The return of Scandinavian food, and a traditional yellow pea soup

When it comes to comfort food, one needs to look no further than Scandinavia for inspiration, with its array of root vegetables, meat stews, cured and pickled fish, and soups such as the traditional yellow pea soup. Yet despite its warm culinary traditions, Scandinavian food is much less common among restauranteurs in America than the more popular cuisines of France, Mexico, China, and the like.

Gravlax

Mazarin Torte

Even in Seattle, which boasts a rich Nordic heritage, the presence of Scandinavian-related businesses has thinned in recent years. However, the food of that region will hopefully make a comeback in 2012.

Scandinavian cuisine is projected to be one of the top ten food trends of 2012, according to The Telegraph. Plus, in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, a couple of restauranteurs are opening a restaurant called Queen of Norway this winter. Before that, the neighborhood’s Copper Gate bar declared itself “Seattle’s only surviving Scandinavian restaurant and lounge,” though one could also get coffee and a pastry at Larsen’s Danish Bakery up the street or smørrebrød (open sandwiches), lefse, and other items at the cafe inside Scandinavian Specialties, less than a mile away.

Lefse

I had the opportunity of picking up Grandma D. some years ago and bringing her to Scandinavian Specialties for lunch. I wish I remembered more about that visit, and that I had done that with her more often. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may remember reading about my regrets about not asking Grandma to share some of her stories–stories about her youth, what it was like to live in Norway during the Norwegian resistance movement in World War 2, her experience as an immigrant coming to the United States in 1956.  I’m now determined to capture whatever family memories I can, and as food is such a great connector, my mom and I are putting together a book of family recipes and stories. I have dreams of publishing a cookbook someday–a gorgeous photo-heavy book that weaves together food with the memories that surround it–but in the meantime the important thing is preserving my family’s history and recipes. What a fun project to work on with my mom!

I also brought my other grandma to Scandinavian Specialties a while back, and it was there that I learned–after all these years–that she grew up speaking Norwegian and learned English as a schoolgirl. Grandma H. lived in North Dakota at the time, and to this day has never traveled to Norway, so it surprised me that Norwegian was her first language. It’s amazing what stories are there within our loved ones’ lives, just waiting to be uncovered!

I believe it was during that visit that we had a cup of yellow pea soup, which is traditionally served on Thursdays in Sweden and Finland. Grandma H. enjoyed that soup so much that when I saw a recipe for traditional yellow pea soup in a review copy I had just received for Kitchen of Light: The New Scandinavian Cooking by Andreas Viestad, I decided to make a batch and share it with her. It’s a big deal making a traditional dish for a veteran cook who knows all about the cuisine, so when Grandma approved, I knew this recipe was one to keep around.

Traditional Yellow Pea Soup
Adapted from Kitchen of Light: The New Scandinavian Cooking

This soup, served hot with a dollop of sour cream, truly is comfort food, with its thick, porridge-like texture and hearty flavor–think split pea soup with a Scandinavian twist.

10 ounces dried yellow peas, soaked in cold water overnight and drained
2 thick slices of bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
6 cups low-sodium beef stock, plus more, if needed, to thin soup
1/3 cup finely chopped celeriac
1/4 cup fimely chopped leek (white and pale green parts)
1 small sprig fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon chopped thyme, sage, or rosemary (optional)
Pepper
Sour cream for serving

Fry the bacon in a pot until it turns golden and somewhat crispy. (The original recipe calls for frying the bacon in a tablespoon of butter, which just seems excessive. I followed the instructions, but in hindsight should have omitted the butter.) Add the chopped onion and sauté until it starts to turn golden as well. Add the yellow peas, 6 cups of beef stock, celeriac, leek, rosemary sprig and bay leaf. Bring the soup to a boil and then reduce heat, allowing it to simmer for about an hour. This step is complete when the peas are soft and starting to break apart. Give it a good stir to further dissolve the peas, and add more stock if necessary to thin the soup to your desired consistency. It should be the thickness of split pea soup. Remove the bay leaf and rosemary sprig, adding chopped herbs if desired. Season to taste with freshly ground pepper and serve with sour cream.

Serves 4.

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The search continues: Grandma D.’s lost cookie recipe

Thanks for all of your interest in helping me recreate an old cookie of Grandma D.’s. Last year I embarked on a search for a lost recipe: a traditional Norwegian cookie that my late grandmother used to make. She would bake these cookies–shaped into an untraditional parallelogram–each year before Christmas and we’d keep a tin of them wrapped tightly in the refrigerator. My mom asked Grandma for the recipe years ago, but for some reason we never got it. Not knowing the original name, I was stuck searching the entire wide world of Scandinavian butter-style cookies until a couple of you offered clues. Thanks to the tips Oda and Jo left in the comments of my initial post, I’m exploring one type of Norwegian cookie for now: sandnøtter.

