People often consider Germanic cuisines (English, Dutch, German, Nordic) to be kinda boring and insipid, if not worse. I'm interested in trying out some dishes from these regions to see if the reputation is earned or if it's just a bad rap. I recently tried hutspot and really liked it.
So to anyone familiar with the food of these regions, do you have any recommendations? I would specifically like to know about any tips on how to make boerenkool, but all ideas and dishes are welcome.
Other urls found in this thread:
en.m.wikipedia.org
twitter.com
You can try Tafelspitz, its very good.
Also try Schnitzels, Flammenkueche.
Also, depending on what you call germanic : Fondue, tartiflette, papet aux poireaux.
Only dishes I ate from scandi cuisine were cold fishes so no idea.
Being from Germany I can definitely recommend you try making some kebap, it's really traditional over here!
That aside, definitely "Flammkuchen" ("Elsässer Art" is classic)
"Töttchen" (using intestines for the adventurous or just pork)
"Rheinischer Sauerbraten", "Matjes-Röllchen", "Roulladen"
not really fair to clump all the nordic countries together, from what I've heard and experienced what you can say about the countries respectively is
> Norway: simple but a bit bland but generally pretty good
> Sweden: weird as hell, couple of good dishes but it's mostly wtf moments
> Denmark: overall good but fatty as fuck all
Maybe you're right. I don't know how similar they really are. I'm blaming Noma for associating them all.
But to be serious, what makes Danish food extra fatty?
For me, it's the currywurst the best Imbiss snack
Why sweden weird?
Dutch here, the thing with our dishes is that they're all pretty much the same. You take mashed potatoes, add the veggie of choice (in the case of 'boerenkool stampot' you add kale) and perhaps some fried bacon pieces. Serve with a good (smoked) sausage or meatball and some good mustard.
Then you can do the same by replacing the kale with sauerkraut, (green leafy) endive etc. Works with most veggies to be honest.
By endive you mean this?
And for boerenkool stampot, what kind of kale do you use and how is it normally prepared? Boiled?
Currywurst
try Käsespätzel OP
If you want to eat a nice traditional English meal: boil some lamb chops until they lose their flavour, boil some peas until they lose their flavour, and serve with potato mash.
I like Danish millionbof a whole lot, particularly with rice rather than potato. It's basically beef mince gravy. It's nothing special, but I like it.
Dishes native to my country (Italy; there are German-speaking communities in the north), kartoffelknödel gröstl are pretty good. They're potato dumplings made with chopped smoked pork belly (like a halfway point between ham and Ameribacon) and caramelised onion. Also egg and flour, to hold it together.
There are two versions, one boiled and served with a sprinkling of parsley and cheese grated on top (a local type simply called "sharp mountain cheese" which tastes similar to appenzeller) and the other where the cheese and parsley are mixed into the dumpling itself which gets formed, breaded and fried as a croquette. Locally, this one is sometimes called gröstlschnitzel.
Gotta keep in mind: it's not that the food is bad it's that it's pretty cold where most Germanic people live and they don't natively have as large a variety of spices or flavourful veg ingredients to help their cuisine along. They do really well with what they have, tho. Except Iceland. Fuck Icelandic cuisine. It's just Danish food but worse.
wait, how is swedish cuisine weird as hell? sure, they have surströmming but that's prolly the weirdest they have and i can't think of anything remotely strange.
then again, dishes like surströmming can be found in a few other cuisines as well.
About Iceland, I think I can forgive a nation of 300k people for not developing a world-class cuisine. 300k is like one medium sized town in any other country.
Wat. I like German food. Potatoes, pork and beer: how is that bad?
Do you like pickled things?
Idk, user.
As of last month, Maldives and Iceland have a population difference of only about 200 people and Maldivian cuisine is infinitely tastier than Icelandic food.
That only goes for our more traditional food... today, we have low-fat versions of EVERYTHING... you can even buy your mince with at least 3 different fat levels (3-7%, 12-18% and standard mince)
At least in South Jutland we have a saying:
>The sauce is half the food
If your sauce does not have small beads of fat floating on top (from the meat juice, which is the secret ingredient in any proper sauce), it's powder sauce.
As for the probable reasons:
1. We have cold winters (albeit tame compared to most other places)
2. In the olden days you'd need all the energy you could get... since the majority of Danes until around the 1900's were basically indentured farmers...
3. Having a bit of fat on your belly was actually considered a sign of good health until American culture rolled in in the 60s and 70s. If my grandma were to see my body (i don't have a sixpack, more a small beer belly, but my ribs are semi-visible), she'd say I was skinny
4. Only the most recent 2-3 generations have actually cared about their weight... and even then it's still mostly women who care.
But actually seeing landwhales and lard-mountains in the wild is VERY rare... most normal non-Veeky Forums people hover around the 100 kg mark... if you're below the 100 kgs, it's unlikely that you'll be considered fat by the majority.
i'm Danish, and i've literally never heard of millionbof with rice. I always had it with either mashed potatoes or spaghetti.
Two words: smorgasbord cake
however, most of it is pretty tame...
