Category: Cuisine

The Harvest

It’s Tuesday. The first day of the restaurant’s week. The sun shines through holes in the cloudy sky from time to time. It’s about 12°C in the air, 8°C in the ocean. A fresh breeze flows by here and there. Just a typical day in the middle of May. Nicolai, Andreas and Andrea are garbed in wet suits and ready for this morning’s harvest. Today’s goal: Eight tubs of seaweed and a bucket of Ascophyllum, a brown seaweed mostly seen in the Northern Atlantic. Head chef at Restaurant Under, Nicolai Ellitsgaard calls it truffle algae because of its distinct truffle-like taste.

Super Local

After about an hour of harvesting in the small bay, Nicolai and his team have gathered what they need for the coming week. So they head back to the restaurant. Conveniently, they’re about a hundred metres away from the restaurant, so it is not that long of a walk. For Nicolai, it is important to use locally sourced ingredients. The goal is that all produce that can be gathered in the area should be. Of course, pepper plants and olive trees are far from normal in Scandinavia, but most of the fresh ingredients are sourced right here in Lindesnes. With cod and mackerel swimming past the restaurant’s massive glass window, lots of algae in the bay and sea urchins by the beach they basically have their whole menu right outside the restaurant.

The Michelin Menu

Being a restaurant submerged into the ocean it goes without saying that the menu has to be mainly maritime. With a seasonal menu constantly evolving, the restaurant offers a culinary experience you’ll never forget. During the course of the night, you may encounter blue mussels, traditional fish pudding, scallops, crab, and of course, algae.  In the spring of 2020, just ten months after their first guests had their first taste of the Norwegian sea, Restaurant Under won their first Michelin star. The Michelin guide describes Under’s menus as “a surprise multi-course menu, that offers creative, original dishes inspired by Norwegian classics.” The head chef had an ambition of getting one at some point, but could not believe it himself when they got it within a year of business.

In addition to being Europe’s first underwater restaurant, Restaurant Under is a true architectural masterpiece. Read all about its construction and meaningful design in our blog post, the Sunken Restaurant.

In the Water

During the past decades, as the importance of environmental protection and the effects of climate change has entered the political agenda, people have looked more to the sea for solutions. As one of our problems may be struggling to produce enough food on land, some people start experimenting with maritime produce we might not traditionally think of as food. In Norway, chefs try to use the tonnes of algae along our shores to our advantage. During the past years, several brands have launched algae and seaweed products for consumers. From spices to snacks, soft drinks to salads, algae is becoming a larger part of ordinary people’s culinary experiences. At Under, Nicolai Ellitsgaard wants to keep growing this trend by using algae and seaweeds in their menu. It is not just for the trend, of course. It has to taste good. Which it does.

Ready for Tonight

Back in the kitchen, having showered and dressed into their uniforms, the team is ready to prepare dishes for the night. Here, the produce is sorted and made ready for an evening of exceptional cuisine. One of tonight’s courses is a fish pudding inspired by Norwegian traditional cuisine, garnished with a blue mussel and Nicolai’s truffle algae. The bowl is decorated with non-edible seaweed harvested right outside Under just hours earlier. Now it’s just to wait for the guests to arrive, and let the magic happen.

Interesting read? Here at Nuet, we publish blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Read other stories from our Scandiverse on our blog, and follow our Instagram @nuetquavit to get instant updates on new posts.

The Porridge

Back when rice first was imported to Scandinavia in the 1300s, it was a symbol of status to be able to serve rice porridge. For hundreds of years, rice was a luxurious import product from an exotic continent. But as shipping methods evolved during the industrial revolution, rice quickly became available for the average Joe. During the mid-1800s, its availability made rice porridge the highlight of the Scandinavian Christmas Eve. Since then, the meal has become synonymous with the Christmas Eve morning and Scandinavian Christmas Food. Making the tradition more interesting for family members of all ages is the almond hidden in the porridge. A white almond is dropped into the pot of porridge. When found, the lucky person who found it wins a prize, typically a marzipan pig. It is believed that the tradition dates back to 1500s Germany and the game King Bean. The one who found the bean was declared King Bean all night and everyone else was his servants. The tradition migrated northwards and scaled down a little, but is still based on the same principle.

The Main Course Debate

Every year, the Norwegians have the same debate; what is the best Christmas Eve dinner? Here, you have two main contestants; the ribbe (slow-cooked pork belly) and pinnekjøtt (dried and salted lamb ribs). These two have a market share of 46% and 43% respectively, meaning that 9/10 Norwegians eat one of two meals on the 24th of December. It is estimated that around three million kilograms of ribbe are served every Christmas. Other honourable mentions are turkey and the world-famous lutefisk (dried whitefish in water and lye).

