Red Cabbage Salad - Rødkålssalat

Red Cabbage Salad - Rødkålssalat

December 19. - Today I'm trying to get a healthier spin on the christmas dinner.

A couple years ago I wanted to bring something new to the christmas dinner. I made a salad with the red cabbage, oranges, grapes and walnuts, and it was so yummy. The salad brought a nice crunch to the otherwise soft christmas dinner. I love this salad so much I could eat it with any kind of meat. But it is simply perfect with the Danish meatloaf.

Ingredients

Salad

• ½ medium red cabbage
• 1 handful walnuts
• 3 oranges
• 2 handful green grapes

Dressing

• 1 orange
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (blood orange)
• 2 teaspoons honey
• salt and pepper

Directions

Remove outer leaves of cabbage, and cut cabbage into quarters and remove the white core. Thinly slice the cabbage across the quarters width-wise. To get uniform slices I use a mandolin.

Fillet the oranges with a sharp knife. Cut the top and bottom off the orange. Set your knife where the white meets the flesh and start cutting downward in a curved motion following the shape of the orange. Keep doing this until you have peeled the oranges. Carefully cut the filets out. I do this over the cabbage, so I get all the juices into the salad. Wash and cut the grapes in half.

Mix the dressing.

Mix the ingredients in a bowl and sprinkle the walnuts on top. Pour the dressing over and serve.

Slow-roasted Duck

Slow-roasted Duck

December 18. - I have to take a break from all the sweets. Who would like a piece of a roasted duck?

Duck is traditionally served at the christmas dinner in Denmark. Actually 75% of danes eat duck at christmas. Back in the days people ate goose, and it was roasted in the large ovens in the bakeries, because peoples own oven was too small. Slowly people gravitated towards the duck, because of its size and prize. Farmers wanted to get the good money from the geese they raised, and would eat the cheaper duck themselves.

A Danish-style roasted duck is filled with prunes and apple slices, to keep the duck breast moist. I like to add some slices of oranges and some christmasy spices for extra flavor.

The duck in the picture was a very young bird, maybe only about 5-7 weeks old. So it's a very small bird, with not to much meat on its bones. These ducks are OK if you are making Peking Duck, but is not the best for a danish-style duck. Normally I like an older bird, around 10-12 weeks old. These birds have much more meat. The small bird cost me about $22, and would serve 3 people, while the older one cost $36 and can serve about 6 people. I buy my ducks from Grimaudfarms.com in Stockton, California. I’ve have been very pleased with the birds I have gotten from that place.

This is my take on the danish-style roasted duck.

Ingredients:

• 1 duck (7-8 pounds)
• 2 oranges
• 2 apples
• 2 handful of pitted prunes
• A handful salt and some pepper
• 1 star anise
• 3 whole allspice
• 5 whole cloves
• 1 stick of cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 265℉ (130℃).

Chop the oranges and apples in the size of the prunes. Mix star anise, allspice, cloves and the broken cinnamon stick with apples, oranges and prunes. Have the salt in a clean cup.

Take neck and giblets out of the duck. Make sure that all feather sacks are out of the duck, you don't want a hard part of the feather in the crispy skin.

Pad the duck dry with some kitchen towel. Salt the duck inside, and fill it with the fruit mixture. Close the opening with a  trussing needle. 

Truss the duck by placing the duck on a tray with the legs towards you. Tuck the wing tips under the duck. Cut a piece of cooking twine about 3 feet (1 meter), and center it on top of the neck end of the breast. Lift the neck end of the duck and pull the twine down around the wings and under the duck, then bring the ends up over the breast, towards you, and knot the twine, pulling it tight to plump the breast. Bring the ends of the twine around the ends of the drumsticks and straight up. Tie as before to pull the drumsticks together and form a compact bird; tie again to secure knot."

Well, I did it my way, and tried my best to get the compact duck. Sometimes I just pull the wing onto the back of the duck, and use a cooking rubber band to tie the legs together.

Salt the duck with a lot of salt. 

Put the duck in the oven, breast side down, and cook it like this for 3-3½ hours. Have a pan under the duck, and put the giblets, neck and water in it. This water/drippings will be the base for the sauce. 

After 3½ hours turn the duck breast side up, and roast it for another 1½-2 hours until the temperature in the duck reaches 158℉ (70℃). If the skin isn't crispy, give the bird a few minutes under the boiler, be careful not to burn the duck.

Take the duck out and let it rest. Pour the drippings from the pan through a strainer into a saucepan. Skim the fat from the surface. I use a fat separator, which makes this process a breeze. Save the fat in the refrigerator or the freezer. Duck fat is a flavorful fat, and is perfect to roast potatoes in.

Add some cream, blue cheese and red currant jelly to the drippings and thicken the sauce, just like for the Danish pork roast.

Remove the twine and carve the duck, and serve with pickled red cabbage and Danish caramelized potatoes.

Oat "truffles" with Liquorice

Oat "truffles" with Liquorice

December 17. - You can never have to many sweet treats.  

Making the traditional havregrynskugler aka Oat "truffles," I knew, I had to make some with liquorice. I'm getting addicted to liquorice, I guess, I could be addicted to worse things. 

I added almonds to  give the truffles more crunch.

Ingredients:

• 125 g oat
• 50 g almonds, chopped
• 75 g butter
• 50 g sugar
• 10 g unsweetened cocoa (I use Valrhona)
• 1 tablespoons salty liquorice syrup

Topping

• white chocolate (I use Valrhona)
• raw liquorice powder

Directions:

Chop the almonds. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment mix butter, oats, sugar, cocoa, syrup and almonds until you have a uniform texture. Add more syrup if needed.

Form small bite-size ball of the dough in your hands, Cool the balls.

