Einarshúsið

Visiting Bolungarvík - Dining at the End of the World

May contain traces of advertisement.*

During our summer vacation we spent some days in Ísafjörður. At one of these days we visited the neighbouring village of Bolungarvík. The village with its about 900 inhabitants is located at the western end of Ísarfjarðardjúp fjord - and that is in fact a kind of end of the world. The street does not end in Bolungarvík, but it only leads to a radar station on top of Bolafjall mountain and to a few abandoned farms. We visited Bolafjall mountain and enjoyed the great view from there, and we also visited the fishery museum Ósvör in Bolungarvík.

From the snowslide protective wall you have a great view over Bolungarvík.

The harbour of Bolungarvík was quite busy, when we arrived there in the early evening. Goods were loaded, lots of fish were landed.

Directly at the harbour there is "Einarshúsið", a hotel and restaurant, which furthermore occasionally offers cultural events like musical performances or games evenings.

When we arrived, the restaurant was completely empty. 6 p.m. seems to be quite early for a dinner in Iceland. After calling, a waitress came and welcomed us friendly.

View into the hotel's breakfast room

The restaurant's interior is nicely arranged. There are lots of historic family photos printed on perspex. The wooden walls painted in turquois gave me a feeling of being at home.

Food blogger at work

For drinking my husband chose "Engiferöl", ginger beer. We don't know it from Germany. But in Iceland it is nothing unusual. It's not an alcoholoic beer, but a non-alcoholic lemonade with the pungent taste of ginger. (There was no beer or wine offered on the drinks menu.)

For our meal we selected for one thing a hamburger and secondly the fish of the day, two very common dishes for Iceland. The menu was in Icelandic language only, but the waitress translated it for us - even though our Icelandic is meanwhile good enough to read a menu.

The hamburger named "Víkarinn" contained a fried egg, cucumber, tomato, bacon and Bernaise sauce. It was served with french fries ("franskar kartöflur") and a bowl of ready-made cocktail sauce.

The "Fish of the Day" was cod, the waitress explained to us. They get it every day fresh from the harbour. It was served with fresh salad and potatoes. The salad was fine - with pieces of orange, which gave it a fruity taste. The sauce also had a slightly fruity note.

All in all, the food we had in Einarshúsið was plain cooking in the Icelandic way. Hamburger with french fries - a take-over from America, which meanwhile is very common in Icelandic cuisine. Fresh fish - of course, unavoidable in the fishing nation of Iceland.

Overview:

The menu of Einarshúsið is relativela short. You can choose between hamburger with french fries, the soup of the day with homemade bread (each of them for 1950 ISK, approx. 15.60 €, 18.30 $) , a vegan dish of the day (2900 ISK, approx. 23 €, 27.30 $) and the fish of the day (3900 ISK, approx. 31 €, 36.70 $).

For children they offer baked toast or nuggets, both served with french fries for 1390 ISK (approx. 11 €, 13 $), a smaller portion of the fish of the day for 1490 ISK (approx. 12 €, 14 $) or just simply french fries with cocktail sauce for 500 ISK (approx. 4 €, 4.70 $). 

Under the heading "Eitthvað sæt" (= "Somethind sweet") you find a piece of cake or waffles with ice cream, each for 890 ISK (approx. 7.10 €, 8.40 $).

Soft drinks, ginger beer and hot drinks cost between 350 and 450 ISK (approx. 2,80 - 3,60 €, 3.30 - 4.20 $). 

* Legal note: 

Formally this article can be graded as advertisement, since we had been invited for the meal. Anyhow, we have chosen only restaurants, which we had heard good things about and which we estimated as interesting. If we fall into words of praise, these are meant honestly.

[Translated from here.]

Til baka frá Íslandi

Back from Iceland

After two and a half week of family vacation in Iceland, we came back home yesterday. We had been in the Westfjords, then some days in the north, before we travelled by in direction of Reykjavík.

Besides relaxing with the family and some sightseeing, it was once again in parts a kind of gourmand trip through various Icelandic restaurants. That's really fascinating! Great food, nice people, interesting locations, ...

The reports about our culinary experiences will follow within the next days. Later I'm going to write some words about our other activities, too.

[Translated from here.]

Gulrótarkaka

Carrot cake (as a loaf cake)

The classic Icelandic carrot cake is usually baked in a springform pan and often has a filling in it too. This is a slightly simpler version of a loaf cake, but it is also extremely moist and delicious!


Ingredients

500 g flour
300 g brown sugar
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
4 eggs
200 ml rapeseed oil
350 g grated carrots
1/2 can of peaches

300 g cream cheese
150 g powdered sugar
1 Tbsp grated lemon peel


Preparation

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

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and ginger.

Add the eggs and oil and mix everything thoroughly.

Remove the peach pieces from the can and drain well. Then carefully cut into small pieces.

Add the grated carrots and chopped peaches to the remaining ingredients...

...and process everything into a smooth dough.

Pour the dough into a loaf pan lined with baking paper...

...and bake in a preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) for about 45 minutes, or a little more if necessary, until the dough is no longer sticky on the inside (test with a toothpick!).

Then take the cake out of the oven and let it cool thoroughly, then carefully remove it from the tin or baking paper.

Mix the cream cheese with the powdered sugar and the grated lemon peel into a thick cream...

...and then spread it on the carrot cake.

Let the finished cake sit in the fridge for about 2 hours and then serve well chilled.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Harðfisksúpa

Dried fish soup

Have you ever heard of Harðfisksúpa? No? Me neither - but when I came across it at a competition about typical Icelandic dishes, I immediately knew: I had to try it!

