The White Falcon - 22.03.1974, Qupperneq 8

What’s cooking in Iceland ? ?
Fish is an important main dish
in Iceland. If you have never
eaten really fresh fish, now is
the time to do it.
About one fifth of the pop-
ulation of Iceland is engaged in
fishing and associated indus-
tries. Quick frozen fish is the
most important export; however,
some fish still goes iced to
parts of Europe. Some shrimp and
dried fish are also exported a-
long with many fish by-products
such as cod liver oil, herring
oil and meal.
In the fish stores, fried fish
is sold in many forms, including
whole or filleted. It can be
bought frozen in both fish or
grocery stores. The fish stores
are generally opened from 10 to
noon and 4 to 6 p.m.
Some' of the most common fish
are: ysa (haddock), luda (halibut
or flounder) and sild (herring).
Icelandic women often use a
sort of crumb coating like our
"Shake and Bake" on top of ysa
and then fry it in butter with a
little lemon juice sprinkled on
top. Fry about three minutes on
each side with your stove set at
about 350 to 400 degrees.
Here is another good way to
fix haddock or ysa that we have
tried:
3 tbsp butter or oleo, melted
k cup flour
salt and pepper to taste
k tsp nutmeg
lk cups milk
3 oz grated Cheddar cheese
2k lbs haddock, skinned and
boned
Sherry (optional)
Paprika to taste
Combine butter, flour, salt,
pepper and nutmeg; stir in milk
gradually. Cook till smooth
and thick; add cheese, stirring
until melted. Place haddock in
greased baking dish. Sprinkle
with salt and pepper. Pour
sauce over haddock; and add
sherry and sprinkle with pap-
rika. Bake at 325 degrees for
45 minutes. Makes 4 to 6 ser-
vings .
Scampi or Icelandic lobster
(humar) is great in almost any
lobster or shrimp recipe. We
like it dropped in boiling water,
that has a little dill weed ad-
ded for about three minutes. Then
cracked, dipped in butter and
eaten.
We have found a great hint on
boiling fish. To determine how
long to cook the fish, measure it
at its thickest point with a rul-
er. Allow 10 minutes per inch.
In other words if the fish meas-
ures two inches, boil it for 20
minutes.
We learned a very interesting
fact about caviar. Caviar is not
only the roe, or eggs, of stur-
geon, but also of salmon, white-
fish, and lumpfish. In Iceland
caviar is inexpensive. Now is
the time to cultivate "jet set"
tastes. After returning to the
States you can annoy your friends
with casual remarks about missing
caviar. Caviar is delicious on
top of Icelandic cheese served on
a cracker.
Sometime in April you will no-
tice a four-wheel drive vehicle
near the Vatnsleysa-Straumsvik
sign on the Reykjavik road. It
says "Raudmagi Nyr" which means
fresh red belly. We call it
lumpfish, or it is called
hrygnhelsi, lumpsucher, or lompi.
This is probably the ugliest fish
we've ever seen; however, the
meat is very moist, not fishy and
will melt in your mouth.
Here are two ways to prepare
lumpfish. The one we tried was
to fry it, so we will give you
that recipe first. Either way,
you must first cut off the head
and then cut along the back fin
and peel off the skin. To fry—
fillet the fish, roll it in egg
and bread crumbs and fry. We
used butter.
They are so moist that we
fried the first one a long time,
thinking it wasn't done. We
later found five to ten minutes
was about right. The meat never
seems to dry out during cooking.
We've been told that the liver
is very tasty, but our fish a-
natomy is lacking and we never
found it.
An Icelandic way to cook lump-
fish is to cut it into four large
pieces and boil it in a half wa-
ter-half vinegar mixture, with
one bay leaf for about five tq^^
ten minutes. Don't worry aboul^^^
the bone as it is only cartilage
and edible. This can be served
with your favorite sauce. We
complained about cleaning the
fish (wait until you see its
teeth) and we've told that you
can buy it already cleaned at the
.fish store.
Icelandic pastries are espe-
cially fun to try. The pancakes
(Ponnukokur) are delicious. It
is easier to fry them on a spe-
cial pancake skillet which has
been well seasoned. These skil-
lets can be purchased at many_
stores in Iceland.
The following recipe is th3
one we used and found very suc-
cessful :
1 lk cup flour
k tsp baking powder
ktsp baking soda
■ k tsp salt
. 2 tbsp sugar
3 eggs
12 tsp cardamon, vanilla, or
^lemon extracts may be used
* 3 cups milk
I k cup melted butter or oleo
I sift dry ingredients together
I in a large mixing bowl. Make
1 a dent in middle and break
1 whole eggs into center. Whisk
and continue whisking while ad-
I ding milk and flavoring. Add
! melted butter and blend. A
I 'non-cooking' friend claims she
l dumps everything in a blender
I vith comparable results. The
batter will be the consistency
of heavy cream. Between one-
quarter and one-third cup is
used for each pancake on a
1 well-seasoned 8' heated skil-
' let. Tip pan to spread the
I batter to the edge. Brown
' lightly on each side.
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The White Falcon