Marensbombuskál

Meringue shell

Many Icelanders love sweet, and really sweet! In Iceland you can often find such meringue bombs in cafés, on cake buffets or at home coffee tables. I'm not talking about the calories in this cake either. However, the cake is a bit difficult to cut - that's why there is no photo of the cut.

We had this “bomb” as a dessert on Christmas Day.

By the way, for the pastry I used frozen berries that I let thaw in the fridge overnight. Fresh berries are actually ideal for the recipe.

Ingredients

6 egg whites

1 Tbsp potato flour

300 g sugar

1 pinch of salt

250 g whipping cream

1 pinch of ground vanilla

approx. 150 g mixed berries

Chocolate sauce

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 300 °F (150 °C) - be sure to use circulating air!

Using a template, cut out a circle of approx. 20 cm in diameter from baking paper and place it on a baking tray lined with a layer of baking paper. Then set the baking tray aside for now. (When painting the circle on the baking paper, it is important to place the side with the line down - otherwise the paint will go into the meringue.)

In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites slowly at low speed until fluffy, then increase the speed and beat until stiff, about 5 minutes.

Then add the potato flour and sugar, one tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly.

At the end a very compact, thick mass must have been created.

Then use a tablespoon to place the mixture on the baking paper circle so that the egg whites essentially form a "bowl" with a high edge - the cream and fruit filling then goes into the middle after baking.

Put the egg white “bowl” in the preheated oven and let it bake at 300 °F (150 °C) for about an hour (alternatively at 250 °F (120 °C) for about 90 minutes).

After the baking time, turn off the oven, DO NOT open the oven and let the meringue shell cool completely in the closed oven so that the pastry retains its shape.

Beat the cream with a pinch of vanilla until stiff.

Pour the whipped cream into the middle of the meringue shell, spread the berries over it and cover everything with a little chocolate sauce.

Then serve the “bomb” straight away.

[Translated from here.]

Christmas on the milk carton

You can also learn something about the 13 Icelandic Christmas companions on the milk cartons from MS. The first “Christmas milk cones” can be found in the store from the end of October. I always look forward to these first signs of Christmas!

Of course, it's also a kind of pun - after all, the word "mjólk" (= milk) also contains the word "jól" (= Christmas).

From the website jólamjólk.is from the company MS (Mjólkursamsalan ehf.) you can read a little about the jólasveinar , the 13 Icelandic Christmas companions - and you can also print out the pictures of Santa Claus as a coloring template for children.

Source: jolamjolk.is

For example, today on December 15th the fourth Santa Claus, the Þvörusleikir , i.e. the “ cooking spoon licker ”, is coming. This Christmas companion is terribly long and skinny and is always hungry everywhere. As soon as he spots a wooden spoon somewhere, he grabs it and licks it devotedly until the spoon is squeaky clean.

By the way, the Þvörusleikir is very fond of children - it is said that as a child this Christmas companion always sucked his thumb and was punished terribly by his mother Grýla, which is why he still has a special heart for little people who still suck their thumb...

D-Vítamin í mjólk - Vitamin D milk

By the way, in Iceland there are also dairy products that are specially enriched with vitamin D. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is produced by the body under the influence of sufficient sunlight. Without enough sunlight, the body cannot produce enough vitamin D. Too low vitamin D levels in the body can be noticeable, for example, in skin problems, bleeding gums or an increased susceptibility to infections, but can also lead to more brittle bones, rickets and bone malformations. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to lifelong complications, especially in children.

Especially in Iceland, where it is dark for so long in winter, it is important to consume additional vitamin D with your diet in order to prevent such deficiency symptoms as much as possible. Traditionally, Icelanders consume Lýsi , i.e. cod liver oil. By the way, Lýsi is also available in capsules, the taste is admittedly a bit - well, takes getting used to.

For several years now, the MS company has also been offering milk that is enriched with vitamin D. There are now both nýmólk (= whole milk), léttmjólk (= low-fat milk) and both variants also laktósalaus (= lactose-free).

[Translated from here.]

