Viltgryte (wild autumn stew with chanterelles).

Viltgryte, literally ”wild stew” is one of the most classic Norwegian stews. It is mainly made with reindeer, moose or venison. Hence the name. I make it even wilder and serve it with one of the loveliest mushrooms, the chanterelle and top it with lingonberries.

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At the time of writing winter has arrived in the North of Norway, but in Oslo the trees are still adorned by the colourful hand of autumn. The last days though, frost is beginning to get at firm grip on the landscape. Mornings are colder with rime on the ground, most of the apples on my neighbour’s tree have fallen down, and it is time to find my woolen clothes in the attic. The weather forecast says tomorrow will be the first day of snow. It is time for heartening stews that will warm your soul.

The brussels sprouts are served in a bowl I inherited from my grandmother.

The chanterelle – forest gold

”Wild stew” is Nordic comfort food, particularly in the autumn when the coniferous woods are filled with one of our best mushrooms, the chanterelle. The chanterelle, also called ”forest gold”, is a taste I clearly associate with Nordic food, but to my astonishment it is also found in Mexico, Africa (and the Himalayas). Its taste is described as peppery, thus its German name is Pfifferling. Remember to just brush the chanterelles. Otherwise they will absorb water like a sponge. If you have to rinse them, do it right before preparing them.

Golden like autumn

Traditionally the stew is made with sour cream, juniper berries and brown cheese (consider the latter as the cheesy counterpart to palm sugar), but I make a more French version substituting the sour cream with heavy cream and the juniper berries with thyme. In Norway the stew is made with reindeer, moose or venison.

This is a stew with few ingredients, but the chanterelle makes all the difference. It yields a wonderful flavour and golden colour. Thus the stew embodies the Nordic autumn. If you cannot find chanterelle, choose porcini/cepes (steinsopp) or (brown) champignon. There is only one thing that can improve this stew, and that is the satisfaction of gathering the ingredients yourself.

Maybe you find the thought of eating ”Rudolf” disturbing, but eating reindeer is in my opinion a much better option than the sad faith of the livestock in the meat industry. Eating reindeer is a sustainable option where the animals have lived a free-range life.

Also note: If you use shaved meat of reindeer or moose (which is common in Norway for this type of meat), then the cooking time is only 30–40 minutes. If you use venison stewing meat, you need at least an hour. For a more northern touch, you can substitute the thyme with juniper berries.

Traditionally the stew is made with sour cream, juniper berries and brown cheese (consider the latter as the cheesy counterpart to palm sugar)

Brussels sprouts do originate from the area around Brussels in Belgium.

Wild autumn stew with chanterelles (makes 3):

1 onion, finely chopped
300–400 g chanterelles (cepes or brown champignon)
400 g (reindeer, moose or venison)
a handful thyme (only the leaves) or 1/2 tsp crushed juniper berries
500 ml venison stock (or beef stock)
150 ml heavy or double cream
4 tbsp cooking oil (rapeseed or sunflower)
2 tbsp butter
salt and pepper

1. Sauté the onion for 5 minutes on low heat without browning it.

2. If the chanterelles are big, divide into two. Add the chanterelles (but put aside a handful for garnish) and continue frying for 5 minutes. Add more oil if necessary.

3. Place onion and chanterelles on a plate, turn the heat up and fry the meat in two batches. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Return the onion and chanterelles to the pan. Add the thyme and stock.

4a. If you are using venison stewing meat, cook on medium-slow heat under lid until tender, at least an 1 hour. Then take the lid off an reduce the stock a quarter.
4b. If you are using shaved meat of reindeer, cook on medium heat without the lid on until the stock is reduced by half.

5. Finally add the cream and continue cooking for about 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened a bit. Adjust the seasoning.

6. Garnish with chanterelles fried in butter for 5 minutes, springs of thyme and lingonberries.

Serve with mashed potatoes, steamed or boiled brussels sprouts and lingonberry jam.

More Nordic dishes?

