The Susanne

Here’s an incred­ibly simple recipe for some­thing that tastes incred­ibly good and will lift almost any food to incred­ible height, taste wise. Yep.

Take

• a big bunch of pars­ley about 1,5 dl I should say), chopped.
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 dl olive oil to start but maybe as much as 1 dl depend­ing on how runny you like it.
• a large squeeze of lemon juice

Mix it all together in a small bowl. Eat it:

• on a sand­wich (I’ve tried it with fenalår and beef pas­trami so far, both delish),
• with your schnitzel (tried it, yum!)
• as salad dress­ing (oh my goodness!)
• on samlon (just ima­gin­ing but ohh…just the thought of it)
• or chicken (mmmmm!)
• well the list could go on forever.

Here’s my quick’n’easy, no fuss, wham-bam-thankyoumam aioli that will leave your guests want­ing more more more!

You’ll need:

• 2 dl light may­on­naise (the Nor­we­gian kind is best but I’m sure other types will work also. Maybe whisk in an egg yolk if you find it lacks the mmmmmm factor)
• 2-3 cloves garlic, crushed (I’m a garlic fiend and can easily be caught using more – it all depends on what you like!)
• 1 tbsp Dijon mus­tard (or any kind you have around)
• 1 medium-​sized boiled potato (left over from last night’s dinner?)
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Here’s what to do:
in a small mixing bowl, throw in the may­on­naise (and the egg yolk if you’re adding that. It’s easier to mix in without the other stuff already in there). Stir in the mus­tard, the lemon juice and the crushed garlic. Mix it all together. Then peel and mash the boiled potato and mix it in with the rest.

Place in the refri­ger­ator to cool and for the fla­vours to blend prop­erly, for about 30 minutes or until people arrive!

Yum yum.

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!

Tzatziki is such a yummy Greek treat, and it goes well with so many things that are espe­cially tempt­ing on a hot summer’s day. Off the top of my head I can men­tion bread, potato wedges, a lovely Greek salad, salmon (or trout) in any shape or form, cured ham, fenalår, dyrekjøtt(cured horse meat, it’s excel­lent!) steak, chops, roast beef… the list goes on and on!

Here’s a recipe for a refresh­ing, low-​fat tzatziki:

• 1 cucumber
• 3 dl 0,1% Kesam
• a sprinkle of salt
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 3 sprigs fresh mint
• a few drops of hot sauce

Slice the cucum­ber in half length­wise and use a tea­spoon to scrape out the seeds. Coarsely grate the cucum­ber and place in a sieve. Sprinkle with salt and leave to drain for 30 minutes, then cover with coffee fil­ters and press down to squeeze out the rest of the liquid.

Mix the grated cucum­ber with the kesam, the crushed garlic and the lemon juice. Finely chop the mint, and mix it in. Add the hot sauce last, to taste.

Place the tzatziki in the refri­ger­ator and let it chill for about 1 hour before serving.

When I first put my hands on my Larousse the first thing I looked up was how to make stock. I wanted to make my own, deli­cious sauces from nat­ural ingredi­ents instead of bouil­lon cubes or the like which are basic­ally made from fat and arti­fi­cial fla­vour­ing. I suc­cess­fully made a batch of lovely stock, but it took me about eight hours and I just don’t have that kind of time usu­ally. So I decided to take the things I’d learned about making stock and trans­fer to simply sauces! Here’s my method which is so easy and com­par­at­ively quick I now use it all the time:

• Bones
  (cut from the meat you’re cook­ing
  or saved up from the last time you boned meat
  or store bought)
• a little olive oil or butter
• whatever veget­ables you have/ like
• lots of water

Heat a large skil­let and add the oil or butter. Brown the bones.

Coarsely chop the veget­ables and throw them in with the meat for a little while.

Pour over 250ml water and boil…

…until the liquid is reduced to a jelly-​like substance.

Add loads more water (about as much as will fit com­fort­ably, but think about how much time you have. It has to reduce.)

Reduce to a nice con­sist­ency and drain the stock through a sieve or colan­der. The bones and veget­ables can be thrown out now.

Pour the stock into a sauce­pan. Deglaze the skil­let and add to sauce. Reduce to whatever con­sist­ency you like your sauce, then season to taste — and voilà!