When shopping in the Icelandic grocery store, we were a bit shocked at first: Icelandic moss is quite expensive. After a long search, we finally found - comparatively cheaply - a pack with 50 g of Icelandic moss for a good 1,000 ISK (around €8). After an intensive price comparison, we found the 200 g pack of Harðfiskur for a good 1,200 ISK (just under €10). The ground seaweed costs around 1,000 ISK for 50 g, but you only need half a teaspoon of it... The crabs also cost around 1,000 ISK in the store. Added to this is the vegetable broth. If I ignore the vegetable broth and reduce the remaining ingredients to 1 portion, I come to around 700 ISK, or around €5.60 for the ingredients. That sounds pretty civil after all.

By the way, one serving has around 145 kcal, around 1 g fat, 10 g carbohydrates and 30 g protein. I had trouble finishing my portion and was absolutely full afterwards. The food smelled a bit like "a walk by the sea", but it actually tasted really nice!




Ingredients for 4 servings

750 ml vegetable broth
100 g dried fish
50 g Icelandic moss
100 g crabs
1/2 tsp seaweed salt


Preparation

Carefully chop up the Icelandic moss and grind it finely.

Also grind the dried fish thoroughly and finely.

Heat the vegetable broth in a large pot, add the ground moss and ground dried fish to the vegetable broth and simmer for a few minutes.

Stir and add the shrimp...

...and let it boil for a minute.

Season with the seaweed (as a salt substitute)...

...and then serve straight away!

[Translated from here.]

Plokkpylsur

Template: Classic Pylsur from the hot dog stand

Plokkfiskur in a hot dog bun

Icelanders love "Pylsur", the classic hot dog rolls with lamb sausages, ketchup, the sweet Psylsur mustard, fresh and roasted onions at the hot dog stand. This is almost a “þjóðaréttur íslendinga”, i.e. a “national dish of the Icelanders”.

Another "national dish" is plokkfiskur, which is mashed fish with mashed potatoes in a nice thick roux.

At a recent competition about typical Icelandic dishes, an Icelandic woman reported that she liked having both dishes "married together." I found the idea very exciting and of course tried it out straight away. The recipe for the Plokkfiskur has been modified a bit, so there are no potatoes in it because “mashed potatoes in a roll” might be a bit too much of a good thing. And I intensified the taste of the fish with some blue cheese.

Even though the Icelanders don't really understand plokkfiskur as fun and prefer it exactly the way their grandma used to serve it when she was a child - these "Plokkpylsur" with the homemade hot dog buns were really tasty!


Ingredients for 4 persons

4 hot dog buns

200 g cod
200 g halibut
1 tsp salt
1 onion
2 Tbsp butter or margarine
2 Tbsp flour
250 ml milk
100 g blue cheese
1 pinch of coarse sea salt
1 pinch of freshly ground pepper
1 pinch of nutmeg


Preparation

Wash and clean the fish and cut into bite-sized pieces.

Then put the fish in a large pot with cold water and salt, heat it up and let it simmer for a good 5 minutes. Then remove it from the water and let it drain well.

Peel the onion and chop it finely.

Melt the butter in a second large pot and heat the chopped onions until translucent, about 5 minutes.

Then add the flour...

...mix everything together and then pour in the milk...

... and bring to the boil briefly, stirring constantly, until a relatively thick mixture has formed. Then reduce the heat.

Dice the blue cheese,...

...add to the sauce and mix thoroughly.

Roughly chop the cooked fish with a fork or something similar and add it to the sauce.

Mix everything thoroughly and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste.

For the "Pokkpylsur" cut open the hot dog buns (you can find the recipe here in the blog), fill them with the plokkfiskur and then enjoy straight away.

[Translated from here.]

Pylsur í morgunmat

Hot dogs for breakfast - something a little different

There's a hot dog stand in Akureyri that I've never met in person, but I keep seeing photos of, and I'm fascinated by their wide selection of hot dog toppings: from potato salad to red cabbage, tuna or baked beans With bacon, they seem to have an incredible number of variations of the classic hot dog. The idea of ​​the “breakfast hot dog” with baked beans, sausages, eggs and bacon appealed to me so much that I had to try it out!

(I used my home-baked hot dog buns, but you can of course also use home-bought buns.)


Ingredients for 4 persons

4 hot dog buns

1 can of baked beans
4 sausages
100 g breakfast bacon
4 eggs
100 ml milk
1 pinch of salt
1 pinch of pepper
1 Tbsp oil


Preparation

Heat the baked beans slowly.

Fry the sausages and bacon.

Mix the eggs with the milk, salt and pepper and let them set in the greased pan to make scrambled eggs.

Cut open the hot dog buns. First add the scrambled eggs, then the beans and finally the bacon and sausages.

Maybe a slightly different, nice hearty breakfast!

[Translated from here.]

Pylsubrauð (II)

Hot Dog Buns - Buns

After trying out a recipe for these rolls with milk a long time ago, I wanted to try an alternative recipe... and I'm actually very happy with the result, I even like the hot dogs -Bread roll!

Oh - the recipe here was for 8 rolls, for me it made 4 rolls, but they were a bit big, so it should be just right for 6 rolls.


Ingredients

125 ml lukewarm water
25 g fresh yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
50 g butter
1 egg
300 g flour


Preparation

Pour the water into a bowl and mix thoroughly with the yeast.

Then add the remaining ingredients...

...and knead everything into a smooth dough. Cover and let rise in a warm place for about 30 minutes.

Then divide the dough into approx. 4 to 6 equal parts, then place the hot dog buns on two baking trays lined with baking paper...

... and bake in the preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) for about 20 minutes until the tops of the rolls are golden brown.

And then we topped the hot dogs a little differently for a change - once with plokkfiskur, once as breakfast with eggs and beans and sausages and bacon.

The recipes will follow in the next few days!

[Translated from here.]