Danish æbleflæsk (pork apples)
Apple trifle from Norway (tilslørte bondepiker)
Creamy rice porridge Suzette (rice porridge with orange sauce)

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Tropical smoothie with mango and spinach. Autumn smoothie with lingonberry and plums.

Spinach is the vegetable never being asked to go to the prom.

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The destiny of spinach is to be the sensible choice. It is not strange kids do not want to eat the green leaves when even adults hesitate. Why should spinach be the sensible choice? Spinach can also be the festive choice. The Chinese deep fry it and serve it as a snack. The Danes make wonderful creamy spinach. The French serve it with a cut of beef. The Indians make their palak paneer brimming with spinach, and the Greek make their spinach pie called spanakopita.

Time for spinach

The spinach has become one of my best friends in the kitchen. It does everything for you. It only takes two minutes to prepare. It has a vibrant green colour that looks good on any plate. And it is superhealthy.

The Swedish National Food Agency in a recent study rated the 40 most popular vegetables in terms of nutrition. This is their top list:

1. Green leaves like spinach and chard
2. Green beans like haricots verts
3. Broccoli
4. Green peas and sugar peas
5. Avocado
6. White beans
7. Leek
8. Cauliflower
9. Lentils
10. Chickpeas

According to the National Food Agency fresh spinach is particularly rich in vitamin K, folate, calcium, magnesium, selenium, vitamin A, C and B6. However it is not a source for iron. Spinach does contain iron, but also oxalates which prevents the body from absorbing the iron. If you need iron, try broccoli instead.

Autumn smoothie with lingonberries and plums.

Tropical smoothie with mango, coconut oil and spinach

This is one of the smoothies we make for breakfast. I serve it to my two-year old son. It is a nice way to make him eat spinach. The smoothie does not contain sugar, but has a sweet taste thanks to the mango and banana. I also add organic coconut oil and yogurt. All together this makes a nutritious and balanced meal with carbohydrates, healthy fat and protein.

1 mango, peeled and pitted
150 ml milk
1 small tub of yogurt
2 tsp organic coconut oil
2 handfuls of spinach, washed

Place all ingredients except the spinach in a large blender and blend until smooth. Finally add the spinach and blend a bit more until the smoothie is speckled.

Autumn smoothie with lingonberry and plums

This smoothie showcases the best local and seasonal Nordic ingredients. Plums and lingonberries may not be the first thing that springs to your mind when thinking of smoothies, but it makes for a comforting morningdrink that keeps you going when darkness and cold settles. If you cannot find lingonberry, use cranberries or blueberries instead.

2 handfuls of lingonberry
4 plums, pitted
1 banana, peeled
2 small tubs of yogurt
50 ml / 1,7 oz apple juice

Place all ingredients in a large blender and blend until smooth.

If you liked this post, you may also like

Ginger lemonade with lime and passion fruit
Nordic mojito with blackcurrants
Rhubarb lemonade with lime
Strawberry milkshake

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Pork apples (æbleflæsk) is a classic dish from Denmark.

Apples and pork is a classic combination, but how about serving it as a sandwich? This is what the Danes do.

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Æbleflæsk is as simple as the name: It consists of apples (æbler) and pork (flæsk). It has been eaten for generations and dates back to the time when people had a farm and a couple of apple trees. The dish is served with the Danes’ favorite bread, rye bread, and is eaten like a sandwich. It combines the saltiness of the pork with the slight acidity of the apples and is enjoyed for breakfast (morgenmad).

Æbleflæsk is one of the dishes the acclaimed chef Thomas Herman makes in his cookbook, Brændende kærlighed (Burning love), where he goes back to the food of his childhood. James Price, known from the Danish television program “Eat with Price”, describes how his grandmother always made him æbleflæsk at least once a month for Sunday breakfast.

Pork apples (æbleflæsk) is the dish the Danes make when they are homesick. The dish they eat on Sundays when they make an extra effort with breakfast. The dish they make at Christmas or in December. The dish their grandmother made for them. The dish they make to remember their grandmother.