Sandnøtter are made with potato flour, which gives the cookies a delicate, somewhat sandy crumb. It’s fitting, therefore, that their name translates to sand nuts. (The Italian torta sabbiosa–sandy cake–is also made with potato flour.)

Here’s a photo of my first batch of sandnøtter. As you can see, the base darkened much more rapidly than desired, perhaps due to the hot oven (410 degrees Fahrenheit) the recipe called for. The cookies also rose more than Grandma’s did, although my mom says Grandma made hers flatter than the original version called for, so we might still be on the right track.

Sandnøtter are often made with hjortetakksalt (ammonium bicarbonate, also known as hartshorn or hornsalt), but since I didn’t have any on hand I chose a recipe without it. Could that make a difference? Maybe. I’ll try to track some down.

The final essential part of my search is finding a recipe that replicates the flavor of Grandma’s cookies. These aren’t quite right, but I’ll give another sandnøtter recipe a try. I hope you’ll keep following along as I continue my search!

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From one new mom to another

First of all, there’s nothing Scandinavian about the content of this post. But if you’re a new mom or know anyone expecting a baby, perhaps you’ll still be interested in reading it. You see, being a new mom myself, I’ve put baking and cooking mostly on hold for the past couple of months while I’ve cared for and nurtured my new little boy. (Thanks to everyone who’s brought meals to us!) However, I have managed to bake two batches of something called “lactation cookies”–one batch for me, another for a dear friend who just had a baby of her own.

Lactation cookies, by their name, don’t sound very appetizing, so maybe I should rename them Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Meal-in-a-Cookie Cookies for New Moms. But that’s a mouthful to say, especially when you’re chewing your first bite of these delicious treats. They’re packed with healthy ingredients such as oats, flax, and walnuts, but they taste just as good as any unhealthy cookie I’ve ever tasted. The batter itself isn’t overly sweet, which makes it the perfect complement to the bright bursts of chocolate chips that come with every bite.

So, why are they called lactation cookies? The ingredients. Oats, flax, and brewer’s yeast are believe to be galactagogues, things that help support lactation in nursing mothers. There are other recipes for lactation cookies out there, but this one actually has a relatively high proportion of oats and flax to sugar and flour. (Check out this link to learn about how these ingredients work.)

I think what I like best about these cookies is how they’ve come to my rescue on a number of occasions. As I’ve been learning how long it can take to get out of the house these days, I often run out of time to eat a proper meal. I’ve learned that keeping a bag of these cookies in the bathroom where I get ready for my day and another in the car ensure that I’ll still manage to get something healthy to eat. (I can imagine someone out there telling me that a cookie is not a meal. I agree, but if there’s a choice between going hungry and eating a cookie that’s packed with oatmeal and flax, I’ll eat the cookie.)

As I mentioned above, my dear friend is reveling in the joys–and adapting to the changes and challenges–of being a new mom. So I baked a batch of these cookies (recipe here) and included them in a gift basket for her, along with some other edible items that from my own recent experience I knew she would find helpful:

• Protein bars – When the cookies run out, she’ll be glad she has these in her diaper bag
• A bottle of wine – She’s excited to be able to have an occasional glass of red wine again–after she nurses, of course!
• Mother’s Milk tea from Traditional Medicinals

And for her husband:

• A six-pack of beer
• Coffee – This shouldn’t require an explanation

If you’ve ever had a baby, what else would you have appreciated in an edible gift basket?

Note: I drafted this toward the end of 2011 and am just getting around to taking photos and posting it. Thankfully I’ve been learning how to juggle cooking and baking with taking care of my baby, so you’ll be seeing more posts soon!

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Last-minute food ideas for Christmas

I’m spending a little time on this quiet Friday afternoon thinking about what to make for a few special Christmas meals in the next couple of days. If you, like me, are also looking for last-minute ideas, here are a few ideas from past posts on Outside Oslo.

Bisp and Trondheim soup – guest post from The Leftover Queen

Lussekatter, pepparkakor, Christmas ham, and knäck – guest post from Anne’s Food

Norwegian butter cookies – a simple cookie that can be shaped in many ways

Sugared cranberries – to add a little sparkle to your holiday table

Also, check out Outside Oslo’s recipe page for a complete list of recipes.

