Denmark

Denmark

My food journey continues into mainland Europe and Denmark was up next.

My goal has been to cook all recipes for each country, but admittedly I was stumped this time. By what you ask? Jerusalem artichokes. Again, what you ask? A Jersusalem artichoke isn't like the artchoke I have growing in my garden but rather seems to be a distant cousin of a potato or other root vegetable. I had no luck finding them at any markets (wrong season they told me at the French La Cigale market). I thought I would try asking any neighbors via the new website Neighborly.co.nz but had no joy there. 

So I skipped it and continued on with the other items.

Baked beetroot

Now Matt can attest for me - I don't really like beetroot, which is weird, because I should. I like most other root vegetables or anything that is red. But there is something about it, I dunno. It's an incredibly popular ingredient here and thankfully Matt is a big fan and so the slices on veggie burgers from Burger Fuel do not go to waste.

Anyways, I was skeptical, but I actually liked this dish. Maybe it was the mayo served with it. Which, the cookbook called for fresh grated horseradish. Given that is not an everyday ingredient I opted to cheat and made wasabi mayo by mixing wasabi (which is horseradish) and normal mayo. 

Almond Rissoles

This was very yum, although seemed a bit crumbly which could have meant I needed more egg or some moisture element for the dish. The chopped in almonds in it were a great addition to the texture and this has inspired me to make red lentil balls more often (these could be great with a noodle dish!)

Cabbage rolls with sour/sweet filling and mustard sauce

I opted to use regular sour cream in the mustard sauce. These were very nice, but a little hard to eat. I suspect this could be due to me getting the wrong kind of cabbage? Th recipe calls for "savoy cabbage" leaves, but I've never seen a type listed against the cabbage here (though not that it's an ingredient I frequently buy). Even with boiling them they were a bit hard to chew off/break off - particularly along the stem/vein of the leaf.

There was also a dessert to go with this...but I skipped it. I figured given that I was already missing the Jerusalem artichoke soup, skipping the dessert wasn't a big deal. I could do them both together later.

For platting I did individual plates with all elements together. I used Asian soup spoons for sauces. It was a great effect on the presentation and Matt and Peter enjoyed all the food.