Green Pepper Sauce

Green Pepper Sauce

This green pepper sauce is a tasty but spicy sauce that pairs well with beef. You often get this type of sauce at steakhouses, and this is one of my favorites. In Denmark I’d never made it from scratch, I would just buy the Knorr powder version. But of course the real deal is so much better, so much worth the time and effort. I like that you can make the sauce-base well in advance, you can even freeze it.

This year we had green pepper sauce for our New Year’s dinner, and as a sauce loving creature it was front and center on my plate.😂

Serves 6-10.

Ingredients:

• 1 shallot, chopped

• ⅛ root celery, diced

• 1 garlic clove

• 2 teaspoons green peppercorn in brine (Madagaskar peppercorns), chopped

• 1 teaspoon butter

• 1 teaspoon grape seed oil (or another flavorless oil)

• 50 ml Cognac

• 250 ml beef stock

• 200 ml red wine

• 1 sprig rosemary (leaves only)

• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme

• 1 splash of Gastrique ( you can replace this with some sugar and a splash of vinegar)

• 100 ml heavy whipping cream

•  salt to taste

• 2 teaspoons green peppercorn in brine (Madagaskar peppercorns)

• Cornstarch - optional, mixed in cold for thickening

Gastrique (Adapted from Bobby Flay)

• 1/4 cup (80g) honey

• 1/2 cup (125ml) apple cider vinegar

Directions:

Gastrique (Adapted from Bobby Flay)

Heat the honey in a small saucepan over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, until it becomes deep golden brown. Add the vinegar and continue to cook, swirling the pan a few times - do not use a spoon. Cook it for about 15 minutes, until the honey/caramel is incorporated in the vinegar, and the gastrique has thickened to the consistency of thin maple syrup. Remove from heat. Keep the gastrique in a sealed sterilized bottle in the refrigerator, it will keep for months.

Sauce:

Sauté onions, celery root, garlic and the chopped peppercorns until the onions are translucent. Remove saucepan from the heat, move the pan away from fan, actually do not have lamps or any other things above it. Pour in the cognac into the pan swirl it round, and standing at a safe distance from the pan, ignite it with a long match or lighter. Gently swirl/stir your now-flaming pan to evenly distribute the alcohol. Let cook until the flames disappear, and the alcohol vapor burns off by itself in a few seconds. Add the beef stock, red wine, rosemary, and thyme. Let the sauce simmer for at least 30 minutes. Strain the now sauce-base through a sieve set over saucepan, pressing firmly on solids, getting all the good flavors out. Reduce the sauce-base to about half, you are aiming for a concentrated base. (All this can be made in advance).

Add cream, whole peppercorns and season the sauce with salt and gastrique. If you like a slightly thicker sauce, you can thicken it with some cornstarch dispensed in cold water. Serve the sauce with a nice steak or roast.

Enjoy!

Medisterpølse - Danish Pork Sausage

Fried Medisterpølse - Danish Pork Sausage

Happy First Friday in December. I better start upping my game. Normally I get stuff ready for the blog for December. But this year have been different. Somehow the holidays sneaked up on me - again. But this time we have guest staying here for the past few weeks. So yet again I’m late to the Christmas preparations. But I will be posting christmasy stuff as I get to it.This medisterpølse have been on my blog - to-do list for the longest time. So with this happy December from me to you. 🎄

Medisterpølse/julemedister/christmas medister or Danish pork sausage is something I had very often for weeknight dinners. I was easy to make, and its was on the cheaper end of meats. During November and December the sausage get another seasoning, adding cloves making it more christmasy. This is what I was aiming for here, and I think I’ve succeeded.

Christmas medister is served warm on an open-faced sandwich with pickled red cabbage on Danish rye bread at Danish Christmas luncheons.

Making sausages is a labor entensive process, but the final product is well worth it. Another pro is that you know what's in the sausage.