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Follow Outside Oslo on Facebook

Outside Oslo is now on Facebook! I hope you’ll check it out and click “Like” to follow it. The page is in its infancy at the moment, but I’ll be using it to update you on new posts, as well as to share other interesting news, stories, and recipes from Scandinavia. Click here to check it out.

Egg noodle doop (A guest post on Suzan Colón’s bog)

Grandpa M. and me many years ago.

Some of my most treasured possessions from my relatives are their recipes. Whether they’re handwritten in Grandma H.’s spiral-bound handwritten collection, published in a church cookbook, or typed and saved on my computer, each recipe represents special times spent with loved ones throughout the years. For those of us who love food, meals conjure up memories. My mom and I are in the process of putting together a family history through recipes, so I was thrilled when author Suzan Colón, who wrote “Cherries in Winter: My Family’s Recipe for Hope in Hard Times,” gave me the opportunity to tell the story behind one of them on her blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

It was late summer 1992. Grandpa M. had just passed away. T-boned while driving through an intersection. Months in a coma. Gone.

On that September afternoon—in the church where two generations of my family had worshipped God and relatives had gotten married—we all gathered in the steel blue sanctuary to say goodbye.

When you’re ten years old, things hit you in a peculiar way. You store away the details in your memory—little things like the silly nickname you gave your grandfather and the way you used to lock him out of the house and giggle while he pretended to not see you hiding inside. You remember a seven-syllable medical term you can’t define–subdural hematoma–and the quiet helium confidence you felt as you walked up the blue carpeted stairs to give a eulogy at your grandfather’s funeral.

“What I’ll miss about Grandpa was his hot dish.”

What a strange, insensitive little girl, those who didn’t know me must have thought. But in a way that’s inexplicable to those of us who are no longer children, that was the most evocative–and, in a way, profound–honor I could give my beloved grandfather.

You can read the rest of the post and find out what made Grandpa’s hot dish–or egg noodle doop, as he called it–special at suzancolon.net. Then, if you’re willing, please share your food-related family memories in the comments below–I’d love to read them!

A chocolate orange cake for your coffeetable

“Kaffe?”

I knew exactly what the flight attendant was saying. Though I speak virtually no Norwegian, that word transcends most Western languages. Though spelling and intonation may change, coffee, in a way, is almost a universal word in the Western world.

It was something else that caught me off guard: how I was to respond. It was a word—a one-word question—so familiar, so intrinsically understood, even when spoken in a different language. Even the answer—a simple ja or no—would have been so easy for my unschooled tongue. Or so it seems.

Blonde and fresh-faced, a Nordic beauty, the woman offering me a cup of steaming coffee on the Scandinavian Airlines flight could have been my cousin. Perhaps that’s why I stumbled over my thoughts, unsure of how to answer. She was so like me—or, rather, I was so much like her—yet I had one big, shaming disadvantage.

At 26, I was a full-blooded American-born Norwegian who had never been to the fatherland, and had taken a less-than-helpful Intro to Norwegian class hoping to get a crash course in the language before visiting. The phrases I learned as a child—jeg elsker deg (I love you), du er en kjekk gutt (you are a cute boy), du er en gris (you are a pig)—weren’t going to cut it.

On that SAS flight, on a trip that took me around Greece, Turkey, and Norway, the flight attendant must have taken one look at me and identified me among many of the other blondes on the flight: a Scandinavian. What she got was a half-second-generation Norwegian with a surface-level grasp on the culture of her father and grandparents.

I fumbled for the correct response. At that point it wasn’t even a matter of whether I really wanted coffee or not. That was beside the point. Was she really offering me coffee, was it as simple as that? Would my yes or no or ja or no be an adequate and correct response?

That was 2008. Today I still don’t speak Norwegian, but I’ve come to grips with it (at least until the next time I travel to Norway). What I’ve truly latched onto is the food of Scandinavia, and how it brings back fond childhood memories as well as furthers my appreciation of my heritage.

Since we’re on the topic of coffee, I’ve learned a lot about the significance of coffee among Scandinavians through The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. I grew up witnessing a ritual of coffee in my family, but this book helped me to understand coffee’s place in the culture.

“Coffeetime makes up three of the six meals of the Scandinavian day,” Ojakangas says (page 67). “And what you eat with coffee… is a coffeebread. Coffeebreads are not served with meals, but accompany morning coffee, afternoon coffee, or evening coffee.” She goes on to describe the coffeetable that accompanies special events such as birthdays, name days, and anniversaries; the spread may include “cardamom-flavored coffeebreads, plus other special sweet yeast breads, plain as well as frosted cakes, and a variety of cookies” (67).

