Pickled beets - syltede rødbeder

Pickled Beets

Pickled beets is one of the most common toppings for an open faced sandwich with liver pate. In my home we had them with meatballs or medisterpølse at dinner. 

My parents grew beets in their large vegetables garden. My mom made a large batch of pickled beets enough for the whole year. My moms pickled beets were the best, they were worth the work for sure. 

When I lived in Denmark, I didn't pickle my own beets, I just bought them at the store. But moving here I wanted to have the taste of the childhood pickled beets. This is how I do.

Ingredients

Beets.

• 1 kg beets, scrubbed clean, but not peeled
• salt (1 tablespoon pr liter water)

Pickling liquid:

• 1 liter vinegar
• 450 g sugar
• 8 whole cloves
• 2-3 slices horseradish  

Direction: 

Wash the beets and trim the stems, leaving about 1/4 inch attached. Don't cut into the beets, they will lose a lot of the juices.  

Bring the water to a boil in a large pot. Add salt and the beets and cook until just tender, about 45-60 minutes depending on the size of the beets. 

Drain the beets and rinse with cold water and let the beets cool in the cold warter.

Bring vinegar to a boil and add sugar and cloves. Cut of the top and bottom of the beets, and rub the skin of, in a paper towel. Slice the beets to the desired thickness, fill the jars with the sliced beets, and pour in vinegar to cover the beets. Add 1-2 slices horseradish and close lids and allow to cool completely.

The pickled beets are ready to eat after at least 2 weeks, but they will keep for months unopened. 

You can add a preservative like Atamon  (sodium benzoate) to increase the shelf life. 

 

Danish cucumber salad

Danish Cucumber Salad

Danish cucumber salad is a quick and easy pickled sliced cucumber. You can make it just before you serve it, but it gets better if you let it sit for at least 30 minutes. It's sweet, crunchy and tart. It's perfect side for sandwiches or to traditional danish meat dishes.  

My mom always made cucumber salad, when we had a pot roasted whole chicken for dinner. But it's also good on hotdogs you get at the danish hotdog stands.

You can make cucumber salad with or without adding onions. I make it without because this is how my mom made it. I use english cucumber for this salad, because it's the danish way. The english cucumber has a thin crisp skin and small seeds. If you use another kind of cucumber, peel it before slicing. 

Ingredients: 

• 1 english cucumber
• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 cup of distilled white vinegar.
• 5-6 tablespoons sugar
• salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

Mix the vinegar, water, sugar, salt and pepper in a bowl. Keep mixing until the sugar is dissolved. Slice cucumber very thin slices on a mandolin. Squeeze the excess water out of the cucumbers slices and put them into the vinegar. Place a plate over the cucumbers and sit something heavy on top of the plate, to submerge all the cucumber slices in the vinegar. 

Place in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes to marinade before serving. Can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Enjoy!

The Danish version: 

Agurksalat

Ingredienser:

• 1 agurk
• 1 dl varm vand 
• 1 dl eddike
• 5-6 spsk sukker
• salt & peber

Bland eddike, vand, sukker, salt og peber i en skål. Rør indtil sukkeret er helt opløst. Skær agurken meget tynde skiver på et mandolinjern. Pres overskydende vand ud af agurkeskiverne og kom dem ned i eddiken. Placer en tallerken ovenpå agurkerne og sæt noget tungt oven på tallerkenen for at holde agurkeskiverne dækket  af eddikre.

Lad salaten trække i mindst 30 minutter før servering. Kan opbevares i køleskabet i op til 1 uge.

Oven-roasted potatoes

Oven-roasted Potatoes.

Potatoes has been a big part of danish dinners for hundreds of years. Potatoes was a cheap and very filing food. But during the last couple of decades the starchy component of the danes dinner been switched to more and more rise and pasta. But the potato is a healthier choice. Both pasta and rice contains twice as much starch as potatoes, and having whole wheat pasta and brown rice doesn't help.