Serve it All

Crossing the border eastwards and looking to Norway’s big brother, Sweden, we hear a different story. Instead of arguing about what to eat and what not to eat, the Swedes have come up with an excellent solution; serve everything that the party desires. The Swedish julbord (Christmas table) is covered in plates with different types of meat, salads and sides. Here you can experience dozens of culinary treats throughout the Eve. Of course, you have the traditional Swedish meatballs served with sour cream, red onion and chives, accompanied by the Christmas ham, typically made with a breadcrumb and mustard crust. Along the table, you will also find pickled herring, mini sausages, red cabbage, and of course, rice porridge.

Christmas Drinks

No meal is complete without fluids to help digest the ridiculously large and greasy food. For centuries Christmas dinners across Scandinavia have been washed down with a few snaps, shots of aquavit. Throwing a Scandinavian Christmas party? Then you need a bottle of aquavit for the snaps. You’re in luck, because with just a few clicks you can buy your own 70cl of Nuet Dry Aquavit, a fresh and smooth take on the traditional Scandinavian spirit. Buy now in our webshop (orders outside Norway) or Vinmonopolet (in Norway). And when you’ve picked up our own bottle of Nuet Dry Aquavit, celebrate a fresh and smooth Christmas with our Nuet homemade drinks. Check out the Freezing Robin, Rising Skies, Nuet Gimlet and more in our drinks section.

Interesting read about Scandinavian Christmas Food? Stay tuned for next week’s blog post, when we explore Scandinavian Christmas traditions. Here at Nuet, we publish weekly blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Subscribe to our newsletter, and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts. 

A Story About Meat

For decades Denmark was on top of the list of over most meat consumption per capita. If you do a quick web search for the phrases “what is Denmark known for?” or “Danish food” it is certain that you would find information and photos of Danish meat. Although the Danish is off the meat consumption podium, they are still known for their flora of meat meals and sausages.  With a much shorter coastline and less naval territory, as well as a climate better suited for agriculture, the Danes have been less dependent on fish as their neighbours in the North. Denmark is perfectly suited for animal husbandry. Heavily influenced by the Germans, the Danes have fallen in love with sausage production and consumption.

The Land of Sausage Stands

Denmark, and especially the capital of Copenhagen, is known for its ubiquity of sausage stands. Back in the ’70s, the relatively small country of five million inhabitants had right under a thousand sausage stands, the highest stand to inhabitant ratio in the world. Although it isn’t the most impressive ratio in the world, it certainly gives an impression of the Danish sausage consumption.

The Red Sausage

Although the Danes have a rich flora of sausages, there is one in particular that represents Danish cuisine. Regarded as one of Denmark’s national dishes, the red sausage is consumed in the billions each year. It is said that the colouring of the sausage was as a result of an order to dye day-old sausages as means of a warning and marking them as cheaper than the fresh sausages. Basically, the red sausage is a red-dyed pork wiener heated in hot water. Although it doesn’t sound special, the red sausage is more than a meal, it is a culture, and a Danish culinary pride.

Enjoyed the read? Then we suggest having a look at our post about Trekroneren, one of the most known sausage stands in the world, located in Norway. Here at Nuet, we publish weekly posts about everything Scandinavian. Read more at nuetaquavit.com/stories and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts. And when you’re at it, sign up for our newsletter to receive weekly updates on drinks recipes, blog posts and special offers. 

Simplicity Is Key

Kôlbôhttn is one of the simplest meals in the Swedish kitchen. Based on just three ingredients; barley flour, salt and water it is a simple, yet tasteful meal. Originating from Särna, a small area in central Sweden, it is said that there are as many variations of Kôlbôhttn as there are families in the area. Because virtually everyone has custom ingredients in theirs. Hundreds of kilometres north, in Vesterålen, Northern Norway, Adam and his family live. They are of Swedish descent, and even though they live in the cold north, they still honour the tradition of the Southern Swedes. In addition to the standard ingredients, Adam’s family adds some eggs and a little milk for some extra nutrients and a richer taste.

Lumberjack’s Lunch

Kôlbôhttn has its roots back in the golden era of Swedish lumber production. Hundreds of men spent hours and days in the forest logging, moving, and processing lumber. There’s no doubt that such manpower had to be fed, and it had to be done efficiently. The lumberjacks worked long and physically shifts, so they had to have all the energy they could get.  Kôlbôhttn was an energy-rich, cost-efficient, and tasteful meal, perfect for a day in the woods. They mixed the flour and salt with water from nearby freshwater streams and started cooking. The workers gathered around a makeshift oven, made by stone. It was too inconvenient to flip the kôlbôhttn in the oven, so it had to be made in two layers with fire over end under so it would get the same heat on both sides.