Though Scandinavian cuisine is generally less known than others such as French, Mexican, or Chinese, it offers no shortage of variety–from the caramel- and nut-topped Tosca Cake (one of my personal favorites) and an endless assortment of cookies to savory traditional dishes such as klüb. For today’s coffeetable, here’s a recipe for Norwegian Orange Cake.

Norwegian Orange Cake
Adapted from the Los Angeles Times

3/4 c unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
Grated zest of one orange
1/3 cup orange juice, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
1 1/3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 ounces dark chocolate (70%), finely chopped (or, if you have a 3.25 ounce bar, just go ahead and use the whole thing)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
Candied orange peel (optional), or fresh orange wedges

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour a 9-inch bundt or angel food cake pan. Using a stand mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating until incorporated before adding the next. Add the orange zest and 1/3 cup of orange juice and combine.

Sift together the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Slowly add it to the cake batter with the mixer running, beating just until incorporated, then add the chocolate and fold to combine.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. It will only fill about a third or half of the pan–that’s okay. Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pan on a cooling rack before removing from the mold.

Meanwhile, sift the powdered sugar in a bowl and whisk in the remaining 2 tablespoons of orange juice to make the icing. When the cake has cooled, drizzle the icing over it. Garnish with candied orange if desired, or serve with orange wedges.

Serves 10-16.

If Facebook were a newscast

I’ve joked in the past that all the news you need to know is on Facebook. Sure, it might be a drastic way of limiting your news consumption, but stick with me here.

Being a former television news writer and producer, I categorize “news” into four categories: hard news, weather, sports, and kickers (i.e. fluff). Whether it’s of global concern such as the earthquake in Japan–which I first heard about on Facebook upon waking that morning–or a personal matter such as a friend’s engagement, think of all the “hard news” you’ve read about on Facebook.

And then there’s the weather.

As soon as snow starts falling you can read all about the snowflake sightings across the region when your friends suddenly become amateur meteorologists. (At least this happens in the Seattle area, where many people consider snow a four-letter word.)

Next on the rundown is sports; if my friends are fans of a team, I’m going to hear the score–and hopefully the virtual victory shouts.

Finally, with links to funny cat videos and stories like “20 Otters Celebrating National Kissing Day,” there’s no shortage of kickers that the anchors could chat about at the end of the hour if Facebook were a newscast.

See? Maybe my joke isn’t as crazy of an idea as it sounds. It’s the weather coverage on my Facebook newsfeed that got me thinking about this again today:

“excited for this gray weather-now I can start ordering hot drinks at Starbucks again! yay!”

“What is that? Is that a sprinkle of rain!?!?!? #yay!”

“Ahhhhh, my lovely grey skies have returned.”

After one last summery weekend, the Seattle haze returned yesterday, and I wouldn’t even have had to open my blinds or step outside to know. To be honest, I love fall. It’s one of my favorite seasons. But this year I’m clinging onto every last bit of summer. I’ll join my friends soon in celebrating the beginning of fall, but in the meantime I want to share one more summery recipe.

Orange Crème Brûlée with Strawberries
It’s a rare occasion when my husband gets excited about dessert. But on a recent evening at Sambar in Seattle, we split an orange crème brûlée accompanied by slightly-glazed strawberries and a little bit of brittle. That did the trick–he enjoyed it just as much as I did. Paired with a glass of muscat, it was an inspired combination of flavors and textures, and one that to share is to express true love. I decided to try recreating the crème brûlée, and found a citrus variation for the classic vanilla one in Crème Brûlée: The Bonjour Way. Though the entire dessert is much more simple than the one at Sambar, I hope you enjoy it just as much as we did.

1/2 cup whole milk
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
2/3 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 heaping tablespoon of orange zest
6 egg yolks (from large eggs)
Additional granulated sugar for the topping
Fresh strawberries, for serving

In a small saucepan, combine the milk, cream, sugar, salt, and orange zest until combined and place over medium heat. Stir until it reaches the boiling point, then remove it from the heat and let it cool.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 300 degrees and start separating the egg yolks from the whites if you haven’t already. Whisk the yolks briefly in a medium bowl, and store the whites in the refrigerator for another use.

Once the milk and cream combination has cooled, poor it slowly into the yolks while whisking. Use a sieve to strain out the orange zest, and then pour the custard into ramekins, about 1 inch high. (The original recipe says to pour it into 8 shallow, 4-ounce ramekins, but if you–like me–have ramekins in an assortment of shapes and sizes, just make sure the custard is a similar depth in each, and monitor them while they’re baking, removing some early if necessary.)

