January 16th, 2014 - How to make Danish food!

For those of you that don't know, my mom and dad are currently on a two year adventure in Denmark.  Dad's working on designing a ship over there, and my mom wasn't going to let him gallivant with Hans Christian Andersen alone. Empty nesting in Europe...not too shabby indeed.

I am excited for them for many reasons, but the biggest is that now I have a couch to crash on in Europe. Even better is that it's a Scandanavian couch. If you can't tell from my name, I draw some of my heritage from that part of the world. Norway, to be specific, but Denmark is close enough to get the job done!

So it was my desire to pay homage to my roots and to my parent's current home that led me to today's lesson. Kyle Christiansen, who's family line extends back to Scandanavia as well, invited me over to teach me some Danish cooking. Specifically, Kyle taught me how to make ableskiver (able-skee-ver).

 
Here's how to do it:

 

First, divide three eggs

  

Next, mix milk, flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder into a mixer

 

 Next, add the egg yolks and start mixing again.  Add the egg whites last.

 

This is an abelskiver pan.  It's only function is to make abelskivers.  It's a nice gig.

  

Add a little butter to the bottom of each hole in the pan

 

Add some batter to each of the holes and let them fry for a minute or two

 

Flip the abelskivers over so the other side browns.  You want them to be light brown

to brown on the outside and a little crispy, but still doughy and soft in the middle...like me.

 

After a few minutes the ableskivers should look like this!

Now, I must admit that before today, my thought on Scandanavian cooking was that most of it was based on a dare (anyone that has experienced lutefisk probably agrees). But the ableskiver was fantastic and versatile. It could be eaten as a sweeter dish with jam and cinnamon and sugar. It could be more savory with chives and smoked salmon. And because the portion size was small, I didn't feel like I was stuffing my face (this fact was negated after I ate over half the pan).

I'm getting better at cooking, and I'm always ready to learn new recipes. I'm excited that there are things out there like the ableskiver, waiting to be cooked.

Now I just need one of those funny looking pans.



Other things I learned/looked up:

1) What a "uni-tasker" is. (A tool that only has one function. A perfect example is an ableskiver pan. Not much else you can do with that!)