My wife often talks fondly of the Lefse her mother used to make.
I wanted to surprise her by making some next week, when I’ll have several hours at home alone before she gets home from work.
However!
My research keeps coming up with special tools, such as a Potato Ricer, and a Lefse griddle.
So what I’m wondering is, is it possible to make this stuff with the everyday kitchen stuff I may have? If so, do any of you have a recipe/method to share?
Thanks again, o Teemings Millions, for your assistance.
If I can pull this off, my wife will think I’m the Bestest Husband EvAR!
I saw those on the Food network. I’m thinking a ricer could be circumvented… but the griddle, there’s really no substitute. 'Cept maybe a very large, round, spherical rock.
IMVHO, there’s tateys and there’s sugar… and ne’er the twain shall meet!
Um…the Lefse is an old recipe, from well before fancy tools. Just make them flat!
My old recipe-book references no tools whatsoever exept a “bread-iron”, which as far as I know is a flat metal surface for roasting (not really baking). Any flat iron surface would do.
However, there are several variants in the book, and I haven’t looked at them all. Could you post the recipes you are looking at, or descripe the actual memories your wife has of her mom’s lefse? The word is more generic than you might think, very few of the recipes even feature potatoes as an ingredient. What exactly is your wifes “lefse”? The potato-containing recipe I am looking at is from North Norway, would that be right?
And if all else fails, try these http://www.nordichouse.com/detail.aspx?ID=65
Theire not half bad, really. Just don’t use too much water.
And thats a really sweet thing to do. Your wife is lucky.
*Disclaimer: I’m from one of the heathen Southwest Norwegian farm clans who make flour lefse instead of potato lefse, so bear in mind anything I say about lefse is automatically considered heresy by most.
Your griddle surrogate will need to be very flat and smooth, needs good temperature control and the ability to get very hot. I have no opinion on the potato ricer (see disclaimer), but I’m not sure how well the whole process will work with a standard rolling pin instead of a knobby lefse rolling pin. Worth a try, though.
My advice with any experimentation is give yourself plenty of extra time to figure out how to adapt the tools at hand to the recipe. And good on you for making the attempt!
I’m not sure, but I don’t think my parents use a ricer, they just use leftover mashed potatoes. Just make sure it doesn’t have lumps. And you don’t need the round lefse griddle, any non-stick electric fry pan will work (if you have an electric griddle, that’s better). I wouldn’t try making them with a griddle on the stove, maintaining the proper temperature could be tricky.
In my family we make smaller lefse than they show in the above link. Ours are about 6" round. Making them smaller will be easier to deal with. Without a lefse stick turning a 10" lefse could be problematic. Use a table knife to turn.
The key to making good lefse is to make sure they are rolled really thin. The thickness should be somewhere between a tortilla and a crepe. If you have one of those socks that goes over the rolling pin use it. The sock will help keep the potato from sticking without adding more flour which will make the lefse tough.
Also keep an eye on them while they’re cooking. Until you get the hang of it I recommend cooking them one at a time. It won’t take long, just 20-30 seconds per side.
Good luck! I’m sure you’re wife will appreciate the effort. She’s a lucky woman.
I refuse to believe there’s any such thing! How does one make lefse from flour?
I haven’t had lefse in about a billion years. My Ummie (Ami) used to make it, but she’s been dead since I was 9. Hardly anyone in the family speaks Icelandic anymore, and only my mom and I make Venar Terta. Sigh.
My family’s Norwegian on my mom’s side, and I have vague memories of eating lefse rolled up with mashed potatoes, butter and lutefisk inside, like a kind of Nordic burrito. I remember liking it very much, and have always been puzzled by folks proclaiming disgust over lutefisk. Of course, I might be remembering wrong, and it might have been just plain cooked fresh cod or something. I was only 8 or 9 or so at the time.
I’d like to try it again. I should track down a local “Sons of Norway” lodge and see about some kind of dinner.
Hey, now! Dem’s fightin’ words. (Although I do put butter and sugar on it. Either that or boiled potatoes and cod.)
I’ll have to see if I can dig up my recipe at home tonight. It should be in the box with my griddle. The interesting thing about flour lefse is that it becomes cracker-like after it cools, and will keep for remarkable periods of time. You soak it between damp towels/paper towels about a half hour before you eat it in order to make it moist and pliable. It tastes far better than it sounds.
In my family it’s customary to play “tease the Swede” (my brother-in-law and my husband, even though he claims to be just as Norwegian as I am) at the table when they put sugar on their lefse. When I was a kid there was never even sugar on the table so it never crossed our minds to put it on our lefse. We always eat it just with butter. Grandma’s gone soft in her old age (88) though and puts sugar on the table for her grandsons-in-law.
The flour lefse recipe sounds interesting. Potato lefse is usually pretty soft, at least soft enough to roll.
Flour lefse rolls nicely after it’s been soaked. It’s much thinner than potato lefse. My recipe has been purged of cryptic comments that were introduced over the generations, fortunately. ("‘Do not smear’? What the heck does that mean?" – “Don’t worry about it, you don’t have to do it. Smearing is from your grandmother’s recipe.”)
Here in Minnesota I seem to be the only Norskie who makes flour lefse. It was much more common in central Iowa, though, where my parents grew up.
Jesus God, flour lefse? That’s got to be some foreign Swedish thing right there. IMHNO (In my honest Norske opinion), if it’s not potato, it’s not lefse. Go back to Stockholm!
My Grandma was the family lefse maker, and she did use a potato ricer. I wouldn’t let that set you back – they’re like 10 bucks at Wally World or Tarzhay. The ricer is how you get a smooth consistency out of the potatoes, so you don’t get lumpy lefse or bite into bits of potato. It’s hard to get a batter-like consistency out of a potato product without running it through something like a ricer. But do you have to have a ricer? Nah. Just mix it as smooth as you can. You definitely don’t need a lefse griddle. My Gram just cooked them up on a cast-iron griddle pan, though other posters are right – you have to watch the temp carefully so you might be better of with an electric griddle.
Mmmm, lefse. Good with a bit of jam/jelly on it as well!
And yea, like others have said, you don’t need fancy stuff to make it. Especially if you’re like me and don’t care how it looks: you’re going to eat it, not enter it in a beauty pageant.
Which reminds me, need to try my hand at making some. The store-bought stuff my parents brought back for me is just way too salty for my tastes.
Thank you all for the advice! I think I’ll be heading to Wally world this weekend, to see if I can dig up a flat griddle (I’ve got an electice griddle, but it’s got sides. Darn it) and they might even have “pastry cloth”.
Thank you all for the advice, and next week, I’ll be pulling this up and giving progress reports.
I’m not sure what the actual heritiage there is, Sweded or Norweigan… one of those. I think. But she certianly remembers it being Potato based.
If you don’t have a potato ricer, you can just send your potatoes through a collander or a mesh sieve. Use a big spoon to push them through. That’s what I do when I make potato bread.
But what do I know? I only pretend to be Norwegian so I can eat the rumagrit.
How does one make lefse from flour?