Bessastaðakökur

Bessastaðir cookies

These cookies have been baked in the family of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (born 1930) for as long as Vigdís can remember. When she moved to the Icelandic presidential residence of Bessastaðir on the Álftanes peninsula as president (the first democratically elected female head of state in the world!), she brought the cookie recipe with her and during her term in office (1980 - 1996) these cookies were regularly served with coffee to all visitors offered, always served in a silver bowl.

The cookies have a very special relationship with the Bessastaðir farm:

The recipe for the cookies is said to go back to Jakobína Jónsdóttir . Jakobína was the wife of Grímur Þorgrímsson Thomsen and lived with her husband in the manor on Álftanes.

Grímur Thomsen was born on Bessastaðir in 1820. At that time, the Reykjavík secondary school was located in the buildings (until 1846) and Grímur's father was a school superintendent here. Grímur studied in Copenhagen and worked for several years in the Danish Foreign Service before he moved back to Iceland and in 1867 he acquired the now empty Bessastaðir farm from the Danish king in exchange for his land in Borgarfjörður.

Three years later, at the age of 50, Grímur married 35-year-old Jakobína and the couple lived together on Bessastaðir.

Grímur died in 1896 in the same room in which he was born in 1820. Grímur Thomsen is considered one of the most important poets of Icelandic Romanticism; one of his most famous poems is the equestrian song "Á Sprengisandi", which has achieved the status of a folk song in the setting of Sigvaldi Kaldalóns in Iceland.

Unfortunately, it is not known whether the cookies were still served on Bessastaðir under Vigdís' successors Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and Guðni Th. Jóhannesson. In any case, when we were at Guðni's on the open day in August 2022, there were no cookies around.

Ingredients

250 g butter

250 g wheat flour

250 g powdered sugar

1 egg yolk

coarse sugar

coarsely chopped almonds

Preparation

Clarify the butter, i.e. first let the butter slowly melt in a pot, let the liquid butter solidify again in the refrigerator and pour off the white liquid whey that has formed at the bottom.

In a large bowl, mix the wheat flour with the powdered sugar.

Add the clarified butter and knead everything thoroughly into a smooth dough.

Divide the dough into several parts and roll each into “sausages”. Then let the dough sausages solidify in the refrigerator for 1 - 2 hours.

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

Cut the dough rolls into thin slices and place them on two baking sheets lined with baking paper.

Whisk the egg yolks in a glass and brush the top of the cookies with a little bit of the egg yolk.

Place a few chopped almonds and some coarse sugar in the middle of each cookie...

... and then bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 350 °F (180 °C) upper and lower heat for approx. 8 - 10 minutes. Attention - the cookies should not take on too much color, but should remain as light as possible!

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

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Messinn á Selfossi

The restaurant "Messinn" in Selfoss

May contain traces of advertisement.*

In Selfoss, a small town in southern Iceland a good 50 km from Reykjavík, the “new city center” opened in summer 2021. Historical buildings from all over Iceland are being recreated in Selfoss, creating a lively city center with shops, restaurants and pubs, a food hall and apartments on the upper floors, and there is now a dedicated parking lot. A cinema is also being planned, as far as I can tell. The first 13 houses of the first construction phase have now been successfully completed. I think the result is really nice and I really enjoy being in the "new city center" (after all, our house is close there and we regularly go to Selfoss).

Now in the summer of 2022, the fish restaurant “Messinn” has opened in one of these “new old houses”.

We were invited to eat at the restaurant at the end of October and try it out - and we really love it, both with the food and the atmosphere.

We were there on a Friday lunchtime and the restaurant was very cozy. Apart from us, there were mostly Icelanders there - some people came in work clothes, alone or in groups, obviously on their lunch break, and some were older couples or even entire families who enjoyed their lunch here.

The name “Messinn” means “the mess” and therefore refers to the dining room of a ship. The name of the restaurant is also implemented very consistently and lovingly in the interior design down to the last detail. We were thrilled by the benches in the bunks on the wall, the ropes as a visual room divider or the dangling “fishing balls”.

Such "fishing balls" or "glass floats" were previously used by fishermen: glass balls were tightly enclosed in artfully knotted bags made of rope and then floated on the surface; they served to keep the ends of the net afloat. Nowadays, plastic balls are mostly used, which are no longer as beautiful as the old "glass floats", but are much more robust.

