Cured Beef / Gravet Oksekjøtt

A traditional curing recipe found on grytelokket.com

In the old days, curing  meat was a virtue of necessity, while it is today generally considered a delicacy. Many believe that curing meat is difficult, but it is actually a much easier process than most imagine. With this recipe for cured sirloin of beef and mustard sauce you can try for yourself.

My brother in law, a very skilled cook, makes a wicked cured beef for Christmas every year and serves it with cherry tomatoes, fresh dill and horseradish sauce. For me it is one of the absolute culinary highlights of Christmas season.

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Grapefruit In Brandy / Grapefrukt I Konjakk

A refreshing Christmas Dessert found in “Mat For Alle Årstider”
(Food For All seasons) published by Det Beste in 1977

Acidic grapefruit is as refreshing before as it is after a heavy main course like most Scandinavian Christmas eve main courses are. Slices of grapefruit, poached in syrup and sprinkled with brandy, is a delicious dessert that melts on the tongue.

Having said as much, most Scandinavian Christmas eve desserts are just as heavy as our main courses 😉

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Danish Cardinal Punch / Kardinalpunch

A classic Danish Christmas punch found in “MENU –Juleretter”
(Menu – Christmas Dishes) published by Lademann in 1976.

Punch, both served cold and hot has long traditions in Scandinavia both for Christmas and for other festive occasions. This recipe is for a cold punch, but back before modern heating when the houses were hard to keep warm during the winter cold, hot punches were more common around Christmas.

Punch was of course a beverage enjoyed among the well to do upper classes. Working people, farmhands and such made do with beer and aquavit during Christmas. And to be honest, so do I 😉

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Chocolate & Mint Toffees / Sjokolade Og Mintkarameller

A fancy toffee recipe from dansukker.no

Toffees can be made year-round, but for many it will not be a proper Christmas without a few types of toffees among the homemade Christmas sweets.

To make toffees is a matter of training, and may not be the easiest thing to do, but when you have it licked,  the reward is toffees you can be really proud of.

The critical point is to boil the toffee mass long enough. The challenge is to find out when the mass has got just the right chewiness . boil you mass too little it becomes runny, leave the boil too long, and it gets hard as candy. If you use a digital thermometer or a sugar thermometer, you are guaranteed a perfect result. If you do not have such a thermometer, use the test described in the procedure.

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Christmas Fruit Cake / Julens Fruktkake

A classic Christmas fruit cake recipe found on tine.no

Fruit Cake is for many Norwegians one of the main ingredients on the Christmas cake tray. The more dried fruits and nuts, the better it gets. Make the cake early, it can ripen in a cool place for several months (but not in the freezer). It becomes more and more juicy as the fruit gives away more and more liquid. Good durability here!

Tip: Wrap the cake in cellophane and tie with silk ribbon. It will be a great Christmas or hostess gift that is going to be much appreciated!

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To Day Is Recipereminiscing’s 1 Year Anniversary

Exactly 1 year ago to day I posted the first post on this blog. the Junket Book illustration above is from that post. Initially the plan was to run it for this one year only just for fun as I was already running a fairly successful blog and I’ll admit I have been close to closing this one down several times. Every blogger, no matter what sort of blog they run needs visitors to make it worthwhile and visitors came slow and few in the beginning.

Last December this blog had 855 page views all told, my other blog had 41,000. 6 months later the page views here had doubled to a little under 1600, but the other one still clocked in over 40,000 a month. On the other hand I’ve started up many sites and blogs both professionally and privately and I know the breaking point comes after between 6 and 12 months and I’m a stubborn man and this December the stats will show between 4500 and 5000 page views if the trend keeps up.

Starting to post recipes bilingually was a smart move, Norwegian visitors usually comes in second only beaten by Americans these days and being a professional web designer I know how to tag a post and tagging in two languages has it’s advantages obviously.

But most important of all, I’ve come in contact with a lot of very nice other foodies through this blog, some I even call friends to day, so closing down the blog to day as the original plan was is out of the question. Besides I’ve promised you Christmas recipes all the way up to Christmas Eve 😉

Last but not least I like to thank every one of you who drop by my blog if only to check out a recipe or two now and then or more often and even click a like or post a comment here and there, it’s you that makes it worth carrying on.

