Kurltoppar

Liquorice cookies

Ingredients

3 egg whites
200 g brown sugar
150 g dark chocolate chips
150 g lakkriskurl


Preparation

Preheat the oven to 300 °F (150 °C) (upper heat - no circulating air!).

Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Add the sugar and stir everything together.
Also whisk the chocolate chips and finally mix in the Lakkrískurl.

Using 2 teaspoons, place the finished dough in small heaps on the baking tray.

Bake in the oven at 300 °F (150 °C) for about 15 minutes.

Then let them cool down and carefully remove the cookies from the baking paper.


Annotation:

Lakkrískurl are small chocolate-covered licorice balls. Liquorice chocolate is very popular in Iceland - and it tastes great! Unfortunately, you can't find anything like that in Germany - so we're stocking up on licorice chocolate during our Icelandic vacation for the next cold winter.

Alternatively, you can also order Lakkrískurl online.

Kurltoppar - photo from July 2022

[Translated from here.]

Jöklatindar

Ingredients

4 egg whites
200 g sugar
200 g coconut flakes
100 white chocolate
60 g peppermint candies


Preparation

Preheat the oven to 300 °F (150 °C).

Beat the egg whites with the sugar until stiff. Crush the chocolate and stir it into the egg whites. Also fold in the coconut flakes. Also chop the peppermint candies in the food processor - be careful, it gets very dusty! Also stir in the chopped peppermint candies.

Place small heaps on the baking tray with two teaspoons and bake in the oven at 300 °F (150 °C) for approx. 12 - 15 minutes.

Baking with crushed peppermints was quite unusual for me, but I found the result extremely tasty!

By the way, Jöklatindar means “glacier peak” in English because of the shape and color of the cookies.





[Translated from here.]

Hafrakex

Recipe for a sheet of oatmeal cookies, approx. 25 – 30 pieces

Ingredients

100 g melt-in-the-mouth oat flakes

70 g flour

50 g sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 pinch of salt

50 g margarine

2 – 4 Tbsp milk

Preparation

In a bowl, mix the oat flakes with the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the margarine in small flakes and knead everything vigorously, adding the milk a spoonful at a time until a smooth dough is formed.

Roll out the dough in smaller portions between two layers of baking paper and traditionally cut out the cookies with a round cookie cutter.

Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 400 °F (200 °C) on the middle rack for about 8 to 10 minutes until the cookies are light brown.

Allow to cool and then serve the biscuits traditionally spread with salted butter.

Annotation:

For a normal Icelandic housewife, a sheet of oatmeal cookies is of course far too small a quantity to start baking with. At least three to four times the amount is baked - but sometimes a smaller portion is enough.

[Translated from here.]

Curry fish with pineapple

Ingredients

750 g cod fillet
1 can of pineapple (in pieces)
4 - 5 Tbsp flour
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika powder
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp instant vegetable broth
1 diced onion
3 carrots
250 ml cream


Preparation

Mix the flour with the curry powder, salt, paprika, pepper and instant vegetable stock powder. Set aside about 1/3 of the mixture.

Heat oil in a large pan.

Cut the cod fillet into strips and roll the fish in the flour and spice mixture. Then fry in the pan on both sides.

Then put the fried fish pieces aside on a plate and fry the diced onion and the peeled, thinly sliced ​​carrots in the hot oil in the pan until the carrots are soft.

Put the pineapple and the pineapple juice from the can into the pan, then add the cream and thicken with the remaining flour.

Add the fish pieces to the sauce and let them steep briefly.

This curry fish is traditionally served with rice and salad.

[Translated from here.]

Bláberja rjómaís - blueberry ice cream

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

200 g sugar

250 g low-fat quark

2 Tbsp blueberry jelly

400 ml whipping cream

200 g blueberries

Preparation

Mix the egg yolks thoroughly with the sugar.

Add the low-fat quark, the blueberry jelly and the blueberries (either frozen or fresh - both work) one after the other to the egg yolk-sugar mixture and mix thoroughly.

In a separate container, whip the cream until stiff and carefully fold it into the other ingredients.

Put the whole thing in a freezer container, close it carefully - and put it in the freezer for several hours until the ice cream is frozen through.

Then remove the ice cream in a block from the freezer container (if necessary, run a little warm water over the frozen container, then it will dissolve without major losses) and serve, cut into slices, with fresh blueberries.

Annotation:

Traditionally, this blueberry ice cream is of course made with skyr, specifically blueberry skyr. Since skyr is not really available outside of Iceland, low-fat quark and blueberry jelly offer a very good alternative in terms of taste!