Danish Pork apples (æbleflæsk)

Slices of bacon
apples, quartered and halved
onion, chopped (thinly sliced)
sugar
salt and pepper
rye bread

Fry the bacon in a dry pan until crisp. Drain on a paper towel. Then fry the apples and onion in the remaining bacon fat. Fry the apples until they are tender but still hold their shape. Season with salt and pepper and a little bit sugar – the apples should not be sweet. Serve on top of – or along with – rye bread. Have a memorable weekend breakfast!

More Nordic dishes?

Scandinavian fry-up (pytt i panne)
Tilslørte bondepiker (apple trifle)
The open sandwich is back from the past
Skagentoast on Independence Day

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Roasted plums with cookie topping.

These roasted plums must be the easiest and best dessert I can think of. They combine wonderful Nordic plums with Italian flair for cooking.

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It has always puzzled me when people say they do not know how to make desserts. Or even worse, they do not like desserts. I cannot imagine life without desserts. I cannot imagine a good meal without a sweet ending. It does not have to be something advanced. I will be happy as a kid with a small cookie or some fruit and ice on my plate. Or even better, all of them.

Ingenious simplicity

Like I love dessert, I love Italian food. Though I love Italian food, for long their desserts disappointed me. I have always rated Italian desserts as quite poor compared to French or American desserts, but that has changed. Italian desserts may be easy, but it is the simplicity that makes them ingenious. The tiramisu with its coffee liquor, egg yolk-cream and lady fingers. The panna cotta with its cooked cream and vanilla. Or the magnificent semifreddo which is a whole lot easier to make than classic ice cream. Though easy to make they rival the best desserts in the kitchen.

Roasted plums with ice cream and plum juice from the oven tray.

Easy and versatile dessert

There is a dessert even easier which I discovered in an Italian cookbook, roasted figs with biscotti. Here the figs are roasted in the oven with a topping made of biscotti crumbs, cream, sugar and lemon peel. It is just as easy as it is adorable. 15 minutes to make. 15 minutes in the oven. It is a promise from me to you.

Roasted plums is also a versatile dessert. Use your best homegrown ingredients to make it. In August-September plums are abundant in Norway, so I substitute the Italian figs and biscotti with Norwegian plums and biscuits (havreflarn). You can also use peaches and oatmeal cookies.

Love your leftovers

I used to throw away lots of food or put it in the freezer. Sometimes my freezer was crowded with ten different cakes, most of them dying a slow and cold death, never to be eaten no more than once. Today I try to be more conscientious and utilise my leftovers. Leftovers are the hidden treasures in a chef’s pantry. I always keep leftover cookies in my pantry as a result of my penchant for venturing into new cooking projects. But instead of ending in the garbage, my old cookies come in handy in new desserts. For this recipe my old oatmeal biscuits are perfect with tender and juicy plums.

Roasted plums with cookie topping (makes 3-4):

7 small plums (the plums should be slightly firm and not overripe)
50 g / 1,8 oz cookies, preferably oatmeal cookies (or havreflarn)
1 tbsp palm sugar (or brown sugar)
1 tsp (white) sugar
25 ml / 0,8 oz heavy cream (light cream will also do)
1 organic lemon

I add palm sugar because it is healthier than white refined sugar and has a rich caramel flavour.

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Divide the plums into half and remove the stone carefully. Arrange them skin down in a baking tray.

2. For the topping: Put the oatmeal cookies in a plastic bag and crush them with a rolling-pin or your hands. Mix the crumbs together with the sugar, cream and zest of one lemon.

3. Squeeze some lemon juice on the plums and then, with a teaspoon, place the topping on each plum.

4. Bake for about 15 minutes in the middle of the oven. Use a spoon to check if the plums are finished. They should be soft but still hold their shape.

More Italian desserts?

Tiramisu (gluten-free)
Panna cotta with strawberries

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Vagabond apples vs. commercial apples

The apples from garden trees of Oslo have bruises and come in all sizes. Still they tell the story about why we should eat seasonal and local food. Modern food industry has succeeded in preserving apples so much that the apple you pick in the store can be up to 13 months old.

