Scandilous

After a successful trip to sunny Spain last week, we thought we’d try somewhere a bit overcast and chillier this week, to reflect the weather at home.

Like last week, I’m using a couple of cookbooks to get some ideas from.

‘The Scandinavian Cookbook’ is a bit lightweight, but there appear to be some nice things to eat in it. ‘The Nordic Cookbook’ is a completely different beast.

The week started a bit later than anticipated, but we soon got into it.

First up was a Salmon burger recipe from The Scandinavian Cookbook, served with new potatoes with fresh garden herbs and a warm salad of shredded spring cabbage and peas dressed with a honey and lemon vinaigrette.

These northern folk seem to like their cakes and sweet breads, so obviously we had to try some of those too. Below is Brunsviger, an enriched dough bread-cake with brown sugar and butter on top.

The next evening, the recipe was for reindeer steaks with anise and black pepper but, naturally, I didn’t have any reindeer so it was lamb instead. Served with a potato gratin and some broccoli it was a good substitute.

On to the next cake. This time it was something recommended by a friend. Thanks for the tip-off Theo.

This is Skoleboller. A custardy bun, even I enjoyed.

Time to revisit fish next. Smoked haddock cakes served with a herb remoulade, a barley salad and some potatoes. Here are some pictures to make you say yum.

Back to the cakes. This one, kvæfjordkake, was voted as Norways national cake ( it even has another name – Verdens Beste – which means world’s best cake. A bold claim indeed. ) Sponge, cream, custard and meringue, cut in two and put one on top of the other. Nice. Another one from Theo.

Finally, a quick note of some of the things we decided not to try, perhaps you can work out why.