I love one with
boiled potatoes
fresh dill
hardboiled eggs
salmon or char
a sauce of mayonnaise mixed with honey mustard
Basically, lay the potatoes, fish, snippets of dill, and the chopped egg into a foil packet. Seal well and bake for 15 or 20 minutes. Top with sauce.
There’s also a creamed fish with potatoes that’s very filling. Just a basic firm white fish cooked in a cream sauce with potatoes, like a thick soup.
Which is what I just don’t get about it. I mean, most weird things, I can see that the first person who tried it did so because he or she was extremely hungry and had run out of more obvious things to eat. Even something extremely weird like lutefisk, I can imagine an unfortunate combination of an accident and a desperate shortage of food. But here we have something that will make you violently ill if not kill you unless you leave it lying around for a very long time. Who figured that one out?
“Dammit, I’m starving.”
“So am I, and the last five days we haven’t caught a single fish. I’m thinking about eating some of that shark that washed up on the beach in the spring.”
“Dude. Leifur tried some of that and he was puking for hours.”
“Yeah, but that was almost two months ago. Maybe it’s better now!” :dubious:
Where does one get caustic soda and dried fish to make lutefisk? I’ve always wanted to try it.
caustic soda = lye, and you can usually buy dried cod in the grocery near the fish. You might be able to buy it online.
Soak the dried fish in a solution of lye and water then spend several weeks soaking the lye out with many changes of water/
Cant you just buy ready to eat lutefisk?
I went to Pike Place Market yesterday to pick up some pickled herring from Pike Place Fish Market. (I picked up some frozen Scottish kippers, too. Kippers and scrambled eggs this weekend!) There’s a Swedish bakery stall in the Market, so I stopped there for an afternoon snack. The woman there gave me a card for the Swedish Cultural Center. Turns out they have Friday Kafé (.pdf). I’m definitely going to have to check that out. I like Smörgås, and Swedish meatballs too. Guess I’ll have to go more than once.
mmmmmm. Lye. Healthy healthy lye.
Yes, but where do I get food grade lye? I might be able to buy ready made lutefisk somewhere, but I like to make things myself. I’m not certain that something like lutefisk would be sold around here anyway.
Poking around, I see recipes for boiled cod. Sounds kind of bland, though there are also recipes for a sauce made from the cooking water and roux. Any opinions?
Agree with my Swedish friend. Lutfisk in itself really doesn’t taste anything. However, with salt, pepper and white sauce it is good. I eat it every christmas, my mom still makes it out of habit, though few eat it because there’s pickled herring and gravlax too as first dish, but I like it.
Strömmingsflundra - literally “herring flounder” is a personal favourite of mine.
Basically take gutted and cleaned herring, spread a filling of your choice on the meat side (for example dill, mustard or caviar spread - I have no idea if that’s sold beyond Sweden though! Get it if you can. Kalles Kaviar.). Smack the herring together two by two, like sandwiches. Dip in an egg and then breadcrumbs. Fry for a couple of minutes on each side.
Utterly delicious with boiled or mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam (yes, jam. On fish. It’s awesome.). And some melted butter on top of the herring, if one is so inclined.
Argh. Now I have to get me some fresh herring.
Here’s another one! **Jansson’s temptation **(Janssons frestelse). It’s a common dish at Midsummer, Christmas and Easter dinners. I don’t care for it myself (not an anchovy fan), but everyone else seems to love it. So I dug a recipe up for you. 
The recipe is for 4 people:
8-10 potatoes
2 onions
20 brisling anchovy fillets
1 1/4 cups of whipped cream
1 tablespoon dried bread crumbs
1 tablespoon butter or margerine
Peel the potatoes and onions. Coarsely shred the potatoes. Slice or chop the onions and sauté them in a little butter or margerine for 5 minutes. Alternate layers of potatoes, onion and anchovies in a lightly greased baking dish. The top and bottom layers should consist of potatoes. Pour half the cream and 2-3 tablespoons of anchovy juice over the casserole. Dot with butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake in oven at 435 F for 45 minutes. Baste the outer edges of the casserole with the remaining cream towards the end.
I may return with a recipe of my mother’s butter herring.
Those sound good, Walpurgis! (I am an anchovie fan.)
I’m impressed that no one has yet come in to offer a recipe for Swedish Fish! 
I humbly submit Cream of Salmon Soup (Lohikeitto). This recipe is missing the traditional carrot & celery slices. Add them in at your preference.
That looks fantastic, NoLAFIN. How much carrot and celery?
I just did some clicking around Wikipedia and came to a Norwegian dish that is supposed to be like surströmming: Rakfisk.
One beautiful quote from that page:
Alright, here’s the buttered herring - smörsill! You’ll have noticed by now that a lot of these recipes are about applying enormous amounts of butter to fish. This one’s the most extreme one I’ve experienced. I can’t find a recipe on the net, so I’ll trust to my mother’s. She kind of shoots from the hip. You’ll need:
Some salted herring
A couple of onions
Hard-boiled eggs
About 100-150 grams of butter
Take some salted herring filets and soak them in lots of water - overnight if they’re small, 24 hours if they’re of the larger variety. Put the fishies in a baking dish, a pie dish, or similar. It shouldn’t be too big, because of what happens at the end. Dice onions and eggs and sprinkle over the fish (or arrange around it, depending on taste). Melt the butter to the point of simmering. Pour it on the fish!
The filets will now be sort of almost-cooked by the hot butter. Together with the crispy raw onions and the buttery eggs, it’s a delicious sensation. And probably an acquired taste. I love it.
Re-reading the OP, I saw that you don’t feel like soaking stuff overnight. Just… save the smörsill for that weekend when you wake up thinking “Wow! I’d really like to soak some herring today!”.
I probably shouldn’t tell you how many times I’ve jumped out of bed, shouting that enthusiastically to the empty house!
My roomie adores this, but I can’t stand it [no clue why … anchovies always taste like they are rotting to me, no matter how tiny the proportion they are, i hate caesar salads, worchestershire sauce, fish paste, insert vomit smiley here…]but it seems to be very popular when she makes it for mrAru to take in to pot lucks where he works.
My favoritest Danish dish: Fried eels with creamed potatoes.
And yes, Scandinavian food is extremely fattening, too much butter and cream on everything. And bacon. Dangerous to this lactose intolerant. Luckily I only do this one month a year.