Rødkål - Pickled Red Cabbage

Rødkål - Pickled Red Cabbage

December 12th. It's time to get ready for christmas dinner, and making red cabbage a few days early eases the stress of making the traditional Danish christmas dinner.

My mom always made her own red cabbage, but she had the recipe in her head, and it's lost forever. I like the simplicity of the dish. You only need 4 ingredients, not counting salt and pepper. The sweetness from the sugar combined with the acidity from the balsamic really works well with the red cabbage.

Rødkål is a traditional danish side for the christmas dinner, but it's also very good with medisterpølse and meatballs/frikadeller or in sandwiches.

This is my take on pickled red cabbage.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium red cabbage

• 25 g butter, salted

• 3 tablespoons brown sugar

• ¼ cup balsamic vinegar (I mixed half balsamic and half blackberry-ginger balsamic for a sweeter taste)

• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Remove outher 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.

Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the the cabbage and sear it for a couple minutes. Add the vinegar and sugar.  Simmer the cabbage for 10 - 15 minutes until cabbage is tender.

Season with salt, pepper, vinegar and sugar. Serve heated to pork roasts or roasted duck. 

The cabbage can be served cold on (open faced) sandwiches.

Elf Cookies - Nissehoveder

Elf Cookies - Nissehoveder

December 11th - Time for remembrance.

I have never seen these elf cookies aka nissehoveder (elf heads) anywhere else than in my family. The cookies were very much appreciated by my brother and me, but I know my mom hated making these, because they are a bit labor-intensive. The cookie itself is straight forward and easy, but it's a sticky mess to cut out all the eyes and mouths. The first year I made them, I even had made a nose, but that was a bad idea, a bad bad idea.

Thank you mom and dad for teaching me to make elf cookies - I miss you guys so very much.

Here is how to make my family's elf cookies.

Ingredients:

• 250 g all-purpose flour

• 200 g butter

• 100 g confectionary sugar

• 1 egg yolk

Topping:

• red and green cherries

• confectionary sugar

• water

• red food coloring

Directions:

Crumble the butter in the flour, until it looks like bread crumbs. Add the sifted confectionary sugar and the egg yolk and mix until it’s all combined.

Form dough into a rod with an inch in diameter. Press to form a top on the rod, this makes the elf hat. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Cut the green cherries into small cubes, these will be the eyes.

Cut the red cherries into quarters and slice the quarters, these will be the mouths.

Cut the logs into ¼-inch thick cookies and put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spacing about 1 inch apart. Place eyes and mouths on the cookies.

Bake until slightly golden around the edges, about 10-12 minutes at 350°F. Cool cookies on the pan on wire racks.

Icing: Mix confectionary sugar with a few drops of water and food coloring. Paint  the cookies with the red icing. Let the cookies dry on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

The Danish version:

Nissehoveder

Ingredients:

• 250 g hvedemel

• 200 g smør

• 100 g flormelis

• 1 æggeblomme

Pynt:

• røde og grønne cocktailbær

• flourmelis

• vand

• rød frugtfarve.

Directions: 

Smørret smuldres i melet. Flormelis sigtes i og æltes let i dejen sammen med æggeblommen. 

Dejen formes til en pølse på godt og vel et kosteskafts tykkelse. 

Pølsen trykkes lidt i den ene side så den kommer til at spidse, gerne meget. Pølsen lægges i køleskabet i mindst 0,5 time. Herefter skæres den i tynde skiver med en skarp kniv. 

Når kagerne er kommet på bageplanden, pyntes de med øjne, og mund (cocktailbær). 

Herefter bages de i 7-8 min ved 200ºC. 

Inden de er helt afkølede kan nissehovederne få hue på, med lidt rød glasur.

Risengrød - Danish Rice Porridge

Risengrød - Danish Rice Porridge

December 10th and it's time to feed the elfs/nisser. 

According to Danish christmas traditions, risengrød is given to the elf aka nissen.

Nissen lives  in houses and on farms, and protects the people and animals who lives there against evil and misfortune. But nissen is more than a protector, he can also play tricks on you, and then he is called drillenissen. By giving nissen its favorite food, risengrød, during the month of december, he will for the most part be at his best behavior.

Back in the days farmers would put a bowl of risengrød up in the attic at night, and the next morning the bowl would be empty. Now the farmer knew that he did his best to soothe nissen. But most likely there were no nisse, it most likely were the cats that ate the risengrød.

Nowadays it's only children who are raised to believe in nissen, as a sweet christmas tradition. Pretty much like the elf on the shelf here in the US.

Risengrød is a Danish comfort food, it's soft, sweet and easy to eat. Maybe thats why it's a favorite for many kids. A lot of parents likes this dish too, and it's very easy on your pocketbook. 

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup water

• 1 L (4¼ cups) milk

• 190 g rice (danish grødris or aborio)

• ¼ teaspoon salt

Toppings:

• butter, salted

• cinnamon sugar ( cinnamon + sugar)

Directions:

Boil the water in a saucepan. Pour in the rice and boil them for a minute. Add the milk and salt, and bring it to a slow simmer while you stir constantly. 