We had potatoes on the menu 5-6 times a week at home. The potatoes were peeled, boiled and served with a brown gravy and some kind of meat.  It was pretty boring. So the first 6 month of moving out, I didn't have potatoes - well I didn't make them my self. 

These oven-roasted potatoes is easy to make, they are tasty and colorful. You can use any vegetables you like, the method works for any root vegetables.  

Serves 3-4. 

Ingredients: 

• 8-10 Potatoes, small firm like fingerlings
• 2 onions
• 6-8 garlic cloves
• 8-10 sweet peppers
• 2-4 tablespoons pitted olives
• 1 handful cherry tomatoes
• canola oil
• salt
• piment d'Espelette 
• 3 sprigs rosemary

Direction: 

Vegetables ready for the BBQ.

Preheat the oven (or BBQ) to 400°F.
Wash potatoes, peppers tomatoes and rosemary. Peel the onion and chop it into bits-size pieces. Peel garlic cloves. Add all the ingredients to a baking dish (or make a bowl out of aluminum foil) drizzle with oil and season with salt and piment d'Espelette.  

Roast for 25-40 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Serve with fish or meats.

If you are roasting the potatoes on your BBQ, use indirect heat. 

Mango/habanero salsa

Mango/habanero salsa.

Mango/habanero salsa is sweet spicy and very addictive. Normally I wouldn't use habanero in any of my dishes, but trying this salsa taught me something else. As long as you have the sweet mango and only tiny cubes of habanero it's to die for.

Ingredients:

• 1-2 Habanero, depending on the spicyness 
• 2 Mangos
• ¼ Red Onion (medium sized)
• 1 ½ - 2 inches english cucumber
• 2 tomatoes, medium
• 1 lime, large
• Cilantro
• Salt

Directions: 

The mangos should be very ripe and soft, so you can peel of the skin without using a knife. Peel mango, onion and tomatoes. Dice them all finely along with the cucumber. Mix it with chopped cilantro and the juice of the lime. Chop the habanero extremely fine (use gloves handling the habanero), and mix it with the rest. Season with salt.

Serve with chips or with tacos. 

Brussels sprouts purée

Brussels Sprouts Puree.

Brussels sprouts and me had always had a hate hate relationship. I hate hate hate them. Why?? Well They looked cute, and are actually really pretty on the stalk.

But the taste was bitter, and the way my mom served them in a white sauce was not very interesting.

One night I had them roasted with garlic and bacon, OMG it was a good, really good. What is not better with bacon? Months later one of my danish friends served this dish for me, and it was love at first bite. I didn't need any steak, just pass me some more brussels sprouts purée.

This dish was created by Claus Meyer.

Ingredients:

Purée

• 700 g brussels sprouts
• 50 g butter
• sea salt
• black pepper (freshly ground)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Dressing

• 1/2 lemon (lemon juice and zest)
• 3 tablespoons canola oil
• 1/2 teaspoon honey
• sea salt
• black pepper (freshly ground)

Salad

• 2 shallots (or some thin sliced red onions)
• 1/4 cup Italien parsley
• leaves from the brussels sprouts.

Directions

Purée

Rinse the brussels sprouts, Cut off the brown ends of the brussels sprouts and pull off any yellow outer leaves. Save some of the green outer leaves for the salad. Set them aside in cold water.

Boil a pot of salted water. Cut out the brussels sprouts into quarters and blanch for about 2 minutes until they are tender, but not overcooked.

Put the still hot brussels sprouts directly in a blender and puree them with cold butter, salt, pepper, honey and lemon juice.

Salad

Mix up the dressing.

Chop the shallots finely and chop the parsley roughly. Drain the water from the brussels sprout leaves, and wipe them dry. Mix the shallots, brussels sprout leaves, parsley with the dressing.

Serve the salad on top of the puree.

The purée can be served hot or cold with a nice steak or roast. This could be a great side for Thanksgiving.