I love eatin’ the sea-kittens, but my preparations are somewhat limited. (Fish’n’chips, teriyaki salmon, salmon with white sauce, baked salmon, Mediterranean-style(ish) tilapia, fish tacos, and tuna sandwiches are about it.) I like pickled herring, but I’d rather buy it than make it.
I also like Scandinavian food, such as I’ve had. So how about some recipes for Scandinavian fish dishes? I’m not looking for anything fussy, or that takes preparation ahead of time. (i.e., I don’t want to be soaking salted fish the day before. Also, from what I’ve heard there’s an even chance I won’t like lutefisk.)
When I was a kid I went to a wedding in the boonies of northern Minnesota. Very Scandahoovian on both sides of the families. The bride’s mom served fish cakes made of pike caught by the bride’s dad in the lake thier house was on. Dayum! They were good! So good I remember them nearly twenty years later. Wish I had the recipe. Sorry I wasn’t any help.
You’ve had pickled herring, which of course can found in great many variations here. We also have a lot of salmon variations, not just baked.
There is especially spiced and prepared raw salmon (is this what americans call lox?). This is often served with fresh, boiled potatoes (whole, not mashed), boiled egg, dill and a complementary sauce, hovmästarsås.
Gravlax. I freakin’ love that stuff. This recipe doesn’t meet the OP’s specs but I’m throwing it out there anyhow for the mustard part if nothing else.
Most of the Scandinavian fish recipes I know of are baked rather than sauteed or fried; the big difference is the sauces, and mustard-based sauces are pretty common.
A good potato side you might want to try with any fish dishes you decide on is hasselback potatoes - recipes are easily google-able.
As for lutefisk…well. I’m happy my great-grandmother left her recipe for that shit back in the Old Country, where it belongs.
Continuing on the gravlax route, there’s a variation known as icehouse salmon, where the raw fish is brined rather than prepared dry. Right now, the ongoing trend is to do creative things with the rub/brine instead of the basic salt-sugar-pepper-dill combination. Crushed juniper berries and a dash of gin is worth trying, for example, or five spice powder, crushed cranberries, lemon zest, fresh ginger, or a dash of hickory smoke.
Another Scandinavian home cooking recipe for gravlax or cold smoked salmon is salmon pudding (googling finds several recipes in English), which is worth trying. But the thing is that the best Scandinavian fish recipes are prepared with the local fish, and I’m not that sure which of our species are available in the US. The aforementioned pike is great in fish cakes or terrines (I’ll dig out my favorite recipe for pike terrine, if you can wait until tomorrow.)
Take dried fish [cod is almost ubiquitous in new england and many areas of the country] and stale rye bread, break both of them into pieces. Put the cod into warm water a few hours before preparing the soup to rehydrate. When it is time to make the soup, press the excess water out of the dried fish, and add the fish and bread to a pot with enough ale to cover. Simmer until the bread dissolves and the fish is rehydrated and cooked through.
Not sure if there is a real recipe online, just have seen it made enough times to know how to make it [first hubby was norwegian-english and it was a comfort food :eek:]
I’m always amused when everyone latches on to Lutfisk. Yeah, it’s pretty grim but frankly that’s just because it is a tasteless blob. It isn’t even the worst Scandi fish dish.
I mean come on. Get serious and go on about Surströmming.
The Swedish foreign exchange student in high school called Surströmming ‘raw rotten fish’. I haven’t been to Sweden in a very, very long time; and I didn’t try it then. When and if I go back I might give it a go.
Re: Gravlax. I do like gravlax. I remember seeing an episode of Good Eats that showed how to make it, and the recipe that was posted seems easy enough. We have excellent salmon up here, so I may try to make it. My local market carries those big rounds of knäckebröd, which is handy.
If anyone has any Scandinavian cooked fish recipes (other than lutefisk), pleas post them!
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In German, nouns are capitalised. Is this so in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian?
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Surströmming is a remainder from Sweden before nation-wide industrialization. Personally, I don’t see much reason to eat it besides curiosity* and tradition, since pickled herring is so much better.
The smell is legendary. :o
No. In fact, I believe that was a conscious move to seperate Scandinavian languages from the German influence (which has been very strong).
OK, I’m definitely hiking down to Pike Place Market at lunchtime. I must have pickled herring now.
I’ll have to see if we have dried cod here. I’ve seen salted herring, but I haven’t noticed cod. (Incidentally, there’s a large Norwegian community up here.)
FWIW, my freezer currently contains some cod, some salmon, and some tilapia.
People say the Danes are a bit mad because they like pickled herring.
“Aw, come on!” the Danes protest. “It’s not like we eat lutefisk, like those mad Norwegians!”
“Hey!” the Norwegians cry. “The Swedes eat lutefisk, too, you know! And surströmming, too, for god’s sake.”
“Well, maybe we eat surströmming,” the Swedes say, “but unlike the Icelanders, we’re not crazy enough to eat hákarl!”
And the Icelanders say, “…actually, if you have a little brennivín first, it really isn’t all that bad.”
Fermented shark, apparently the meat is toxic when it’s fresh so they bury it in the ground for 6-12 weeks , then let it dry for a few months before eating it.
Gordon Ramsay tries it, with a bucket ready, around 2 minutes into this clip.
