Canned peas for Christmas

Grænar baunir með uppstúf

A traditional Icelandic Christmas meal actually includes canned peas as a side dish (often eaten cold, as well as cold red cabbage). Typically accompanied by white sauce, roux, called "uppstúfur", "uppstúf" or "jafningur" in Icelandic.

By the way, I owe this recipe to Sabrina from Bite-Sized Iceland, where we took part in her Food Tour at the Old Harbour of Reykjavík in the summer. Sabrina is American and married to an Icelandic man for over 20 years. They initially lived in Denmark with their children for a long time, but for several years now they have been living in Iceland, near their Icelandic mother-in-law.

On her food tour, Sabrina told us, among other things, about the typical Icelandic Christmas meal and about a special specialty of her mother-in-law. Her mother-in-law always uses the liquid from the can of peas for the white sauce. “It sounds nasty, but it tastes incredibly delicious”, was Sabrina’s conclusion.

Of course I had to try it - I love Christmas, I love Christmas food, I love Icelandic food. So absolutely perfect for me! And after test-eating, I can only agree with Sabrina's conclusion - sounds nasty, but tastes incredibly delicious! The canned pea liquid gives the roux a wonderfully velvety taste!

By the way, did you know that statistically every Icelander eats two cans of canned peas at Christmas? With around 380,000 Icelanders, around 760,000 cans of these peas are sold here every Christmas!

Ingredients

2 Tbsp margarine

2 Tbsp flour

200 ml warm milk

2 cans of peas

1 tsp sugar

1 pinch of coarse sea salt

1 pinch of black pepper

1 pinch of nutmeg

Preparation

Melt the margarine in a large pot.

Add the flour and mix everything with the whisk until a thick lump is formed.

Pour in the milk in small portions and bring the whole thing to the boil, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens nicely.

Open the cans of peas and pour the liquid into the sauce in portions and stir.

Season to taste with salt, pepper, sugar and a little nutmeg.

If you like, you can add the peas to the warm roux and heat them slowly, but you can also serve the peas cold with the warm sauce, warm potatoes and warm meat.

[Translated from here.]

Fish Snack

Have you ever tried fish snacks or fish chips?

We were recently at a farmers' market that focused on the direct marketing of Icelandic agricultural and fishing products and came across some interesting fish chips there.

These fish chips come from Hella, from Alda Björk Ólafsdóttir's company. Alda, born in Kópavogur in 1966, is actually an Icelandic singer and songwriter. She began her music career with a Bulgarian band with whom she played on cruise ships. She later returned to Iceland and had a No. 1 hit here with her singing partner at the time. In 1989 she went to London to become internationally known. Their most successful hit reached number 7 in the British charts in 1998. She later ran a catering service in the British county of Herfordshire.

However, during her time in the UK she missed Icelandic dried fish and so developed a method to make her own dried fish. And after more than 30 years in England, she returned to Iceland two years ago and now produces her own fish chips in Hella under the brand name “Krispa Fish Snack”.

These fish snacks are healthy snacks, meaning they are full of proteins and omega-3 fatty acids, but contain few carbohydrates.

This pack contains 50g of dried fish. The ingredients for the fish chips here are cod, black olives, onions, garlic, parsley and pepper - for a really intense, spicy taste. And a look at the nutritional values ​​shows: The fish chips have 407 kcal per 100 g, they contain 12 g fat, 8 g carbohydrates and 69 g protein.

For comparison: Classic potato chips have an average of around 540 kcal and contain around 35 g of fat, around 54 g of carbohydrates and 7 g of protein. The fish chips contain significantly less fat and carbohydrates than conventional potato chips, but significantly more protein.

In terms of calories, the fish chips are a bit “lighter” - although I personally think you simply eat less of them. Classic potato chips are often sold in packs of 150 to 170 g, the fish chips here in 50 g packs and due to the intense taste and smell, very few people probably eat a pack at once.

The fish snacks are available in different flavors . There is dried cod or other white fish with oyster sauce, with jalapenos or with black olives with garlic, and there are also salmon chips.

Of course we tried it out and my favorite was actually the salmon chips, which I found very tasty but comparatively harmless. Finally we ended up with the dried cod with black olives and garlic because they tasted and smelled very intense. And they were simply a crazy highlight for a planned invitation.

I don't want to eat large quantities of them, but I find these fish chips very interesting and intense, in terms of taste and smell, and simply an exciting experience.

As far as I know, the fish snacks are sold, among others, at Hagkaup or at some Olis gas stations in Iceland, but also in local shops such as Alda's "Made in Iceland" store on the main street in Selfoss, where they only sell items that... Made in Iceland, food, wool, but also handicrafts, souvenirs and gifts.

So if you ever like fish snacks like this in the store - maybe you would like to buy a pack and try the chips..?

[Translated from here.]

Haustsúpa

Autumn soup with minced meat

It is now really autumn. The sheep roundups are over, the animals are back in the pastures on the farms or on the way to the butcher. The supplies for the winter are being prepared. The Icelandic cuisine in autumn is in accordance with this - for example, a typical Icelandic autumn soup consists of minced meat, with or without bacon, chopped tomatoes, broth and lots of vegetables and potatoes.

