The Susanne

…was yes­ter­day! I’m gutted I missed it. I’d even been out and bought a kilo of mutton and a head of cab­bage and was only going to take a quick little nap before I star­ted cooking… And whaddya know, I woke up this morn­ing at 8, feel­ing nowhere near rested and com­pletely hor­ri­fied that not only had I missed out on National Fårikål Day, I’d also missed the first epis­ode of Hellstrøm Rydder Opp, the Nor­we­gian ver­sion of Gordon Ramsay’s Kit­chen Night­mares. I’d been look­ing for­ward to it for months now, sway­ing between excite­ment at the show and dis­gust at the old Nor­we­gian man trying to ‘be’ Gordon Ramsay. In the end, though, noth­ing was to keep me from watch­ing the show. Oh yea, except fall­ing asleep! Or should I say going into hiberna­tion. Or a coma. Not sure what to call it, but I’m very sur­prised that I actu­ally man­aged to sleep that long. Almost twenty hours straight — I didn’t even wake up once, so when I finally awoke this morn­ing I was fully dressed, on top of my bed­spread and with only a wool­len blanket pro­tect­ing me from the frosty morn­ing air. After get­ting up, some­what gingerly, and chat­ting to my mate R on msn for a little while, I dragged my sorry bee­hind into the shower and came out fif­teen minutes later feel­ing refreshed — and got star­ted on my fårikål!

Now, just because I missed out on the actual day it does in no way mean I’m will­ing to miss out on fårikål. I just love fårikål, it’s so deli­cious in all its sim­pli­city! Mutton, cab­bage, salt and whole pep­per­corns, who knew that would make such a scrump­tious com­bin­a­tion? I know wiki­pe­dia claims you’re sup­posed to add flour to the dish to thicken the sauce, but I’ve never had it with flour and frankly I can’t ima­gine it tast­ing any better with flour in it. Actu­ally I’m will­ing to take on anyone that claims fårikål is sup­posed to made with flour — I’ll fight till death!

Boiled pota­toes, though, are a must. And a cold beer to go along with it. Luck­ily some people left behind the odd can of beer when they were unce­re­mo­ni­ously kicked out of my party on Sat­urday night (after I passed out, I’m ashamed to admit) so I’ve got the beer thing sorted. For those who want to avoid alco­hol a non-​alcoholic beer would be good, or even just a glass of ice cold water!

I posted my own recipe for fårikål way back in June when there wasn’t a piece of mutton to be found any­where. So I have had to wait until now — but good things come to those who wait and this is def­in­itely a very good thing! I think I’ll make tra­di­tional Irish Stew next — as good as the modern ver­sion with beef and Guin­ness and loads of yummy veget­ables is I do love the tra­di­tional recipe very much also. And I’m def­in­itely hoping to be able to make fenalår — cured leg of lamb. This is a lengthy and smelly pro­cess though, so I’ll prob­ably have to do it at the parents’ house.. So we’ll se if I get around to it! Mmmm, and now I’m on the sub­ject of deli­cious lamb and mutton dishes my mouth is water­ing at the thought of mum’s amaz­ingly deli­cious lamb stew with green beans and tomato. Ohh, yum! I guess I’ll be eating a lot of both mutton and lamb this autumn. What a lovely thought! I just love autumn!

Also I did end up going to the network’s web­site look­ing for a rerun date for Hellstrøm Rydder Opp. I didn’t manage to locate it, but what I found instead was much, much better: Web TV! Yey! So I’ve now watched the first epis­ode and my feel­ings about the show are just about unchanged. On the pos­it­ive side I real­ised that as this show is shot in Norway and mainly in Oslo, I’ll be able to visit some of the places after the makeover! Which is some­thing I’ve dreamt of since Kit­chen Night­mares came out. As for the enter­tain­ment value of Hellstrøm Rydder Opp, though, the whole thing was a little bland and the dia­logue some­what stac­cato. Oh, how I missed Gordon’s pas­sion­ate excalmations!  But to give credit to the poor man (Hellstrøm) it can’t be easy trying to fit into Gordon Ramsay’s shoes. And he really is an amaz­ing chef. I’m just not sure if he’s really the right man for this kind of thing… I guess I’ll just have to keep watch­ing the show to find out ;)

Fårikål is the Nor­we­gian national dish, pos­sibly the Nor­we­gian coun­ter­part to the Irish Stew. It is made from large chunks of mutton which are layered in a large pot with cab­bage and pep­per­corns. It is so simple and so deli­cious! Although I sup­pose it’s one of those dishes that people either love or hate… Enough people love it that there is in fact a National Fårikål day on the last Thursday in Septem­ber, when it is cus­tom­ary to make an enorm­ous pot of Fårikål and invite loads of friends. Served with boiled pota­toes and Aquavit, and maybe some good wine or beer, everything’s set for a great party. Or as we Nor­we­gi­ans call it, Fårikålfest.

To feed 4:

• 1 ½ kg mutton, in chunks with the bones still on
• 1 ½ kg cabbage
• 3 dl water
• 4 tsp peppercorns
• 2 tsp salt

Cut the cab­bage into quar­ters, and layer in a large pot with the mutton. Sprinkle pep­per­corns and salt between each layer, and add the water. Bring to a boil, cover and then reduce the heat, let­ting it simmer on a low heat for about 2-3 hours or until the meat falls off the bone. I like to start cook­ing in the morn­ing and then let it simmer all day long, as this is def­in­itely a dish which gets better the longer it’s been ‘in the making’.

Serve piping hot with boiled pota­toes and a cold beer or ice water to drink!

In olden days, when the Irish stew ori­gin­ated, people lived in cabins and did not have the many dif­fer­ent utensils we have today, much less the abund­ance of ingredi­ents at hand that we have come to take for gran­ted. The potato was the staple dish of the Irish­man, and that fact is reflec­ted in most of the tra­di­tional Irish cook­ing. This is a recipe for authen­tic Irish stew, how­ever it calls for mutton and not kid which was used a lot in cook­ing because the sheep were to valu­able to eat. The ratio of meat-potato-onion should always stay the same, 1-2-1/2

• 500 g stew mutton in large pieces
• 1 kg peeled potatoes
• 250 g onion

Place the mutton in the bottom of a large pot. Place the pota­toes and onions on top, whole. Add about 6 dl water and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover and cook on a low heat for about 2 hours. Serve with pickled red cabbage!