Makes 3-4 medisterpølser.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg (2¼ pound) pork (could be a cheaper cut like shoulder)

• 200 g (½ pound) fatty pork belly

• 1 onion

• 1¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon ground cloves

• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

• 2 teaspoons ground allspice

• ½-1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

• 3 tablespoons potato starch

• 2 egg whites

• about 300 ml chicken stock, ice cold

• 2-3 meter (yards) sausage casing.

Directions:

Make sure that all your ingredients are cold.

Cut meat, pork belly and onion in pieces that can go into the meat grinder. Grind it all 2 time on the corse setting. Add all the spices, potato starch and egg whites and mix it well. Start adding the cold chicken stock a little at a time. You want the mixture to be soft but by no means runny.  Put the mixture into the refrigerator to rest for 30-40 minutes. 

Rinse the casings in plenty of cold running water. Let tap water run through the casing. This way you’ll fine any holes in the casing. 

Take a little dollop of the mixture and fry it on a small skillet, and tast it, when its cooked completely. This way you can taste the mixture, without tasting the raw meat. Season the mixture with salt, pepper and other spices.

Use a sausage filler to fill up the casing. There are many different model on the marked, but follow the instructions for the one you have. 

But here is some general TIPS:

• Use nozzle that fits your casings. 

• Wet the tip of the nozzle with a tiny amount of meat mixture, this will help you getting the casing onto the nozzle. 

• Put all the casing onto the nozzle

• let the casing sit close to the tip, this will ease your sausage making.

• Do NOT tie a knot on the casing, this will just trap a lot of air.

• Gently pull and squeeze the casing while filling it with the meat mixture.

• Do NOT fill the casing too much, you are aiming for a soft sausage, the mixture will expand when heated.

Traditionally medisterpølse is made as one big sausage, but of course you can make smaller sausage links. Let the sausage rest for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator before cooking.

Raw Merdisterpølse - Danish Pork Sausage

How to cook a medisterpølse? This is a matter og taste or believes. Some would boil or lite simmer the sausage for about 10 minutes before pan-frying it. My mom never did that. She pan-fried it directly, and it worked just fine. The casing rarely split open.

I pan-fried it directly in butter on medium heat for 15-18 minutes until fully cooked, turnip the sausage a few times.

Another option is to put some water and butter in the pan, and place the raw sausage in the pan and then heat the whole thing up. Turning the sausage ones before the water evaporate, and the frying starts. This way you are pre-boiling and frying the sausage in 1 step, and no need for additional pots and pans.

Serve medisterpølse/pork sausage with boiled potatoes, pickled red cabbage and maybe even some pan-gravy. (Pan-gravy is made in the pan where you cooked the sausage, by adding some stock (water used to boil potatoes) and some milk/cream, then thickend, seasoned and colored with gravy browning).

Enjoy!

Millionbøf - Million Beef

Millionbøf - Million Beef

Millionbøf can be translated to a million steaks or beef. But its roughly a danish bolognese, without the tomatoes and only seasoned with salt and pepper. Generally oldschool Danish food is kinda bland. We didn't use many spices or herbs. Danes are basically meat and potatoes people. Well a bit more potatoes than meat, because the potatoes were inexpensive. Nowadays the Danes eat a lot of meat. But like everyone else that is changing again. The food trends in Denmark are to eat more local produce and less meats.

Millionbøf had a lot of names. Tusindbøf (thousand beef) and væltet lokum (tipped toilet 😳) is coming to mind. But it’s actually quite tasty in contrast to the nasty name. Growing up we had millionbøf regularly, it’s an easy weeknight dinner. Normally we would get it with mashed potatoes and pickled beets. But it’s not uncommon to serve it with pasta and pickled cucumber or Danish cucumber salad. This time I added some brussel sprouts to my boiling potatoes the last 5-10 minutes. I chopped them and added them to the mashed potatoes, giving it some texture.

Serves 4-6.

