Blini – Russian Pancakes / Russiske Pannekaker

A pancake recipe found in “Mat som Smaker”
(Tasty Food) utgitt i 1968

Blini is Russian mini pancakes popular in Scandinavia. They differ from regular Scandinavian pancakes by raising them with yeast. Should you make real blinds, there should be buckwheat flour in the batter, and you will get pancakes that taste great served with chopped raw onions, crème fraîche and capelin* roe or smoked salmon and sour cream.

* A small fish of the North Atlantic, resembling a smelt. It is abundant in coastal waters and provides a staple food for humans and many animals.

Norwegian Beef and Beer Casserole / Okse- og Ølgryte

A lovely hearty casserole dish found on dinmat.no

Treat yourself to this delicious warming beef casserole,
perfect for those cold winter evenings.

Rolls with Dark Beer / Rundstykker med Mørkt Øl

A roll recipe found in “Mat for Ølvenner”
(Food for Beer Friends) published by Aventura in 1987

Beer in baking is not uncommon in older Norwegian recipes, neither in bread type of recipes like here or in cake recipes. It gives a distinctive delicate flavor and is well worth trying.

Good Old Fashioned Norwegian Wort Cake / God Gammeldags Vørterkake

A traditional Norwegian baking recipe found on kiwi.no

The sediments from beer brewing was the start of the oldest
Norwegian sweet yeast baking. We have eaten  wort cakes
for over 300 years in Norway.

Norwegian wort beer is a non-alcoholic drink made from water, malt and hops and added carbonic acid. In principle, wort beer is beer that has not been through fermentation. In Norway, wort beer is typically dark, roughly looking like Guinness. Wort beer is brewed by Ringnes, Hansa and Aass today.

Wort beer contains some minerals, malt sugar and some b vitamins. Maltese sugar provides fast energy, and the beer is therefore good as a sport drink. The beer is dark, sweet and with a little taste of hops.

Steak and Eggs with Beer and Molasses / Biff og Egg med Pils og Mørk Sirup

A classic Irish breakfast recipe found on irishcentral.com

Steak and eggs is a dish prepared with beefsteak and eggs as primary ingredients. It is most typically served as a breakfast or brunch food, although it can also be consumed at any mealtime, such as for dinner in the evening.

Ingredients

Various types of beefsteaks can be used, such as rib eye, strip, sirloin and flank, among others. Additional ingredients may include bell pepper, garlic, onion, butter, salt, pepper, seasonings and others. Accompaniments may include various sauces, such as steak sauce, Worcestershire sauce, chimichurri. and others.

Variations

Variations include steak and egg sandwiches, open sandwiches and steak and Eggs Benedict.  A version of steak and egg salad utilizes greens such as arugula, poached eggs and steak.  Vegetarian versions also exist, in which vegetables, such as cauliflower, squash and potatoes, are sliced into thick steaks and served with eggs.

In popular culture

Steak and eggs is the traditional NASA astronaut’s breakfast, first served to Alan Shepard before his flight on May 5, 1961.

Medieval Monday – Sweet Frumenty / Søt Frumenty

A Twelfth Night side dish recipe found on cookit.e2bn.org

This is a standard dish appearing in many variations over the centuries. It makes a lovely side dish, especially with strongly flavoured meats. It was a symbolic dish in winter, a sign that spring would come. It later came to be served as a festival dish on Twelfth Night (5th of January).

This is the original recipe:

‘To make frumente. Tak clene whete & braye yt wel in a morter tyl the holes gon of; seethe it til it breste in water. Nym it up & lat it cole. Tak good broth & swete mylk of kyn or of almand & tempere it therwith. Nym yelkes of eyren rawe & saffroun & cast therto; salt it: lat it naught boyle after the etren ben cast therinne. Messe it forth.’

(Curye on Inglysch CI.IV.i.)

Frankfurters in Lager / Pølser i Pils

An exciting  frankfurter recipe found on gilde.no

Frankfurters are very popular in Norway, both among children and grownups, but they are not often served as fancy as in this recipe. It will take a little time, but it will be worth it, believe me – Ted

Beer Cake / Ølkake

A classic Scandinavian cake recipe found on droetker.no

Mash-Topped Beef & Guinness Pie / Oksekjøtt og Guinness Pai med Potetmoslokk

A great winter dinner recipe found on jamieoliver.com

Dandy Shandy / Klassisk Shandy

A refreshing drink recipe found on bhg.com

Shandy is beer mixed with a soft drink, such as carbonated lemonade, ginger beer, ginger ale, apple juice, or orange juice. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste, usually half-and-half. Non-alcoholic shandies are known as “rock shandies”. Shandies are more popular in western Europe, particlarly in Britain, than other parts of the world.