I brought you a recipe for such an autumn soup ( haustsúpa ) today. The soup is then served with a dollop of sour cream and herbs.

Ingredients

400 g ground beef

100 g bacon

1 pinch of cumin

2 tbsp oil

6 carrots

2 onions

6 potatoes

800 g chopped tomatoes

Salt and pepper

800 ml beef broth

Preparation

Heat the oil in a large pot.

Fry the caraway seeds...

...then add the minced meat and diced bacon and fry. Season with salt and pepper.

Peel carrots, onions and potatoes, cut into small pieces...

....and add to the pot and fry briefly.

Add the chopped tomatoes and beef broth.

Simmer the soup over low heat for at least 30 minutes.

Serve the soup with sour cream and chopped parsley.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Eplakökur og eplabökur

Various apple pie recipes

It's autumn outside. The leaves are changing color, it's glowing red and gold, the fog hangs between the hills... So time for the apple harvest...? Well, not in Iceland. Apple trees do not grow in the Icelandic climate.

While apples used to only be available as something very special at Christmas, today they are an integral part of many Icelandic dishes.

In the past, even in the 50s and 60s of the 20th century, there were hardly any apples to buy in Iceland throughout the year. I heard from older Icelanders that you could occasionally buy apples at the pharmacy and a few vitamins for expensive money. But apples were usually only imported to Iceland by ship at Christmas. It was something very special for the children when they received an apple and an orange as a Christmas present - for many Icelanders at the time, the smell of this fruit was the epitome of Christmas.

Today that has changed, now in almost every Icelandic supermarket you can choose from at least two types of apples all year round, for prices between around 300 and 900 ISK per kilogram. On average, the price is currently the equivalent of around €3.65 / kg.

But I've heard very vivid descriptions from Icelanders who stood under an apple tree for the first time and were amazed that you could just pick an apple from the tree and actually eat it...

Apples used to be a special luxury in Icelandic cuisine. When I think about that, I really realize how proud the people in Laugarvatnshellar, for example, must have been of their pan for the apple fritters. You can of course also find a traditional recipe for such eplaskífur here on the blog.

Even though apples used to be something special, you can also find many recipes for apple dishes and pastries in old Icelandic cookbooks, and today apples are definitely part of everyday cooking.

You can also find many different recipes for apple cakes on my blog, for example for classic apple cake , for apple cake with vanilla filling and caramel sauce, for a quick everyday apple cake with lots of cinnamon, a very appley apple cake with chopped almonds, a traditional apple cake from the tray or for Eplabúðingur, a delicious winter apple dessert with a pinch of cinnamon. Or a sweet apple bread that tastes really good even on the second and third day when beautifully buttered.

If you don't feel like sweet pastries, you can of course also find savory apple dishes on the blog, for example a tuna and apple salad with leeks and skyr, a fennel and apple salad , which is traditionally served primarily as a side dish Fish dishes were served, a beetroot salad with apple and sour cream or a recipe for cod with bacon and apple cheese sauce .

Apples are wonderfully versatile!

And if you really want to go quickly, you can simply prepare an apple-cinnamon skyr drink .

So now you can indulge in a variety of Icelandic apple dishes to your heart's content this fall! Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Bananabrauð

Banana bread

Recently a friend of mine had a question: She had bought a delicious banana bread in a shop in Flúðir, less bread, actually more of a cake, similar to marble or lemon cake, but with banana flavor. She wanted to bake something like this herself, but was still looking for a recipe. The recipes she had found on my blog were too much in the direction of bread and not enough in the direction of cake...

So at the weekend I tried another recipe and baked it together with my grandchild - and the result was this very tasty, very fluffy banana bread, actually much more cake than bread.

I was very happy with the result, but both my grandchild and my youngest offspring were completely thrilled and both tucked in extensively. There was only a tiny piece left.

Ingredients

2 large ripe bananas

50 g melted butter

2 eggs

200 g sugar

200 g flour

50 g milk

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 pinch of ground vanilla

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350 °F (180 °C) upper/lower heat.

In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar until fluffy.

Then add flour, baking powder, vanilla and cinnamon and stir.

Puree the bananas thoroughly.

Add the banana puree with the melted butter and milk to the bowl and mix well until you have a nice, uniform dough.

Place the dough in a loaf pan lined with baking paper and bake in a preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) for about 40 to 50 minutes (test with a toothpick!).

Then let the cake cool down a bit

... and then serve with whipped cream if you like.

[Translated from here.]

Landslide in Hveradalir geothermal area

Southeast of Reykjavík, about 20 km from the outskirts of the city, you will pass a very active geothermal area, right next to the ring road. We like to make a first stop here when we pick up visitors from the airport to get a first impression of Iceland - because here it steams and hisses and bubbles and smells intensely of sulfur. I like the smell, then I know - I'm really in Iceland! Well, not all visitors react positively to the smell, some even call it stink.

