Plokkfiskur

Mashed Fish

In former times, fish and potatoes had been a kind of basic foodstuffs in Iceland. Both were widely available and inexpensive. Hence in many families both, potatoes and fish, were served several times a week. And also the leftovers had not been thrown away. Instead of this, they were mashed and mixed together. The result was "plokkfiskur". Today it's usually not made from leftovers, but from fresh fish. But it is still a very common, typically Icelandic food - and very tasty, by the way.

Ingredients

500 g boiled haddock
500 g boiled potatoes
1 onion
350 ml milk
50 g butter
3 Tbsp flour
white pepper
salt
50 g grated cheese

Preparation

Split the fish into small flakes. Cut the boiled potatoes into small pieces, too. Chop the onion.

In a small pan heat up the milk slowly.

In another pan melt butter and steam the chopped onion glassy. Add the flour and bring to the boil for about a minute. Then slowly pour in the heated milk while stirring continuously. Let it simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Put the pieces of fish and potatoes into an ovenproof dish and mix them.

Pour the sauce over it and sprinkle with grated cheese.

Bake everything in the oven at 200 °C for about 20 minutes.

Then serve the plokkfiskur - maybe with some boiled potatoes, fresh tomatoes and a slice of dark rye bread with salted butter.

Even if such a mash might not be very impressive in look, it is really wonderful in taste!

Brúnaðar kartöflur

Caramelized potatoes

Ingredients

1 kg potatoes
60 g sugar
40 g butter

Preparation

On the preceding evening boil the potatoes in salted water and peel them while hot. Depending on the size of the potatoes, cut them into walnut-sized pieces. Store them in a cool place over night.

On the next day, melt sugar in a pan stirring occasionally, until it becomes brown. Add butter and melt it, too.

Then add the cold potatoes and stir, until they are hot and caramelized from all sides.

Instead of butter you can use cream alternatively. Or you can replace half of the butter by 2 Tbsp of coffee. Just depending on your taste and which ingredients you have available.

The caramelized potatoes served with white sauce and green peas are the classical side dish for a typically Icelandic Sunday roast. On the picture above we had spinach instead of peas.

Kartöflumús með bjarnarlaukur

Mashed potatoes with wild garlic

Ingredients

800 g potatoes
350 ml milk
60 g fresh wild garlic
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt


Preparation

Boil the potatoes unpeeled in salted water until soft. Let them cool down a bit and peel them while warm. Cut the peeled potatoes into large pieces and place them into a large pot.

Wash and clean the wild garlic. Put it into a blender, add the milk and puree finely.

Add the wild garlic milk to the potatoes and let everything simmer at medium heat for about 10 minutes.

Mash the potatoes and stir everything thoroughly.

Finally season with sugar and salt. If you have it available, use licorice salt to give the meal that last little touch.

 

Anís kerfils lakkris salt

Anise chervil licorice salt

Ingredients

200 g coarse sea salt
2 Tbsp chervil, dried (preferably spanish chervil)
2 tsp licorice powder
1 tsp anise oil


Preparation

Mix sea salt, chervil and licorice powder.

Grind the mixture in small portions in a mortar.

Stir in the anise oil.

Then spread the salt on a baking tray covered with baking paper and let in dry in the oven at 50 °C for 2 to 3 hours.

During drying you will notice an intense smell of anise!

The salt is suited very well to sweet desserts, but also to fish dishes.

Tímíanmús

Thyme mash

Ingredients

750 g turnips
50 g butter
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp chopped parsley
6 sprigs of thyme


Preparation

Clean and peel the turnips, cut into small pieces. Cook in water for 20 minutes to become soft.

Then drain the water and mash the turnips.

Add milk, salt, sugar and chopped parsley and mix everything to a rough mash.

Pluck off the thyme leaves from the sprigs and mix them into the turnip mash. (If you don't have fresh thyme, you can alternatively use dried thyme.)

Thyme mash with deer in chocolate sauce

Hreindýr með súkkulaðisósu

Reindeer in chocolate sauce

In many regions reindeer meat is hard to get or quite expensive. Alternatively you can take deer, which is similar in taste and consistency, also delicious and tender.

The recipe is for 4 people.


