The Susanne

The first time I tasted this was on our second night in Sicily. Imme­di­ately after my first taste I just knew I’d have to make this at home. The recipe is incred­ibly simple, and the taste of the fin­ished dish is even more incred­ibly deli­cious. This is my gift to all of you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do - every time!

Feeds two:

• 1 kg fresh mussels
• 2 dl wine (red or white, both work!)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 shal­lots, chopped
• 2 toma­toes, chopped
• 1 dl pars­ley, chopped
• olive oil
• salt & pepper

Start by clean­ing the mus­sels. Scrub off all grit, ‘volcano shells’, stringy bits, all of it. Any dirt left on the mus­sels will go in the broth and you’ll have to eat it. Yeah. Throw out any that don’t close when you touch them as they’re dead and poten­tially harmful!

In a medium sized pot on a medium heat, start by heat­ing some olive oil and then sauté the shal­lots and the garlic until barely golden. Add the toma­toes and the wine and stir care­fully to mix it all up nicely.

Add the mus­sels on top, cover, and let sit for a few minutes. After about 7 to 10 minutes the mus­sels should all have opened. Dis­card any that have not opened.

Use a slot­ted spoon to move the mus­sels into a serving dish. Stir the pars­ley into the broth, add some salt and pepper to taste, and pour it over the mus­sels — then serve and eat!

Yum!

The import­ant thing about mus­sels is, firstly - check­ing that the mus­sels in your area are safe to eat (if you’re pick­ing them your­self) and secondly - only using the ones that are closed or close upon touch. If they stay open, they’re dead and pos­sibly deadly. Like­wise, once they’re cooked, only eat the ones that have opened.

So that’s it: (raw = closed + cooked = open) = good.

To serve two (maybe three) you need:

• 2 kg fresh mussels
• 4 car­rots, julienned
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 tin chopped tomato
• 1/2 bottle good red wine
• 1 tbsp thyme
• salt and pepper
• a good splash greek olive oil

In a large pot, sauté the onion in the olive until soft, then add the garlic and sauté until it starts turn­ing golden and gets that nutty aroma.

Add the tin of tomato and a little salt and pepper to taste, then pour in about half of the red wine. Let it all boil for a few minutes until it comes together and starts to thicken.

Add the thyme and the rest of the wine.

Place the car­rots in the broth and then place the mus­sels on top, and cover. Steam for about eight to ten minutes or until all the mus­sels have opened.

I recently bought a side of smoked salmon for 17. Mai and thought ‘well how on earth are we going to eat all that salmon?’. Now, what I came up with didn’t reduce the amount of salmon in any way, but it did help spice it up so to speak. What I thought was how lovely it would be to have both smoked salmon and gravlaks for 17. Mai – and here’s how I made it happen! (if you want to make reg­u­lar gravlaks just use raw salmon and follow the same instruc­tions, but use a table­spoon salt instead of just a tea­spoon) Let’s just say, this was a big hit! And for all you out there who worry about gravlaks being ‘raw’… well, this one isn’t!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• ½ side smoked salmon
• 1 bunch dill
• 1tsp salt
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 4 cl whisky or cognac

Here’s what to do:
Mix salt and sugar in a bowl. Coarsely chop the dill and mix it all together.

Spread half the mix­ture in the bottom of a shal­low dish that is large enough for the salmon to fit in.

Place the salmon on top, skin side down. Rub the remain­ing mix­ture into the salmon.

Pour over the booze.

Put some­thing heavy on top of the salmon to weigh it down, cover, and place in the refri­ger­ator for four to five days.

Take it out twice a day and turn it over, making sure there is always dill mix­ture cov­er­ing the salmon.

Scrape off the dill and brine before serving and slice thinly.

Serve with mus­tard sauce…Yum!

Here in Norway we have some­thing called ’fjellørret’ mean­ing ’moun­tain trout’. Basic­ally it’s trout caught in little moun­tain rivers and lakes, they’re small and incred­ibly deli­cious! I call them arctic trout as their latin name has ‘arctic’ in it. Hard­anger­trout are trout caught on Hard­anger­vidda. With a birth­place so wild and won­der­ful, no wonder they taste like a little piece of heaven…

Serves 2 hungry Nor­we­gian fish lovers

• 2 Hard­anger trout, boned and skin scraped
• 4 tbsp butter or margarine
• Salt and pepper

Cut the fil­lets in half so you have eight pieces. Rub both sides with salt and pepper to taste.

Put a heavy-​bottomed skil­let on a high heat, and melt 1 tbsp butter. Add two pieces of trout, skin side down. Let them cook for about two minutes, then flip and cook for about 1 minute on the other side. If the skin isn’t crisp, flip them again to let the skin turn lovely and crunchy. Repeat with the rest of the fish, cook­ing two at a time and adding more butter when needed. Serve imme­di­ately, with a potato salad or maybe twice baked potatoes?