Today, the Swedish lumber industry is more dependant on heavy machinery and does not require the manpower it once did. As a result of this change, Kolbotten is no longer a necessity for the Swedish lumberjack, but it still lives on as a culinary tradition for many Swedes. Served with side bacon and messmörsås, a caramel-ish butter sauce, Kôlbôhttn is an unusual, but tasteful meal.

Have a Drink

You should never have a meal without something to drink. When the Swedish lumberjacks worked in the forest, kôlbôhttn was usually accompanied by milk, water or coffee. But on special occasions, like the national day, midsummer or the last day in the forest for the season some celebrated the happening with a schnapps of Swedish Aquavit. Schnapps are small shots of spirits served in company with food, to celebrate both smaller and larger moments. And on that note, we suggest trying out Nuet Dry Aquavit, your own Scandinavian moments in a bottle.

Interesting read? Then we suggest having a look at our post about the 250-year-old bakery in Stavanger, Norway. Here at Nuet, we publish weekly blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Read more at nuetaquavit.com/stories and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts.  And, if you’re super interested, you could sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the site, and get a chance to win a free bottle of Nuet Dry Aquavit.

The Journey

It is Friday at 11 o’clock, and we are on our way to pick up 40 kilos of coffee grounds. With five large containers in the back of the van, we depart from King Coffee’s headquarters at Fornebu outside of Oslo. We drive a little while before we come to stop one out of three on today’s tour. This is a large office complex with over a thousand employees. Imagine the number of coffee grounds in your coffee machine every morning. Now multiply that with a thousand, and you have the amount of coffee we’re picking up. The journey continues into Oslo city centre, where we stop by a few more offices before we arrive at Vollebekk on the opposite side of the Norwegian capital from where we started. Here we drop off the coffee grounds in two containers marked with a sign saying «Gruten», Norwegian for “the coffee grounds”.

The Container

In these containers, tonnes of oyster mushrooms are produced, just from coffee grounds. Since 2014, Siri Mittet from Ålesund has run Gruten, a business producing different products out of coffee waste, like soaps and body scrubs. Two years ago Siri wanted to get into urban agriculture and figured that the coffee waste she already was collecting could be used to grow oyster mushrooms. She got ahold of two large containers and started out producing her mushrooms. Along with Konrad, which is the head of production, and a little help from some others, they grow about 40 kilos of oyster mushrooms a week.

Want to read more about urban agriculture in Norway? Then we suggest reading our story, Oslo’s Urban Agricultural Oasis.

The Demand

You may ask how large the demand for oyster mushrooms grown on coffee waste is, and the answer to that is: there is a large demand. Gruten has no problem of selling out every single mushroom they produce and are already planning to expand with a goal of doubling the production capacity by the end of next year. In the nature, oyster mushrooms usually grow on rotten trees and logs in the forest, but they are also well-suited for growing on pure coffee waste. The mushrooms are nourished by the cellulose in the wood and the humid air in the Norwegian forest. Just like trees, coffee grounds are full of cellulose and with an automatic humidity regulator in the containers the conditions for good mushrooms are perfect.

The Flavour

Although the materials are different, the mushrooms’ flavour is not affected by the coffee grounds. They still have their rich, earthy flavour oyster mushrooms are known for. This is why Gruten’s mushrooms are so sought after. Especially restaurants that want to excel in taste as well as keeping the environmental impact of their food low have Gruten mushrooms on their menu. If you want a taste of locally grown mushrooms you can stop by Txotx and Funky Fresh Foods to experience food grown from waste.

The Movement

Gruten is an important piece in an ever expanding focus on our environment, as well as where and how we get our food. Just like the Losæter Urban Farm, Gruten’s vision is to expand people’s knowledge about their food and the story behind it. All over the world, and especially in Scandinavia people are figuring out new ways to enjoy life in more enviromental friendly ways. The green wave washing over us are the reason why initiatives like Gruten exist. Hmmm.

Here at Nuet, we publish weekly blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Read more at nuetaquavit.com/stories and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts.  

Centuries of Pastry

Rosenkildehaven Bageri was established all the way back in the mid-1770s and run by different people until 1833 when Børge Rosenkildehaven took over. Børge was Stavanger’s representative in the parliament while he ran the bakery, and at some point, he is said to have brought pastry to the whole parliament for a gala dinner. The last 15 years, Kjetil Jungen has run the bakery, producing around 150 bread a week. As a tribute to the Rosenkildehaven family’s legacy, every bread he sells is marked with the Rosenkildehaven seal.

The Experience

Buying bread at Rosenkildehaven is not like buying bread in any other bakery. In addition to the bread, you also experience the atmosphere in the bakery, the warmth from the centuries-old oven and the smell of fresh pastry in the air. Kjetil gladly tells customers about the bread, the produce and the story behind the bakery. 

“The difference between this and a “normal” bakery is that here you are served a story, as well as a loaf of bread.”