There was a landslide here in July 2024, and the changes around the footpath through the high temperature area really made me realize how sensitive nature is and how quickly all sorts of things can fly in your face - in the ull sense of the word.

Before and after picture

If you drive from Reykjavík over the Hellisheiði plateau towards Hveragerði, you will pass the turnoff to the Hellisheiðarvirkju n power plant. If you drive towards the power plant, after a few meters a small road (378) branches off to the right, which leads to Skíðaskálinn, the ski hut in Hveradalir.

There is a small but very exciting geothermal area here to visit. As I said, we like to make a quick first stop here when we pick up visitors from the airport, and I think it's worth it, even though parking has recently become chargeable.

But you also get something here:

You can walk through the area on special "hovering walkways" and directly experience, smell (it really smells intensely of sulfur!) and feel the geothermal energy. There are information boards along the path about the history of this geothermal area and the peculiarities of such areas.

These walkways hover above the hot earth and have only a few points of contact with the ground. This minimizes interference with nature and the paths can be easily changed, adapted and maintained. And adapting to changing nature is actually necessary here.

There was a landslide here in mid-July 2024, southeast of the ski hut.

It was probably a combination of several factors that triggered the landslide, according to the responsible geologist from Reykjavík Energy on site. A wide stream of gray clay poured down from the hill to the street.

According to the expert from the district heating company, there was probably steam activity in the fumaroles in the ground, which weakened the top layer of the earth, and due to the heavy rainfall over the weekend, the ground was probably so saturated with water that it ultimately collapsed under its own weight. The landslide broke through the top layer of soil, which probably caused the hot spring to boil heavily and the spring clay then sprayed in all directions. The landslide, combined with the outflow of the spring clay, probably did not happen too quickly; it probably took several minutes until the gray mud reached the gravel road - and stopped there. The expert believes this scenario is at least more likely than that a sudden steam explosion in the spring triggering the landslide.

Here you can clearly see how much the place has changed again during the event - whereas previously you could walk along the path for quite some distance, the footbridge now ends further ahead and hovers over an abyss of steam and nothingness that wasn't there before was there.

I have no idea how deep this "nothing" is, but it is certainly steaming and bubbling tremendously around the jetty and in some places the hot gray mud from the fumaroles is splashing onto the slabs, at least when we were there in early August 2024 to look at the landslide.

Incidentally, in August 2024, concrete plans for a planned large development on the Skíðaskáli were also announced:

The ski lodge is to be expanded by 500 m², with a greenhouse, restaurant and a French-style après-ski bar as well as a spa with mud baths. A hotel with 150 rooms is to be built opposite the ski hut. The construction of a swimming lagoon is also planned (on the left at the edge of the picture). And of course corresponding parking spaces for both the lagoon and the hotel.

Sketch of the planned innovations
Source: mbl.is / Alternance

A variety of activities are also planned in the area, including running and cycling trails and ski slopes. By the way, the slopes should be usable all year round; the slope should be covered with appropriate plastic mats for this purpose.

To be honest - I'm not yet sure whether the construction project in this form really makes sense here. Personally, it would be too risky for me to invest money here in such an active high-temperature area, in the middle of hot water vapor, gases and spitting mud pots, where the hot steam sometimes melts the asphalt of the ring road...

PS:

Photo from 2019

If the ski lodge looks familiar to you even though you've never been here - then maybe it's because you've seen the movie "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty".

The movie is a 2013 American comedy-drama film directed and starring Ben Stiller.

The movie is about the head of the negative archive of a renowned magazine, who regularly loses himself in daydreams and then suddenly finds himself having adventures in real life. In Greenland he has to jump out of a drunk pilot's helicopter into the ice-cold North Atlantic and ends up in a group of sharks, in Iceland he gets caught in the volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and finally he hikes through Afghanistan on foot - and most of the scenes from his adventures were filmed in Iceland, regardless of whether they are set in Greenland, Iceland or Afghanistan:

• When Walter Mitty flies to Greenland, he lands in the film at Nuuk airport - the scene was filmed at Hornafjörður domestic airport, 7 km north of Höfn - in Iceland.

• When Walter Mitty drinks beer out of glass boots in a bar in Nuuk on Greenland - the scene was filmed in Stykkishólmur, on Snæfellsnes peninsula, where the ferry to Flatey and the Westfjords leaves.

• When Walter Mitty goes to Stykkishólmur in the film, it was filmed in Seyðisfjörður - well, they had already used Stykkishólmur for Nuuk.

• When Walter Mitty finally cycles through Afghanistan, he passes Skogafoss, on the south coast of Iceland.

• In a scene when the volcanic eruption in Iceland is imminent, Walter Mitty meets an Icelandic family in front of an empty hotel / restaurant and exchanges his rubber doll for a skateboard with one of the children - this scene was filmed here in front of the Skíðaskálinn.

Here are pictures from the movie:

You can definitely recognize the Skíðaskálinn, even if the colors had been slightly changed for the movie and the outbuilding with the decorated roof had been added.

Let's wait and see what things will look like here in a few years...

[Translated from here.]