The "Messinn" restaurant is a fish restaurant specializing in fresh fish every day. There are various starters to choose from on the menu, from the bread basket with butter to the char tartare, the saltfish salad or the fresh fish soup with bread and butter. The starters range in price from €6.60 to €26 for lobster and king prawns).

For the main courses you can choose between fish burgers, fried fish (cod) with fries and chili mayonnaise or pasta with seafood (for the equivalent of around €22 to €25).

The special highlight of the menu are the fried dishes at Messinn:

The food here is served from the kitchen directly to the table in large, cast-iron pans.

All pans are based on changing, seasonal vegetables and Icelandic potatoes - and then there are different types of fish, seafood - and also a vegan version with tofu.

The pans are really big and they invite you to enjoy and share the good food; So you can easily order two different pans for three people and then enjoy eating together, even if not everyone can manage their own pan.

My husband had lúða, i.e. the halibut pan - fresh fried fish in white wine and cream sauce with fresh wild mushrooms and he was completely thrilled, in fact he even raved highly about the various wild mushrooms (not that typical of him otherwise). , which gave the fish pan a very special flavor.

I had gellur - cod tongues fried in garlic butter and served with plenty of fried vegetables, lots of butter, chili and lemon as well as cold cocktail tomatoes and freshly plucked rocket. The dish gets its very special appeal from the different consistencies, sometimes soft, sometimes rather firm, sometimes nice and crunchy, and the different temperatures between the warm and cold components.

The " gellur " is actually not the tongue of the fish, but the muscle that is located underneath the chin of the fish. The muscle meat is surrounded by its own skin, you have to fry it longer than fish fillets and it becomes firmer, but it melts in your mouth when you eat it and leaves a very slightly salty aftertaste. Traditionally in Iceland and Norway, cod tongues are fried lightly floured - and then they taste really great.

For dessert you could choose between a Súkkulaði brownie or a créme brulée, both served with fresh berries and ice cream (price equivalent to just under €15). We were already very full after our fish pans, but it looked so delicious that we couldn't (and didn't want to) resist.

We then decided on the créme brulée, which came with a scoop of ice cream, a very tasty, light sorbet, blueberries, strawberries and a kind of granola, crispy, crunchy oat flakes. The portion was easily served to us with two spoons - and it really tasted very good.

Our conclusion

We definitely enjoyed our meal at “Messinn” in Selfoss and can definitely recommend the restaurant with a clear conscience. The portions were really generous and we were very full in a very, very pleasant way.

I'm looking forward to eating there again when I get the chance - and just enjoying this wonderful food without a camera!

PS:

In the run-up to Christmas, “Messinn” in Selfoss is currently offering an Aðventuhlaðborð, i.e. an Advent buffet. They probably offer fish soup with freshly baked bread, various types of pickled herring, smoked salmon, seafood, of course plokkfiskur and two different types of their delicious pans, as well as mixed desserts, all for 4,990 ISK (just under €35) per person. The Advent buffet is available on 8th/9th, 15th/16th. and December 22, 2022.

On the day before Christmas Eve there is the Skötuhlaðborð - for the Þorláksmessa on December 23rd a very special pre-Christmas buffet is offered, with the typical Icelandic specialties that evening - kæst skata, i.e. boiled rotten rays, served with kneaded fat and mutton tallow, potatoes and turnips, plus rye bread with butter, star rays, plokkfiskur and a fish pan, also with mixed desserts and the meal also costs 4,990 ISK.

Reservations are generally required for the buffets in the run-up to Christmas.

* Legal notice:

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.

[Translated from here.]

Many, many Icelandic dishes

Do you want to get some appetite? In this video, you can see nearly all the Icelandic dishes we've prepared for this blog so far. Enjoy!

  

 

Rúgbrauð - Icelandic Rye Bread

A particular specialty of Icelandic cuisine is the Icelandic rye bread, i.e. rúgbrauð. It is a bit similar to pumpernickel, but it is soft and fluffy and tastes sweet. 