A Time-Consuming Process

It takes time to make good products, and the rule applies to Kjetil’s bread as well. The sourdough bread takes three days to bake and prepare. When the dough is almost finished, Kjetil fires up the oven, a process that takes twelve hours. Then the bread is baked in the oven for three hours before it’s ready to be sold. Although he doesn’t produce as many breads as a normal bakery, he almost always sells out every single piece, in just a couple hours.

“We sell out every time. It takes just a couple hours before 150 bread is long gone.”

Here at Nuet, we publish weekly blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Read more at nuetaquavit.com/stories and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts.  

The Apple Inheritance

Olav inherited the farm from his father 20 years ago, just 18 years old. His father ran it for decades, just like his father before him. In fact, the roots of the Bleie family tree extends all the way back to the middle ages, and the farm has been in their family for a thousand years. It was his father that learned Olav to make cider, and after the first batch, the passion for drink grew rapidly. Today, the old man’s workdays have passed, but he regularly visits to have a taste of new apple harvests and cider variants. Every cider has to be approved by his father’s taste buds before they are ready for the market. Alde Sider is now a growing business thanks to the hard work put into the care of the apples.

An Apple per Sip

For most of Olav’s ciders, he tries to maximize the output of cider from each apple, with one exception: The Ice Cider is a cider made on a 1/10 concentrate, meaning that it takes ten times more apples to make this cider than a ”normal” one. Here, just one sip equals a whole apple. With such high consumption of apples per bottle, it is no surprise that the cider is made in limited quantities, and has a much steeper price than the other ciders. But in return, you get an acid-rich cider with an explosive taste and a sweet aroma.

Centuries of Apple Cultivation

The apples of Hardanger can be traced back to the 1200s when Catholic monks visited the area and left some seeds for the local farmers. It is unsure if they brought the knowledge of cider at that time, but there are written sources that confirm cider production as far back as the 1700s. Hardanger is known for having an abundance of apples, and here, the majority of Norwegian apples are harvested. Warm and long summer days combined with cool autumn nights is perfect for creating apples with a mixture of sweet and sour tastes, as well as the iconic bright red colour.

Here at Nuet, we publish weekly blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Read more at nuetaquavit.com/stories and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts.  

Quality Sausages at its Finest

There is a reason this little hot dog stand has been in business for decades; quality. Trekroneren specialises in high-quality sausages with quality toppings. This is not just food to feed your hunger, this is a culinary experience out of the ordinary. All of Trekroneren’s sausages are prepared at a local butcher just a 30 minutes walk from the stand. And all except one sausage are made exclusively by meat from local farms. The last one is the reindeer sausage, where the meat naturally comes from Northern Norway. Quality costs, and Trekroneren is by no means the cheapest sausage seller in town, but these sausages are definitively worth the extra penny.

International Recognition

It may be hard to believe that a simple Norwegian hot dog stand has gained any international attention at all, but during its lifetime, Trekroneren has become world-famous. In its 74 years, the stand has received visitors from virtually every nation in the world. Its quality sausages are mentioned by Lonely Planet, Rough Guides and countless other travel blogs and magazines. The stand features menus in five different languages and has internet reviews in dozens of languages.

Near Destruction

Trekroneren is located just next to Bryggen, Bergens largest tourist attraction. Bryggen attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, which is good for business at Trekroneren. It had always been there without problems, but in 2019 the Bergen City council looked into the beloved hot dog stand’s building permits. After a deep-dive in the archives, they concluded that the stand had no valid building permits and was placed illegally on the pavement. It all started a debate and some wanted to remove the hot dog stand. But the majority of the council’s members and the people of Bergen argued that the stand had been a part of the Bergen cityscape since 1946 with no complaints till that day and that the stand caused more joy than misery. The hot dog stand had become a part of the city’s cultural heritage and should remain as one.

Haven’t heard about Bryggen? Then we suggest reading our story, The World Heritage Docks, a comprehensive look into Bergen’s cultural pride.

A Tradition

Outside Trekroneren on a Saturday evening in late August, Henning and his mate Bjørn just bought themselves a couple of sausages. They are following a tradition extending decades where they have a sausage every time they are in the city centre together. When asked about how long they have been going on they both laugh and agree that it has to be around 50 years, at least. Here they have enjoyed hundreds, maybe thousands of sausages, and they will continue the tradition until “it closes down or we die.”

“I hope this place never closes down. Every time we are in the city centre we have to go here. It has become a tradition. “

Henning, Local Hot Dog Lover

Want to read more about Bergen? We just published a blog post about another important part of the Bergen cityscape; street art. Read more in our post, A Tour in Scandinavia’s Street Art Capital. Here at Nuet, we publish weekly blog posts about everything Scandinavian. Read more stories at nuetaquavit.com/stories and follow our Instagram @nuetaquavit to get instant updates on new posts straight to your feed.