolie
• bacon
• purløg

Æggeblommerne piskes sammen med mel, mælk salt og peber.

Hviderne piskes stive og vendes i æggemassen.  Kom massen på en opvarmet stegepande med lidt olie på. Kom stegepanden i ovnen, og bag æggekage i 15-20 minutter ved 200℃. 

Steg baconen og vask purløg. 

Server æggekagen med et stykke godt rugbrød og en kold øl.