Let the risengrød simmer at low heat for about 30 minutes, stir occasionally. Well, every recipe calls for stirring occasionally, but I have burnt the risengrød so many times, so I stir constantly. And yes it's kinda like watching paint dry. 

Season with salt.

Serve with cinnamon sugar and a little dollop butter. I like to drink nisseøl or cherry juice with this meal. Nisseøl is a very very sweet low alcoholic beer. In Denmark we actually let children drink this beer. Yes we are living on the edge 🎅   

I don't like my risengrød to thick. I serve it as soon as the rice is tender and the milk has thickened a bit.

Mulled Wine - Gløgg

Mulled Wine - Gløgg

December 9th and time for another christmas treat. What could be good for a Monday? What about wine? Wine it is - mulled wine.

Mulled wine aka gløgg is the scandinavian version of mulled wine, and has been a christmas tradition for over a hundred years.

Back home with my parents we always had store bought gløgg and I loved it. I didn't know better. When we moved to California, I had to figure out to make my own gløgg extract. This is what I came up with after testing for a few years. 

It's a sweet spicy mix not too strong in alcohol. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Ingredients:

Extract:

• 750 ml water (3 cups)

• 4 tablespoons sugar

• 1 orange, zest and juice (add the juice after the extract has been strained)

• 1 lemon, zest

• 2 sticks of cinnamon

• 2 star anis

• 5 green cardamom capsules

• 10-12 whole cloves

• 7-10 whole allspice berries

Gløgg:

• 1 bottle red wine (Use a good red wine, it makes a better gløgg)

• extract (to taste)

• almonds, slivers

• raisins (soaked in port wine or a stronger liquor)

Directions:

Put the ingredients for the extract in a saucepan, let it simmer for about 5-10 minutes. Strain the spices and zests. Add the orange juice to the extract.

Gløgg:

Soak the raisins in port wine or a stronger liquor as snaps or cognac. 

Heat red wine and extract to 160-176℉ (70-80℃). Add the raisins and almond slivers. 

Serve in a nice mug.

Enjoy

Ebelskiver - Æbleskiver

Ebelskiver - Æbleskiver

December 8th. today my maternal grandmother would have turned 111. As long as my grandmother lived, the family would meet up at her apartment for gløgg and ebelskiver on her birthday. I loved this tradition, I loved this informal way to get together. So to celebrate my grandma Agnes, I'll share with you the recipe my mom used to make the ebelskiver for these gatherings.  

Ebelskiver is a traditional danish dessert served at christmas time. This tradition is over 200 years old.  

The word Ebelskiver (æbleskiver) means Apple slices. Ebelskiver started as slices of apples dipped in a sweet dough and fried in clarified butter, but evolved to these sphere shaped pancakes. Today ebelskiver is served with confectionary sugar and jam - best of all my moms homemade blackberry jam - yum.

Ebelskiver or Æbleskiver are plural, so no need to put a s in the end. ;0) 

Ebelskive pan

Ebelskiver is baked in a ebelskive pan like this.

This is my moms recipe.

Makes about 30 ebelskiver.

Ingredients:

• 250 g all-purpose flour

• 125 g butter (salted and melted)

• 375 ml milk (1,6 cups)

• 2,5 g salt (just under ½ teaspoon)

• 4 eggs

• ½ teaspoon cardamom

• 4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 large lemon, the zest of

Directions:

Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Whisk whites with a mixer until stiff peaks form. Set aside.

Mix milk with flour, cardamom and baking powder till there's no lumps. Add the melted butter, egg yolks, salt and lemon zest. Let the batter rest for about 5 minutes. 

Gently fold in the egg whites, do not over mix the batter, but you don't want spots of egg whites in the batter.

Turning the ebelskiver

Heat the ebelskive pan. Fill the holes about ¾.  As soon as the batter starts to bubble around the edge, turn* them halfway. When you have turned all halfway turn the ebelskiver all the way, so you end up with a perfect ball. Continue cooking, turning the ball to keep it from burning.

Serve the ebelskiver with confectionary sugar and a good quality jam.

* I use a knitting needle to turn the ebelskiver, but you can use a fork. I bought ebelskiver turning tools, but I have no idea how to work those.

The danish version:

Æbleskiver

Ingredienser:

• 250 g hvedemel

• 125 g smør (saltet og smeltet)

• 375 ml mælk

• 2,5 g salt (lige under ½ tsk)

• 4 æg

• ½ tsk kardemomme

• 4 tsk bagepulver

• 1 stor citron, reven skal af

Del æggene i hvider og blommer. Pisk hviderne stive.

Bland mælk, mel, kardemomme og bagepulver indtil der ikke er klumper i. Tilsæt det smeltede smør, æggeblommerne, salt og citronskallen. Lad dejen hvile i ca 5 minutter. Fold æggehviderne i dejen.

Varm æbleskivepanden. Bag æbleskiverne ved at fylde hulerne ca ¾ op. Når dejen bobler i kanterne vend æbleskiverne en kvart omgang, og når det er gjort med alle æbleskiverne, så vend dem hele vejen rundt, så de bliver helt runde. bliv ved med at vende æbleskiverne, så de ikke brænder på.

Server æbleskiverne med flormelis og en god marmelade.