Temper the white chocolate, and dip the balls in. Sprinkle with raw liquorice powder on top, before the chocolate is dried. Store the truffles in an airtight tin in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!

The Danish version:

Havregrynskugler med lakrids

Ingredienser: 

• 125 g havregryn
• 50 g hacked mandler
• 75 g smør
• 50 g sukkerr
• 10 g kakao, uden sukker (Jeg brugte Valrhona)
• 1 spsk salt lakrids sirup fra Bülow salty liquorice syrup

Topping

• hvid chokolade (Jeg brugte Valrhona)
• Rå lakridspulver fra Bülow raw liquorice powder 

Fremgangsmåde:

Hak mandlerne. Rør smør, sukker, havregryn, kakao, sirup  og mandlerne sammen til en ensartet masse. Tilsæt mere sirup, hvis du vil have mere lakridssmag.

Rul små mundrette kugler med hænderne. Temperer den hvide chokolade og dyp kuglerne heri. Drys lidt lakridspulver på toppen, før chokoladen tørrer.

Opbevar havregrynskuglerne i en lufttæt beholder i køleskabet.

Velbekomme.

Havregrynskugler - Oat "Truffles"

Havregrynskugler - Oat "Truffles"

December 16th the last full week before christmas. I'm busy making the last treats for christmas. In most of my adult live I haven’t made havregrynskugler, but tasting the ones my friend made, at a christmas party the other day, I had to make them this year. 

Havregrynskugler means oat balls and is an easy to make, no-bake treat, you mostly have around christmas time. In my family, havregrynskugler was a treat me and my brother would make together with my dad, to get us out of my moms hair, while she was preparing the christmas dinner. I think there was another reason why they were made on december 24th. If we had made them any earlier, the havregrynskugler would properly have been eaten. 

Just because havregrynskugler contains oat, doesn't mean they are healthy. They contain a lot of butter, that makes them melt in your mouth, just like a real truffle.

Ingredients:

• 160 g oats
• 75 g butter, salted and room temperature
• 100 g sugar
• 20 g unsweetened cocoa ( I use Valrhona)
• 50 ml espresso, cold
• Rum extract

sprinkles:

• shredded coconut

Directions:

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment mix butter, oats, sugar, cocoa, coffee and extract until you have a uniform texture. Taste, and add more extract if needed.

Form small bite-size ball of the dough in your hands, and roll them in shredded coconut. Store the havregrynskugler in an airtight tin in the refrigerator.

A big thanks to Vintage-kompagniet for the beautiful Dannebrog ornament.

Danish Pork Roast - Flæskesteg

Danish Pork Roast

December 14th. Do you know, what you are having for your christmas dinner?

If you look into the homes of the danes, at their christmas dinner, you won't see many variations in the menu. You will see goose, duck and pork roast with crackling skin (flæskesteg) for the most part. This is petty much the same a hundred years ago. Danes has stuck to their traditions even though some have started eating turkey instead. The pork roast is the youngest of the christmas proteins, not counting the turkey. It became more and more popular after people got wood-fired stoves in the kitchens. Making the pork roast tradition about 120  years old.

The thing that sets the Danish pork roast apart is the crackling skin, which is so yummy. You can't get the pork roast with skin on in most stores, but I found it at my favorite butcher shop Dittmers Goumet Meats and Wurst-haus in Los Altos, CA. But you might find it at german or mexican meat shops. 

I you haven't had Danish pork roast you should give it a chance, it's a yummy way to eat pork.

Ingredients:

Roast:

• 4-7 pound Pork roast with the skin on*

• 30-40 g butter

• a handful coarse salt

• 10-14 whole black peppers

• 6-8 bay leaves

Sauce base:

• 1 teaspoon beef base (I use the one from Better than Bouillon)

• 1 onion (cut into 8 pieces)

• 1 teaspoon rosemary

• 1 teaspoon thyme

• ½ pint Water

Sauce:

• ¼ pint heavy whipping cream

• 1 tablespoon blue cheese

• 1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly (Bonne Maman)

• salt & pepper

• gravy browning or the the danish kulør**

Directions:

Score the skin for every 5 - 7 mm. Be careful not to cut into the meat, this causes the skin to be soft. You want to have crackling skin when the roast is done.

Rub the skin with butter and salt. Make sure to get in all the cuts in the skin. This helps to get the skin crispy. Put the bay leaves and peppercorns in the cuts spread them evenly on the roast.

The raw roast ready for the grill or oven.

Curl up some tinfoil, an put it under the roast, so the roast won't tilt to one side. You want to have the top to be horizontally. Put the roast on a rack over a pan. Put herbs, onions, water and bouillon in the pan under the roast.

Roast the pork at 400℉ (200℃) for 1,5 - 2 hours. The temperature in the center has to be 167℉ before the roast is ready. Make sure that there always  water in the pan. You have to use it for the gravy/sauce. 

Just before the center temperature is 167℉, pour the dripping from the pan into a saucepan through a strainer, and boil the drippings for about 5 minutes. If the crackling are soft, let the roast stay in the oven. Set the oven at 527℉, or start the boiler. Keep an eye on the roast. the skin should bubble up and become crispy, be careful not to burn it.

Separate the fat from the drippings, don't use the fat (the fat is good on rye bread instead of butter, when eating herring). Add cream, blue cheese, jam and kulør (coloring). Add salt if needed. Thicken the sauce with corn starch. (cold water and corn starch)

Cut pork in thin slices and serve with cooked white potatoes, caramelized small potatoes, pickled red cabbage, pickled cucumber and the gravy.

* You can get the Danish pork roast at Dittmer’s Gourmet Meats & Wurst-haus in Los Altos, Ca. But you might get at a German or Mexican butcher near you.

** You can get Kulør here.