This one is for all of you – Ted

Mustard Herring / Sennepsild

A classic Scandinavian herring recipe found on dansukker.no

As I have told you before Scandinavians are just about crazy when it comes herring. With this in mind it should come as no surprise that we eat herring at Christmas too. A Scandinavian Christmas buffet without herring in many different forms would simply be a miserable affair. By the way, would you find it strange that we actually have cranberry herring too 😉

And this recipe comes as a request from my friend Thor at ThorNews. Should you like me to post a particular Norwegian or another Scandinavian Christmas recipe, feel free to mail me or leave a massage on one of my Christmas posts – Ted

See this and lots of other delicious recipes on:

“Stick Meat” With Mashed Root Vegetables / Pinnekjøtt Med Rotmos

An ultra traditional Norwegian Christmas dinner recipe found at godt.no

A very happy Thanksgiving to all my American visitors

But here in Norway we do not celebrate Thanksgiving so I carry on with my Christmas Special with one of the two most popular Norwegian Christmas dinner dishes of all.

“Pinnekjøtt” (Lit: Stick Meat, see recipe) is the traditional Christmas dinner along the western coast of Norway. It is salted, sometimes cured and dried mutton or lamb ribs. Back when Norway was an agricultural country people ate what was close at hand. Transportation was costly and unpractical with fresh meat and at the west coast people were sheep farmers so they ate mutton. At the eastern part of the country where my Christmas traditions has it’s roots they eat pork ribs for Christmas as people there were pig farmers in the old days – Ted

See this and lots of other delicious recipes on:

Prune Porridge / Sviskegrøt

A classic Norwegian Christmas dessert found on dinmat.no

Prune Porridge has long traditions as dessert for the big occasions in Norway and not least when it comes to Christmas Eve dinner.

Prunes are still a win-win commodity, available everywhere at a cheap price. And most know the prunes blessings beyond as serving as a very nice sweet treat.

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Julekys / Christmas Kisses

A great Christmas cookie recipe from dansukker.dk

Chopped hazelnuts and soft chocolate topping can easily make this a favourite among the Christmas cookies. And what a nice name for a cookie, Christmas Kisses. The Danes, like the Swedes are great at giving their food nice and entertaining names.

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Vanilla Toffees / Vanilje Karameller

A recipe for homemade toffees found on nrk.no/mat/

Homemade toffees are Christmas sweets with long traditions in Scandinavia. Here’s a recipe for vanilla tasting toffees. Wrap them in cellophane and give them to someone you love. And if you’re not particularly thrilled with the taste of vanilla, don’t worry, there will be 6 more toffee recipes before Christmas.

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Cranberry & Port Gravy / Tyttebær & Portvinsaus

A tasty Christmas gravy found on TescoRealFood

This recipe is based on turkey, but I guess it would be delicious with the Scandinavian Christmas diners done the same way as well, both the Danish goose or duck, the Swedish glazed ham and the Norwegian pork ribs. All of them leave a lot of tasty juices in the roasting tray, and we Scandinavians are after all crazy about cranberry jam – Ted

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Christmas Cod / Juletorsk

A classic Norwegian Christmas fish recipe found on klikk.no 

There are still some Norwegians who swear by Christmas cod on Christmas Eve, particularly in the southernmost part of the country. Admittedly, they are only one or two per cent of the population. That said, many have cod during Christmas. Here is a recipe with lots of delicious Sandefjord butter sauce.

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German Slices /Tyske Skiver

A Norwegian Christmas cookie recipe found on dinmat.no

This is Christmas cakes for those who want to bake an easy and delicious type of Norwegian Christmas favourite. The cakes melts on the tongue and is so tasty that you’ll get weak in the knees from bite one.

When I was a kid every good housewife around where I grew up baked seven different sorts of Christmas cakes and German Slices was one of the seven my mother baked – Ted

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Hot Mulled Cider / Varm Kryddad Cider

A Christmassy Swedish hot drink found on recept.nu

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Nothing tastes better or make you feel better than a hot drink on a cold evening. Here’s an alternative full of Christmassy spices for those who are not that fond of mulled wine. Prepare hot mulled cider from any kind of cider of your choice.

And remember, it’s getting colder right now, you don’t have to wait for Christmas to make the first batch 😉

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