Ingredients for the meat

800 g reindear meat
2 Tbsp butter 

Ingredients for the chocolate sauce

25 g unsalted butter
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 small chilli pepper, freshly chopped
6 large fresh mushrooms, quartered
250 ml beef stock
1 TL balsamic vinegar
2 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
50 g dark chocolate (70%)


Preparation of the meat

Heat up a pan. Melt the butter in it.

Cut the reindeer meat into medallions and sear them in the butter from all sides, so that the meat is brown on the outside, but still pink on the inside.

Preparation of the chocolate sauce

Heat butter in the hot pan and braise the chopped onions therein shortly until glassy.

Add the chilli pepper and the mushrooms and let everything roast at medium heat for just a few minutes.

Pour in the beef stock and balsamic vinegar. Add thyme and bay leaf.

Bring it to a boil and then let it boil down to half.

Pour the broth through a sieve into a pot. Season with salt and pepper. Let it simmer at low heat.

Chop the chocolate into small pieced and add them little by little to the sauce while stirring continuously.

If needed, season once again with salt and pepper. Serve the reindeer meat covered with the mushrooms and the chocolate sauce.

Deer in chocolate sauce with thyme mash

Kálsúpa

Cabbage soup

Ingredients

50 g lard
2 onions
1 head of white cabbage
3 carots
3 parsnips
1 l vegetable stock
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper
6 Tbsp sour cream


Preparation

Melt lard in a large pot and steam onions glassy.

Wash, clean and quarter the cabbage head, remove the stalk and cut into fine stripes.

Clean and peel carots and parsnips, cut into thin slices.

Put cabbage, carots and parsnips to the onions into the pot. Simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Then add the vegetable stock. Season with salt, pepper and thyme. Let everything simmer for half an hour.

Serve the cabbage soup with a blob of sour cream and with fresh bread.

Kerfilsúpa

Chervil soup

Ingredients

800 ml meat stock (preferably from lamb)
30 g butter
30 g flour
200 g chervil
2 hardboiled eggs
salt and pepper


Preparation

Heat up the meat stock in a pot.

In a second pot melt butter, sprinkle with flour and stir thoroughly. Slowly stir in the meat stock and bring briefly to boil. Add chopped chervil, stir and let it boil for a short while.

Peel the hardboiled eggs and quarter them. Pour the chervil soup into soup plates, add the quartered eggs and serve hot.

Kaffihús Bakkabræðra - Gísli, Eiríkur, Helgi

The three brothers from Bakki - A coffee house in Dalvík

May contain traces of advertisement.*

When we were in Iceland in July 2018, we had a few days for Akureyri and its surroundings. At one of the evenings we had an inviatation to this restaurant in Dalvík. I knew it from Instagram. They had spent a few days in Akureyri. The beautiful photos of their cakes had fascinated me.

But when we arrived in Dalvík and stood in front of the restaurant, some doubts arose. From the outside it looked a bit shabby. We didn't see any lights inside. But we had got a nice invitation by the hosts Heiða und Bjarni and the photos were really great. So we entered the restaurant.

Gísli Eiríkur Helgi - Kaffihús Bakkabræðra 

And when we came in, our impression changed immediately. It looked so cozy, rustic, interesting. Everything was lovely decorated, made from ancient wood. We immediately fell in love with this homey atmosphere. And got a very warm welcome by Heiða.

Before eating, we looked around in the restaurant. There is a counter and some small tables for the guests in the ground floor...

... and upstairs there is a second bar counter and space for even more guests at long wooden tables.

I love all these furnishing details. The lambskins, the paintings on the walls, ..., especially the long woolen underpants!

The choice of warm dishes is manageable. They offer fishsoup. From 12 o'clock at noon to 10 o'clock in the evening. But it is not just fishsoup. When you order the soup, you'll get a salad a starter, bread and water, and finally coffee.

The salad was delicious, with walnut kernels and large coconut flakes. For seasoning it was serverd together with balsamic vinegar, oil, pepper and salt.

On a separate tray we got two sorts of home-made bread. Both were made with Kaldi beer, the beer from a local microbrewery in Árskógssandor (in about 10 km distance from Dalvík). The butter was sprinkled with herbs. So the bread was really delightful.

