Perlubygg með arfasósu

Pearl barley with ant sauce

This dish is traditionally prepared with fresh bird droppings.

If you - like me - can't get fresh chickweed at the moment, you can also make do with arugula/rocket, lamb's lettuce, or young spinach. I have chosen rocket here (in Icelandic:burdock salad) decided, I got that in the supermarket in town.

Pearl barley or barley pearls (bankabygg resp. perlubygg) were a staple of Icelandic cuisine until around 1940, before they were largely displaced in everyday cooking by imported products such as rice and noodles. I now really enjoy using them in my meals.

Barley in the field in Vallanes

By the way, the barley pearl salad is a recipe from the category 'always vegan'. So not 'veganized', but truly traditional without any animal products. Also perfect if guests, for example, cannot eat cow's milk products.

Ingredients

300 g pearl barley

750 ml of water

1 apple

1/2 red onion

300 g fresh pennywort

200 ml apple juice

100 ml of rapeseed oil

coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preparation

Bring the water to a boil in a pot, add the pearl barley, and cook until soft for about 20 minutes. Then drain the water and set the barley aside to cool.

Peel and chop half an onion.

Wash half of the onion pieces with the honey or the arugula or similar, and put both together with the apple juice and the rapeseed oil into the blender and puree.

Quarter the peeled and core-removed apple and cut it into small pieces.

Mix the remaining onion pieces and the little apple pieces with the cooled pearl barley and pour over the green sauce. Mix everything thoroughly and season with salt and pepper. Keep the finished salad covered in the refrigerator.

With us, there was the green barley salad on weekends as a side dish for BBQs with friends.

Translated from here.

Eplaskyr

Apple Skyr

Apple trees don't actually grow in Iceland. In the past, apples were therefore something very special, expensive, and had to be imported. Apples were perhaps a great luxury at Christmas. Therefore, many older Icelanders still associate the scent of apples with Christmas.

Today, you can basically buy apples in stores all year round, so they have become an integral part of many Icelandic dishes.

Here's my first autumn recipe for you: a quick, easy dessert – vanilla skyr with apple compote and chopped nuts. It's so simple and delicious; my husband and kids were absolutely thrilled to lick the very last bits out of their glasses at dinner.

Ingredients for 4 glasses

350 g apple compote
450 g vanilla skyr

60 g sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar, ground vanilla, vanilla paste or similar.

whipped cream

chopped nuts

Preparation

In a large bowl, combine the sugar with the vanilla sugar, ground vanilla, vanilla paste, or similar. (I mixed the sugar with some vanilla paste and some ground vanilla.)

Stir in the vanilla skyr.

Finally, add the apple compote and mix with a spoon.

Pour the apple-skyr mixture into dessert glasses or similar.

Before serving, garnish to taste with whipped cream and chopped nuts, brittle, or similar.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Brauðterta með ostasalati

Bread cake with cheese salad

What the Swedes have with their "smörgåstårta", the Icelanders have with their "brauðterta".

In Iceland, you can traditionally find such hearty bread cakes with mayonnaise, lots of mayonnaise and even more mayonnaise among sweet pastries on many cake buffets.

Depending on your mood, the bread cakes can be topped with ham, salami, hangikjöt, salmon, crab... whatever you like!

Here's a version with various cheeses and grapes. This recipe is intended as a starter for four people, or as a main course for two.

Ingredients for 4 servings

4 slices of toast

1/2 Camembert (ca. 150 g)

1/2 garlic cheese (ca. 75 g)

1/2 pepper cheese (ca. 75 g)

1 bell pepper

1/2 red onion

approx. 20 grapes

1 handful of fresh parsley

200 ml sour cream (18%)

150 ml mayonnaise

Decorate with tomatoes, parsley, ...

Preparation

Chop the various cheeses, peppers, onions and grapes.

Wash the parsley and chop it finely.

In a small bowl, mix sour cream and mayonnaise, then set aside 1/3 of the mixture for dressing

Put the remaining cream with the cheese, vegetables, grapes and parsley into a large bowl and mix thoroughly

Cut the crust off the toast...

...and layer the salad so that you end up with four slices of bread with three layers of lettuce between them. Wrap the whole thing tightly in aluminum foil or something similar and let it chill in the refrigerator for about 2-3 hours.

Then cover the bread cake with the remaining sour cream and mayonnaise mixture and decorate with parsley, grapes, etc. as desired.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Makkarónugrautur

Macaroni groats

I'm in an Icelandic Facebook group (Facebook is a big thing in Iceland anyway) about "gamaldags matur", or old-fashioned Icelandic food. A while back, the topic was makarónugrautur, or macaroni porridge - a kind of milk noodle soup, I'd say.

A special highlight of the dish was that the milk noodle soup was served with sugar and cinnamon - and with chopped liver sausage.

A few years ago, I came across a recipe for rice pudding with liver sausage, which was a bit unusual for me as a Central European, but it tasted much more harmless than it sounded and was actually quite delicious! So I absolutely had to try the recipe for milk noodles with liverwurst... My kids also thought the dish was delicious, but preferred to just add sugar and cinnamon and skip the liverwurst – incomprehensible, right?!?

Ingredients for 4 servings

150 g macaroni pasta

300 ml water

1 l milk

70 g sugar

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla sugar or similar

sugar cinnamon

liver sausage

Preparation

Bring the water to a boil and cook the noodles in the hot water for about 8 minutes, until they are almost tender.

Then drain the water.

Add milk, sugar, salt, and vanilla to the pasta and simmer, stirring frequently, until the pasta is tender and the dish begins to thicken.

The milk noodles are served hot, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon if desired - or (!) in the traditional way with liver sausage.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]

Mars-Snúðar

Mars rolls

I love cinnamon rolls, pretty much in every situation. And in many different variations. But of course, there are more than just cinnamon rolls – I recently came across a recipe for rolls with little pieces of Mars chocolate, and I just had to try that!

Memo to myself:

Next time I'll try the recipe with licorice chocolate; I imagine it would be delicious too!

Ingredients for about 20 rolls

150 ml lukewarm milk

1 tsp dry yeast

2 Tbsp sugar

50 g soft butter

1 egg

1 pinch of salt

350 g flour

2 - 3 Tbsp lukewarm water

1 - 3 Tbsp flour

180 g Mars chocolate

30 g butter

Preparation

For the dough, put all ingredients (except the water) into a large bowl...

...and knead thoroughly.

If the dough is too dry, add more water in portions until a good consistency is achieved.

Cover the yeast dough and let it rise.

For the filling, melt the butter and let it cool slightly.

Cut the Mars chocolate into small pieces.

Divide the dough into two parts, knead briefly again, and add a little more flour if the dough is still too sticky.

Then roll out half the dough...

... and brush with half of the melted butter.

Then spread half of the chopped chocolate over the dough...

... and roll it up as tightly as possible.

Cut the dough into slices about 2/3 inch (1.5 cm) thick.

Then place the snails on a baking tray lined with baking paper and let them rise for another 30 minutes.

Repeat the same with the second half of the dough.

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

Bake the snails in the preheated oven for about 15 to 30 minutes until they are golden brown.

Let it cool a bit and then serve.

Bon appetit!

[Translated from here.]