Baking bread with the heat of the earth

Traditionally, this bread is baked in Iceland’s geothermally heated ground, then usually in a tin can, which is buried in the ground for 10 - 24 hours (depending on the temperature on site). This bread is known, for example, from Heimaey after the volcanic eruption in 1973, from the region on Mývatn or from the geothermal bakery at the swimming pool "Fontana" in Laugarvatn.

An oven of the village community

In some places, however, there are also communal "ovens" where the inhabitants can bake their rye bread in special devices with the hot steam of geothermal energy. 

A friend of ours lives here, and she showed me her "oven". In this steaming "tin barrel", there is a grid, on which you place a milk carton filled with your dough. Then you push the lid down again and screw it down. Then the bread bakes in hot steam. On the next day the rúgbrauð is ready. 

But in fact, you need at least two people when you put your dough in here, because the barrel is really hot, and I would have had big problems to screw down the lid on my own. 

Slow baking - baking time 12 to 24 hours

If you don't have geothermal energy available, you can also bake your rúgbrauð in the oven. Here I have  a recipe for you, which  is prepared with ab-mjólk (a special probiotic thick milk) or alternatively with yogurt. The bread is baked classically in empty, washed-out milk cartons (32 fl. oz. resp. 1 l) - here for about 11 hours at 200 °F (90 °C). 

Ingredients for 3 loaves of bread

460 g rye flour

260 g wholemeal wheat flour

3 tsp coarse sea salt

3 tsp baking soda

1 l ab-mjólk (or plain yogurt)

350 g syrup

oil for greasing

Preparation

Preheat the oven (circulating air) to  200 °F (90 °C).

In a very large bowl, mix the rye and wheat flour with the salt and baking soda.

Then add sour milk and syrup.

Mix everything thoroughly to a smooth dough.

Wash the milk cartons thoroughly, cut open the upper end, grease a little bit their insides.

Then fill the dough evenly into the prepared milk cartons, which should then be almost half filled (be careful, the dough really rises properly when baking!).

Cover the milk cartons thoroughly and firmly with two layers of aluminum foil. 

And bake in a preheated oven at 200 °F (90 °C) circulating air for about 11 hours.

Then take the bread out of the oven, carefully remove the aluminum foil and let the bread cool. Finally open the milk carton carefully and tear it off.

Cut the bread into slices and serve with fresh butter as an accompaniment to soup or fish dishes.

I had baked this bread here for a forum meeting of Iceland fans in Germany, where I had arranged an Icelandic lunch: meatless meat soup (we also had vegetarians with us) with rye bread with butter and for dessert cinnamon rolls and ástarpungar ("loveballs"). 

The bread tastes best fresh, but you can also cut it into slices and freeze it in portions if there is anything left. 

[Translated from here.]

Lummur (ab-mjólk)

Pancakes with AB mjólk

AB-mjólk is a special Icelandic dairy product, a sour, thick, probiotic milk made with the help of the special bacteria Lactobacillus acidophilus (a) and Bifidobacterium bididum (b).

Many Icelanders swear that ab-mjólk improves their digestion and strengthens their immune system. You can get a large selection of ab-mjólk in practically every supermarket here - and of course it is also used in Icelandic cuisine, for example in these thick little pancakes. In other countries you often can't get ab-mjólk, but you can replace it in the recipe with pure yoghurt.

So a perfect Sunday breakfast for two, right?!?

Ingredients for 2 servings / 8 pancakes

120 g wheat flour

40 g oat flakes

1 Tbsp sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp baking powder

250 ml ab-mjólk

2 Tbsp oil

1 egg

Preparation

In a large bowl, mix the flour with the oats, sugar, salt and baking powder.

Then pour in the ab-mjólk and mix everything into a smooth dough.

Add the oil and egg and mix thoroughly.

Then let the dough stand for about 10 to 15 minutes, after which it should be nice and thick (otherwise, depending on the consistency, add a little more flour or a little ab-mjólk).

Heat a cast iron pan on the stove over medium heat and then use a tablespoon to pour the dough into the pan in portions and fry until golden brown on both sides.

I made my dough with strawberry-flavored ab-mjólk and then served the finished Lummur with sugar cinnamon and a tablespoon of ab-mjólk, which gives a nice fresh, fruity note even on a rainy Sunday.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]