In some jurisdictions, the low alcohol content of shandies makes them exempt from laws governing the sale of alcoholic beverages.

   

Medieval Monday – Buttered Beere

A recipe for a real cockles warmer found on historyextra.com

In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott brings a recipe from the past. In this article, Sam recreates buttered beere – a sweet, slightly alcoholic drink that warmed the cockles in Tudor times.

This is an authentic Tudor recipe from 1588, taken from “The Good Huswifes Handmaide for the Kitchin”. It’s similar to a caudle, a drink of warm wine or ale with sugar, eggs and spices, renowned for its medicinal properties and popular at the same period.

   

Baconista Brats with Tangy Western Slaw / Baconista Brats med Tangy Western Slaw

A smashing barbeque recipe found on BetterHomes&Gardens

Marinate bratwursts in spiced-up German beer for a flavour boost that
can only be topped by the bacon that’s later wrapped
around the sausages before grilling.

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Steaks with Onions / Biff med Løk

A classic Norwegian restaurant dish found in
“Det Gode Norske Kjøkken” (The Good Norwegian Kitchen) published by Gyldendal in 1981

This rather simple and basic but delicious dish was a classic in Oslo restaurants in the nineteenth century up to the late sixties when the capitol’s population unfortunately lost track of their own culinary traditions and anything foreign from pizza to indian and chinese food became the order of the day.

It took nearly fifty years before we rediscovered our own traditional restaurant food and today we can fortunately again get a plate of steak with onion in a lot of the city’s restaurants.

In my youth I often dropped by my father’s workplace at lunch time on Saturday  and we would cross the street to an old small and dark restaurant  called “Brugården” for steak and onion, so I admit I’ve missed the dish and love the fact that it is now back on the city’s menus – Ted

 

Guinness Sticky Toffee Pudding / Klebrig Toffeepudding med Guinness

A classic weekend recipe found on goodtoknow.co.uk

This Guinness sticky toffee pudding is so indulgent, sweet and spongey – and it’s absolutely delicious with plenty of hot custard poured over it. There’s nothing as warming on a cold winter day as a really rich, sticky pudding and this will really hit the spot. You make this recipe in a slow cooker or in the oven, so take your pick. It takes a little while to cook, which means it’s more of a weekend project, but it’s well worth the time it takes to make and you’ll see why when you get that perfect pudding texture!

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Medieval Monday – Parsnip Fritters / Stekt Pastinakk

A historic recipe found on The Boston Globe

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in Context: Like carrots, parsnips are native to Eurasia and have been eaten there since ancient times. Zohary and Hopf note that the archaeological evidence for the cultivation of the parsnip is “still rather limited”, and that Greek and Roman literary sources are a major source about its early use. They warn that “there are some difficulties in distinguishing between parsnip and carrot (which, in Roman times, were white or purple) in classical writings since both vegetables seem to have been sometimes called pastinaca, yet each vegetable appears to be well under cultivation in Roman times”. The parsnip was much esteemed, and the Emperor Tiberius accepted part of the tribute payable to Rome by Germany in the form of parsnips. In Europe, the vegetable was used as a source of sugar before cane and beet sugars were available. As pastinache comuni, the “common” pastinaca figures in the long list of comestibles enjoyed by the Milanese given by Bonvesin da la Riva in his “Marvels of Milan” (1288).

This plant was introduced to North America simultaneously by the French colonists in Canada and the British in the Thirteen Colonies for use as a root vegetable, but in the mid-19th century, it was replaced as the main source of starch by the potato and consequently was less widely cultivated.

In 1859, a new cultivar called ‘Student’ was developed by James Buckman at the Royal Agricultural College in England. He back-crossed cultivated plants to wild stock, aiming to demonstrate how native plants could be improved by selective breeding. This experiment was so successful, ‘Student’ became the major variety in cultivation in the late 19th century.

Text from Wikipedia