Matur og drykkur - 3rd course

Main dish

Cod head cooked in chicken broth with seaweed,

served with potato salad and lovage

The third course was the main course. Cod head, the very special house specialty - served with potato salad and fried cod tongues.

While we were able to take a short breather after the second course and wait for our main course, we were fascinated to watch the chefs at work - the individual components of the dishes are delivered directly from the kitchen and are then served in front of all the guests. Also the "burning" of the cod heads - real experience gastronomy in Icelandic. Especially since the chefs obviously had fun despite all their concentration. It was really exciting!

Then we were served our cod head. It was truly - remarkable! The cod head was about the same size as our plate. I didn't realize the fish heads would be so big. The cod head tasted great, with a slight licorice flavor on the glazed surface and the soft, mild, aromatic and juicy fish flesh... a totally unexpected but great experience! (The Icelanders used to give cod heads because they could export the fish and then only the "leftovers" remained for themselves.)

Þorskhaus eldaður í
kjúklingasoði og sölvum.
Borinn fram með kartöflusalati
og skessujurt.

However, I couldn't eat too much of the cod head, it felt somehow strange to me to pull the meat from the head and cheeks of this fish...

By the way, I really don't know why I didn't take a photo of the potato salad with lovage. The potato salad was really good! With whole small Icelandic potatoes and whole small red onions in sauce - unusual because it wasn't a "uniform mash" but you could clearly distinguish the soft potatoes from the crunchy onions in your mouth. Definitely delicious!

There was also fried cod tongues with the cod head, with a very intense, lush green sauce - I assume tarragon was also involved.

By the way - learned something again! As we were clearing away the eaten cod head, our waiter asked us if we knew that you could tell how old the fish had become by looking at certain bones on the cod's brain..? Did we want to see the bones? Yes, of course we wanted to!

The waiter then took off with the gnawed head, negotiated briefly with the cook at the counter and another cook who stuck the head out of the kitchen hatch, then there was a huge crack and crunch as the cod's head was split...

...and a little later our waiter came back with a small glass plate on which two small... well, what actually? - lay. Visually and also in terms of touch, the bones had something of a “plastic angel wing” about them. You can determine the age of the fish from the "hearing stones" by counting the "age rings" - similar to a tree. Our fish was 16 years old, the waiter explained to us.

He gave us the "hearing stones" of our cod head and told us that we could make beautiful earrings out of them.

Overview of the 4-course menu at Matur og Drykkur


[Translated from here.]