Prepare a water bath or bain marie by placing the ramekins in a large baking pan and filling the pan with hot or boiling water deep enough to come halfway up the ramekins’ sides. Bake on a rack placed slightly lower than center for about 35 to 45 minutes, or until the centers are softly set and jiggle just a little when shaken.

Carefully remove the pan from the oven–make sure to have a level, heatproof surface nearby so you don’t have to carry it far–and allow the custards to cool in the water bath until you can reach in and remove them. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours, and then prepare the topping–this is where the fun begins.

Sprinkle a thin layer of granulated sugar over each custard, shaking the ramekin to evenly distribute the sugar. Caramelize the sugar using a crème brûlée torch for the best results, or place under a broiler, monitoring it constantly.

Garnish with sliced strawberries and serve.

Serves 8.

Approaching the end of summer

In normal years I imagine summer to be filled with gin and tonics on the front porch, fresh corn on the cob grilled in their husks alongside simply seasoned steaks, grilled sardines paired perfectly with a bottle of chilled rosé… the list goes on. If this were a normal year those items–and many more–would have been on my summer list. The problem with moving is that typical routines get shaken up and it can take a while for all the pieces to fall back into place. For example, this year’s summer list never got finalized, meaning that if something was to happen, it would in a spontaneous fashion. Though we didn’t manage to host our annual rib fest this year, and though we’ve yet to properly break in our new front porch, this has still been a special summer, and one we’re sure to remember for a long time. Here are some of the highlights.

Introducing my dad to the beauty of Walla Walla during a family wine-tasting weekend in June

A trip to Kauai, which served as a much-needed transition for my husband and me from the structure and demands of the academic year to a summer that ended up feeling even busier

The annual zucchini blossom and anchovy pizza, a re-creation of a pizza we ate at Forno in Rome’s Campo de’ Fiori during our honeymoon

Many wonderful grilled meals, from salmon and vegetables on my parents’ deck overlooking Puget Sound to the most amazing tender and flavorful ribs perfected by my husband

Cheers! From a celebratory toast at the kitchen island in our new house…

…to the first pie rolled out and baked on that same island a few weeks later when we officially “broke in” our new kitchen

Watching my cat, Max, scared and traumatized by the move, adjust and become comfortable in his new home

An inaugural meal at our new dining room table, which was a gift from my in-laws

Those just scratch the surface of the memories created this summer. I’ll never forget my parents’ generous gift of time and work as they spent countless hours painting at our new house or the weekly dates my husband and I spent at our favorite French cafe in Seattle. The forecast suggests continued warm weather into late September, so hopefully there will still be opportunities for afternoon drinks on the front porch and maybe even some candlelit dinners outside. But regardless of what we manage to fit in during the next few weeks, it’s been a good summer. And autumn is always full of its own delights to anticipate.

A new home and new beginnings

A pot of tea and Wi-Fi has been drawing me to the Teacup in Queen Anne quite often this month. I’ve declared this summer to be a season of moving, and while the new house started to feel like home immediately, the loose ends–including getting our internet connection set up–are taking a while to tie up.

An even bigger inconvenience than the lack of internet connection has been a kitchen that’s been in flux for longer than I’d like to admit. It’s probably been at least a month and a half–maybe even two months–since I’ve cooked a proper meal. Sure, we’ve been eating at home and my husband has been grilling, but until this past weekend the kitchen wasn’t in full working order. Now the pots and pans are finally in their drawers, the pantry is filled, if not properly organized, and the plates and stemware have found their homes. Thursday is the night to break in the new kitchen.

It will be a special night, an inaugural first meal. Will we make pasta, steak with roasted summer vegetables, or maybe some summery salads? I’m not sure yet, but I know I’m looking forward to it–just as much as I’m looking forward to fully getting settled into the rest of the house and therefore being able to establish some new routines.

I just finished reading Apartment Therapy: The Eight-Step Home Cure and am inspired by author Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan’s approach to making a place of residence into a home and also his recommendations for keeping it that way. A dear friend of mine talks about making her home into a haven, and though I’ve aspired to do the same, I’ve felt until now that I’ve lacked the tools (and the organization) to do so. Now, whether it’s setting up defined areas for each activity we do in our home, bringing home fresh flowers on a regular basis, or simply cleaning up the kitchen after dinner each night instead of leaving it until morning, I’m moving into a new home with a new set of habits, and they’re ones that are sure to make this new structure a comfortable and inviting place for my immediate family and for all those we welcome into our home.

The pot of tea is almost empty and there’s still some work I need to do online before I close the laptop and head home, so I’ll sign off for now. I hope you all enjoy the final days of August and stop by again soon.