Most commercial apples today, even organic, are picked under-riped and then induced into a kind of winter sleep where they are kept in an almost oxygen free atmosphere at about 0 degrees. The technique is called controlled atmosphere (CA) and is particularly common with apples and pears.

This is not a modern invention. Already in 1819 the Frenchman Jacques Etienne Berard discovered that the deprivation of oxygen stopped the apples’ “ageing process”. In addition apples today, in particular American apples, are waxed to slow down their decay. In sum, apples are edible mummies.

Vagabond apple from my neighbouring garden.

Norwegian apples are not vaxed, but they are chemically treated. According to Oikos, the national movement of organic producers and consumers in Norway, Norwegian apples are chemically treated about 7 times during their season, strawberries and carrots 6 times.

In the U.S. apples top the list of most chemically treated produce. According to the Environment Working Group, a non-profit focused on public health, apples turned up with the highest number of pesticides while peaches and nectarines moved up to the second and third spots. They put apples on the “dirty list”, together with celery, strawberries,  spinach, potatoes and grapes, to mention a few. So if you can get hold on farmers’ apples, do so.

What characterizes Norwegian apples?

What characterizes Norwegian apples is this sweet and tart flavour, a fair and semi-crunchy flesh with a thin skin, and a unique aromatic scent that will leave you breathless. It is a combination of warm summers and cold autumn nights that yield the unique sweet and tart flavour. On the downside Norwegian apples are fragile and do to tolerate much cooking before they disintegrate. Hence, they are not easily turned into tarte tatin.

The first Norwegian apples arrive in August, just in time to shake hands with the last raspberries. These are “early apples”. Later on the “winter apples” come with their bold flavour and longevity. When all leaves have fallen to the ground and frost is reigning, the last winter apples endure as far as December.

Nordic apple trifle (tilslørte bondepiker)

Tilslørte bondepiker is a trifle consisting of apples, whipped cream and a crunchy topping. The Scottish dessert cranachan is a distant relative and you will also find it in Denmark as bondepige med slør (farm girl with a veil). The Danes use rye bread, traditional Norwegian recipes use a type of dried bread (kavring). Instead of bread I use biscuits, preferably digestives (or mariekjeks).

The Norwegian name of the dessert translates into “veiled farm girls” and it is a mystery how it got its name. Norwegian chefs love to make their own twists and rename the desserts in countless ways. These farm girls are not only veiled, they are spoiled, drunk or city girls. If you don’t have Norwegian apples, what then? Choose a crisp and tart apple like Granny Smith, add some extra drops of lemon juice and cook it a bit longer.

What characterizes Norwegian apples is a sweet and tart flavour, a fair and semi-crunchy flesh with a thin skin, and a unique aromatic scent.

Nordic apple trifle (tilslørte bondepiker).

Nordic apple trifle (makes 4-5)

6 big apples
100 ml apple juice
3 tbsp sugar
a good squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 vanilla pod
6 digestive biscuits (or mariekjeks)
5 tbsp butter
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
400 ml whipping cream

1. Core the apples. (Keep the skin on to preserve more vitamins and give the compote a beautiful red colour). Slice roughly and cook for 4-5 minutes in a pan with the apple juice, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla. They are finished when they start to disintegrate. Mash the apples roughly with a potato masher. Allow to cool.

2. Crush the biscuits with a rolling-pin. Melt the butter in a pan and add sugar, biscuit crumbs and cinnamon. Cook for 5 minutes while stirring. Leave to cool. The crumbs may not be crunchy while warm, but this changes when they get cold.

3. Whip the cream with the rest of the vanilla pod until soft peaks.

4. In a glass or serving bowl, arrange the dessert in layers. Start with the apple compote, continue with the cream and then the crumbs. Repeat. Finish with some extra crumbs on top.

More Nordic dishes?

Wild autumn stew with chanterelles
Scandinavian waffles with cardamom
Nordic BLT sandwich
Norwegian success tart

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