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon butter

• 400 g ground beef (about 1 pound)

• 2 yellow onions, chopped

• 3 bay leaves

• 400 ml beef stock

• salt & pepper to taste

• kulør (gravy browning)

For thickening:

• 100 ml water (mix with the flour, to thicken the sauce)

• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

• a pinch of salt

Directions:

Saute the onions in the golden brown butter. When they start taking color, add the ground beef, and brown it well. This is an important process to create flavor. Add beef stock, bay leaves and pepper. Let it simmer for about 20-30 minutes with the lid on. Stir occasional. Mix the water and flour and add some of it in the million beef while whisking, add more until you have the desired consistency; not to runny and not too thick. Season the million beef with salt and pepper, and add the gravy browning.

Serve the million beef with masshed potatoes and pickled beets.

Enjoy!

Teriyaki Glazed Lamb Sirloin with Green 'Couscous'

We really enjoy eating lamb. But this cut was new to us. Not sure if it would be a tough piece of meat or what. I decided to try to cook it medium, hoping for the best. And it turned out perfect. Clearly not the last time I’m serving lamb sirloin.
I was looking for a non-starchy side, because I want to cut a little back on starchy carbs. This cauliflower couscous was a good replacement for regular couscous. Easy to make, no cooking needed. Next time I will add some kind of fruit, to give it some sweetness.

Recipe inspired by Årstiderne.

Serves 3-4.

Ingredients:

• ¾ - 1 pound lamb sirloin ‘steaks’

• 100 ml teriyaki-sauce

• olive oil for frying

Green 'Couscous':

• 1 bunch kale

• 1 medium cauliflower

• 1 preserved lemon , finely diced

• 1 small handfull almond, dry roasted on a skillet

• 1 shallots, thinly sliced.

Directions:

Sear the sirloins on both sides in olive oil. Turn the heat down, and keep cooking to the desired doneness. I cooked it for about 5-8 minted and ended up with medium steaks. Add the teriyaki sauce, and turn the steaks så they are glazed all over. Slice before serving.

While cooking the steaks, wash and trim the kale of the stems, and chop finerly. Wash and grate the cauliflower. Peel and thinly slice the shallots. Mix all the ingredients for the ‘couscous’ putting the almonds on top - set aside.

Plate ‘couscous’ and sliced steaks.

Enjoy!

Cauliflower Soufflé - Blomkålsgratin

Cauliflower Soufflé - Blomkålsgratin

I remember cauliflower soufflé as a dish we got in the cafeteria in High-school. And I loved it. Growning up I never had it at home. Maybe because it has soufflé in the name, my mom thought it would be difficult to make. And honestly I was really surprised that it alway turned out great. Admittedly it does have a lot of steps, but it’s not difficult at all.

This soufflé is of course light and fluffy and with at nice crispy top. A perfect light weeknight dinner.

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

• 400 g cauliflower

• 200 ml water

• 200 ml milk

• 75 g all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoons salt

• 4 eggs

• 225 g ham, diced

• Butter to grease the baking dish

• 2-3 tablespoons plain breadcrumbs (sprinkled on top)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350℉ (175℃). Grease an ovenproof dish (1 liter/4 cups) and sprinkle it with plain breadcrumbs, set aside.

Clean the cauliflower, and cut it into florets, cook them for 3-5 minutes in lightly salted boiling water. Strain the florets, and keep 200 ml of the water.

Add water, milk, salt, and flour to a saucepan. Cook it while whisking, until it thickens. Remove from the heat, to cool for a while.

Separate the yolks from the egg whites. Whisk the whites to medium stiff peaks, set aside.

Whisk one yolk at the time into the now warm thick mixture, incorporating it completely before adding the next yolk.

Mix in the well strained cauliflower and ham. Lastly gently fold in the egg whites. Pour the mixture into the prepared dish, and sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and bake it for about 60 minutes.

Serve immediately with a side salad.

Enjoy!