But the absolute highlight was the fish soup itself! It was not a plain traditional fish soup. Besides potato, tomato, onion, paprika and cream, their were fruit pieces in it. And it smelled of coconut and spicy herbs. In any case, this soup had a special touch and was absolutely delicious!

We got a large soup plate full with this soup. It was so full, that it almost slopped over, especially because the plate as well as the table both were a bit wonky. So it was difficult to bring everything in a good position for a photo without flooding the table. Speaking of the wonky plate, all the tableware was a lovely mixture of various old-stlye porcelain plates and cups. I had the impression, that there were no two plates of the same kind. Anyhow, it all fit together. And then there were the old book pages placed as placemats on the tables. I love all these lovely details in the restaurant's decoration!

After dinner we got a coffee. This was served also in lovely and old-fashioned manner: on a special coffee tray in a porcelain cup together with a milk jug and a sugar bowl. Wonderful! I felt like being on a coffee party of my grand aunt some decades ago.

In fact, the restaurant is mainly a coffee house. Hence they have a big variety of cake and pastries, wheras they only provide one warm meal. But better one really great meal then a big selection of just so-so.

I couldn't resist and tried a piece of cake for dessert. The waitress recommended a special cheesecake - with berries and peanuts and a layer of chocolate. A dream! (I definitely have to try myself such a combination, cheesecake with peanuts.)

After this meal we were really full and satisfied.

But another highlight was waiting for us. Bjarni, the owner of the restaurant, took us on a walkabout through the adjacent theater.

No, that's not Bjarni. This is a wooden statue of Ólafur Grímsson,
the previous president of Iceland

The building next to Kaffihús Bakkabræðra is the former cinema of Dalvík. It stood empty for several years. But now it's a living place of culture again. The municipality of Dalvík restored the building from the outside. Bjarni and Heiða took care of its inner life.

On the day of our visit, later in the evening, Góss gave a concert here. Unfortunately we had to get back to Akureyri early to our children.

Góss, the band of Sigríður Thorlacius, Sigurður Guðmundsson and Gudmundur Óskar, perform a wide range of music, from folk to pop, and they are quite popular in Iceland. A few days before our visit in Kaffihús Bakkabræðra they gave a concert in Vagninn in Flateyri, where we had been shortly before, too.

While we admired the old cinema auditorium, suddenly Bjarni stuck out his head through the hatch of the film projector. Full of enthusiasm, he told us about his heart project. He told us about the history of the cinema, about its revival, about the events they organize here, ... There is still a film roll in the projector remaining from the cinema's historical era. But noone knows how to handle the projector. ...

Nowadays various cultural events are performed here. Concerts, theater, but also screening of soccer matches - during the football world cup. In particular during the matches of the Icelandic team the atmosphere was fantastic, as Bjarni told.

Later we learnt what it is about with the restaurant's name "Bakkabræður" and with the three characters shown on some paintings in the restaurant.

The "Bakkabræður" are literally the brothers from Bakki. These three brothers named Gisli, Eiríkur and Helgi lived in the small village Bakki in Svarfaðardalur valley, not far away from Dalvík. Even though noone knows when this was, their story is one of the most famous Icelandic folk tales. And its not a single story, but there are several short stories about the adventures of the three brothers. Funny stories about these three village fools.

After a last short walk through Dalvík, we had to drive back to Akureyri.

If you come to Dalvík in August: On the first or second Saturday in August, Dalvík celebrates the "great fish day", "fiskudagurinn mikli". Bjarni told us glowingly about this festival. Different fish dishes are offered all over the village. An extremely large grill ist set up. There are exhibitions, boat tours, art, music and show events. This year the "great fish day" takes place in August from 9th to 12th.

Overview:

The coffee house opens daily from 10.00 to 23.00., soup is served from 12.00 to 22.00.

The soup with salad and bread costs during the day 2200 ISK (approx. 18 €, 20.50 $) in self service. A second helping is included. In the evening it's a bit more expensive, namely 2800 ISK (approx. 23 €, 26 $). But then you get table service, and coffee is included, too.


* 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. Accordingly we're really delighted, and if we fall into words of praise, these are meant honestly.