[Translated from here.]

Bláber - blueberries

Blaber

The more I get involved with Icelandic cuisine and browse through cookbooks and recipes, the more often I come across it: the blueberry.

I always come across blueberries in very different environments, both as blueberry jelly, as blueberry skyr ice cream or as blueberry cake, but also in various meat and fish dishes or as “Bláberjasultu”, a kind of blueberry chutney, a classic side dish for various main dishes.

Onions with blueberries, rosemary and lemon juice - here as a basis for the salmon dish

Breakfast sandwiches - once with fish paste, once with blueberry jam

Even when we went out to eat in Iceland, I still meet them again and again, the blueberry, for example here on the dessert in the Edda Hotel in Laugarvatn:

Dessert at the Edda Hotel: chocolate cake with ice cream and blueberries

In Icelandic, the berry is called “bláber”, literally “blauber”.

I have now learned that the blueberry (Latin: Vaccinium) is the same as the blueberry and belongs to the heather family. It grows in species- and nutrient-poor regions (such as the heathlands and the Icelandic highlands), is deeply rooted in the earth so that storms do not affect it much, and covered with snow it also survives deep frosts well or even when the plant is completely dead If it freezes, the rootstock will sprout again next spring.

The blueberry also has the great advantage that it can usually be harvested from July onwards, not just from the end of August, like other berries in Iceland - which makes it particularly popular with people and animals (also as a source of vitamins in a rather barren area). makes popular.

Blueberries grow on small bushes that are usually between 10 and 60 cm high and in autumn the leaves change color and fall off. The bushes reach an age of up to 30 years, but a single bush is enough to cover a heath area of ​​several 1,000 m² in the long term - through a so-called "runner formation".

By the way, there are studies that suggest certain ingredients in blueberries can reduce the risk of colon cancer.

[Translated from here.]

Bananabrauð

Banana bread

Banana plants in the greenhouse in Hveragerði

No, of course banana bread is not a "classic Icelandic" food, but over 50 years ago a former US soldier who was stationed in Iceland during World War II and fell in love with an Icelandic woman brought the first banana plant as a gift brought to the country, bananas have spread sustainably there, especially in the greenhouses of Hveragerði and the surrounding area, which are heated with geothermal energy.

Icelandic bananas are particularly popular today, especially because they can ripen directly on the palm trees and not in boxes like the imported bananas from Central and South America.

The recipe for banana bread probably came to Iceland with the US soldiers - but it quickly became native there and can now be found in almost every Icelandic recipe collection.


PS: We had visitors over the weekend (May 2019), so I took the opportunity to revise the photos of the old recipe here from 2014 and post new pictures!

Ingredients

4 large ripe bananas
250 g mixture of oat bran and flakes
100 ml cooking oil
100 g sugar
2 eggs
500 g flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
100 g coarsely chopped nuts

Preparation

Mash the bananas...

...and mix with the bran and flakes. Let the whole thing stand for a few minutes until everything is softened.

Meanwhile, in another bowl, mix the oil with the eggs and sugar.

Add the banana-bran mixture to the egg mixture.

Then add flour, baking powder, salt and the chopped nuts to the dough...

...and knead everything thoroughly.

Bake the dough in a well-greased or lined oblong cake tin in the lower third of the oven at 350 °F (180 °C) for about an hour.

Allow the banana brew ð to cool thoroughly before cutting it into slices. Be careful, if you don't let the bread cool enough, it will become very crumbly - but still very tasty!

We then enjoyed the banana bread with butter!

A banana bread song, so to speak!

[Translated from here.]

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur – Hot Dogs in Iceland

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur - Best Worscht in Town

When it comes to fast food, you'll find it

There is one thing in Iceland - hot dog stands.

One of the most famous, if not the most famous hot dog stand in Iceland can be found in Reykjavík near the harbor, opposite the Kolaportið customs house : B æjarins Beztu Pylsur.

The place has existed since 1937 and former US President Bill Clinton was a guest here, as was the guitarist from Metallica - something the place itself proudly points out.

Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, or “the best hot dogs in town,” is usually open from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m., and even until 4:30 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. Our kids insist on eating hot dogs there every time we visit Reykjavík, and every time I've stopped by during opening hours there's been a line, such is the popularity of the place it seems to be with both locals and tourists .

Personally, I don't think Pylsur in the rather soft rolls is the highlight of my culinary dreams, not even with the special, slightly sweet Pylsur mustard and various onions, although I'm grateful that the roasted onions give the whole thing a bit of structure. But I'm not a hot dog fan either way and probably just don't really appreciate Bæjarin's Beztu Pylsur.

So – just go there and try it out yourself: “eina með öllu!”

Here is the link to the hot dog stand:
http://www.bbp.is/

Early in the morning, before opening...

[Translated from here.]

Frosin ávaxtakaka - frozen fruit cake

Ingredients

100 g coconut macaroons
150 g orange juice
1 orange
2 apples
3 small bananas
100 g chocolate
100 g dates
50 g nuts
2-3 kiwis

Preparation

Crumble the coconut macaroons and place them in a shallow glass bowl. Pour the orange juice over the crushed coconut macarons.

Peel the oranges, apples and bananas and cut all the fruit into pieces.

Chop the chocolate, dates and nuts finely.

Then mix the chopped fruit with the chopped chocolate and the chopped dates and nuts and spread over the macaron base.

Pull aluminum foil over the cake pan and freeze in the freezer for at least 12 hours.

Two hours before the cake is to be served, the cake is taken out of the freezer and slowly thawed. Before serving, peel, halve and slice the kiwis and garnish the edge of the cake with them.

If you want, you can serve whipped cream with the frozen fruit cake.

Alternatively, you can prepare the cake for guests in small glass bowls - then it doesn't have to freeze for so long and serving is guaranteed to be accident-free and without any visual impairment.

[Translated from here.]

Karrífiskur með hrísgrjónum – Curry fish with rice

Ingredients

400 g fish fillet (deboned)

120 g rice

200 ml buttermilk

4 Tbsp light mayonnaise

2 tsp curry

Salt

150 g fresh or canned mushrooms

3 Tbsp grated cheese

Preparation

Cook rice according to package instructions.

Mix the buttermilk with the mayonnaise, curry and salt .

Place the cooked rice in an ovenproof dish.

Then cut the fish into pieces and add it over the rice and sprinkle with salt.

Slice the mushrooms and spread over the fish.

Pour over the whisked, seasoned buttermilk.

Bake in the middle of the oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for about 30 - 40 minutes.

Then add the cheese on top and continue baking until the cheese has spread and has a nice color.

[Translated from here.]

Bjarnarhöfn – Shark Museum

This summer we went to Iceland with the children, particularly looking at the Snæfellsnes peninsula - and also went to the Bjarnarhöfn Shark Museum, a private shark museum.

The Bjarnarhöfn farm is already mentioned in the conquest book from the 11th century, when the Viking Björn is said to have settled here, probably a son of the well-known chief Ketill Flachnase, who lived around 890 AD. came to Iceland with his family.

The current master of the house, the Icelandic Hildibrandur Bjarnason, has today set up a museum on the farm with his family - the Shark Museum about the capture and processing of the Greenland shark.

The museum is small and idiosyncratic – and it invites us to try out the taste of Hákarl. In small cubes – and with lots of dark bread on the side.

Here are our impressions:

Here is the link to the museum's homepage:

http://www.bjarnarhofn.is/

Update:

Hildibrandur Bjarnason died on November 16, 2017, two days before his 81st birthday. He leaves behind a wife and children. The farm continues to be managed and the museum is also still open.

[Translated from here.]

Svið

Svið is a classic Icelandic meat dish. Since there wasn't much land, everything that could be used was used - and when a sheep was slaughtered, EVERYTHING was of course "roasted", including the ram's testicles and the head.

Svið, i.e. the singed half sheep's heads, are still offered frozen in supermarkets today, but we had to search a bit. In Reykjavík we didn't find any Svið in the freezer counters, but we were successful in the more rural Hveragerði.

The thawed sheep's head is boiled in a pot with plenty of salted water for about 1.5 hours; the resulting foam is skimmed off regularly. However, I had to be careful not to accidentally scoop up the eye, as it had come loose and kept popping up into the foam while cooking. Also important – always ventilate plenty when cooking, as the preparation is relatively “smell-intensive”.

After cooking, take the head out of the cooking pot, let it cool on a plate - and then try it.

Personally, I have found that even if it is Icelandic, Svið is still not for me!

The taste was pleasantly “harmless,” and once you peeled the skin off the head and tongue, it was actually just regular, nice sheep meat. However, the “cheeks” were quite greasy.

For me, the meal later ended up in the toilet; I chalked it up to “emotional vomiting”.

Therefore - be careful, the film is definitely "disgusting"!

[Translated from here.]