Fuck, i hate dutch food,but love german
Pork Haxe and Knodel.
Fuck,its a real men food.
>i'm Danish, and i've literally never heard of millionbof with rice. I always had it with either mashed potatoes or spaghetti.
Agree. It's not bad on ryebread the following day either, though.
Great story!
Can I see your tits?
>100kg is not fat
The fuck?! In CH and north IT, that's considered superfat. And we average in height in my area around 187cm.
That's not the right endive you need the one that looks like pointy lettuce.
Stampot you need to source rookworst and sauerkraut. Cut the kale in thin strips fry in butter but to be more authentic fry in bacon fat!
Boil your rookworst cut in finger thick slices mix with mashed potatoes fried kale and sauerkraut.
Your good to go :)
Another variation of this is with shredded carrots. Its not the most sophisticated food on earth but great on a cold day or hangover.
South Jutlandic Frikadeller:
Ingredients:
250 g beef mince
250 g pork mince
150 ml water (or use milk for a rounder flavor)
about 3/4 of a decilitre of dried breadcrumbs
1 small-medium onion, finely chopped
1-2 teapsoons salt
pepper to taste
prep:
Soak breadcrumbs a bit in the water, then add the rest of the incredients.
You want the mix to be rather firm... if the meat is too loose , add a bit more salt or rerigerate it or about 30-60 minutes before you cook it.
cooking:
roll the meat into small meatballs about half the size of your palm, then fry on medium-high in butter for about 5-6 minutes on each side.
In winter it's traditionally served warm with potatoes, brown sauce and boiled red cabbage.
In summer, they are usually served either warm or cold along with a good potato salad.
If you have leftover frikadeller, throw 'em in the fridge, and eat them on rye bread, in a sandwich or just as a snack...
you don't have to store blubber for winter :)
>most normal non-Veeky Forums people hover around the 100 kg mark
>Blubber for winter in Jutland
You realize you'd be called obese in Sweden, right?
Assumably he means the weird 80s shit like Flygande Jakob, or maybe Janssons Frestelse, Gubbröra, etc, old party foods like that. All taste good, great even, but they are a bit weird.
Come to Norway and try Rakfisk. If you don't like it, you're human garbage.
Englishman here. Cider braised pork cheek with cabbage and Wensleydale Cheesy mash.
Ingredients for braised pork cheeks:
-pork cheeks
-cider
-chicken broth
-2 carrots
-a few shallots or onions
-(optional) celery salt or celery
-(optional) leeks
-white pepper
-black pepper
-salt to taste at the end
-bay leaves
-rosemary
-(optional) sage
-flour or ground rice (for coeliacs)
-oil (preferably olive) or butter
Method:
>cube carrots and thinly slice other veg
>coat cheeks in a mix of flour, salt, white pepper and black pepper (easy way is to shake around a plastic bag)
>fry them til golden on both sides
>remove them from oil mix and add in chopped onions, carrots, leeks and celery (if using celery salt add it later)
>cook until onions are translucent
>add in a bottle or so of cider and boil for a minute or two
>re-add your pork cheeks
>cover remainder with chicken stock
>bring to boil once more for a minute then reduce to simmer
>add herbs and some more pepper
>cook on low for 2-3 hours depending on cheek size with lid on pan to keep moisture for this time to tenderise the cheeks
>remove cheeks again and raise heat
>reduce sauce remaining by about ~70% until it's slightly thicker
>remove bay leaves from sauce
Then serve the cheeks atop some mash or with other spud dish maybe with some boiled cabbage w/ lardons or other veg.
Basically you can switch a lot of this up but this is my general recipe.
Oh also a tea spoon of sugar before reducing and a few drops of vinegar when you add the cider. I nearly forgot
True. Our winters are pretty hot in Switzerland. During that time of year, we sit on our Alpine beaches and drink from our home-grown coconuts either as we work on our tans or try to find shade beneath the nearest date palm. It's currently a cool 30c right now so the cows are complaining the farmers hands are cold, but we expect the winter to warm to the more typical average of 57c by early November.
Tbf in the valleys (where most of you live) you have significantly warmer temperatures through much of the year than the Irish, Scandies and Brits I mean in Canton Vaud for example there's even fucking grapes on the coat of arms because of how prevelant vineyards are due to the climate.
if that's weird, then it should be extremely weird to eat intestines and such.
janssons frestelse can't really be weird, it's essentially just french fries,onions and salmon done in one dish in the oven.
honestly, flygande jakob is a bit weird but i would never call gubbröra weird even though i dislike it
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I know it's not served on rice. That's why I say I like on rice 'rather than with potato' because I know it's common on potato. I think it pairs better with rice, though. Sorry if I've bastardised your cuisine. :(
Let me tell you about a further bastardisation, though. I also make millionkyllingekod or however a Dane would call it and also eat it with rice. I now await your hateposts.
Yeah and your hotdog, I mean mash potatoes and shrimpsalat is pretty weird
I'm not hatin tho
You guys get less snow than we do, actually, because even our valleys are at a higher elevation than most of your country. And it stays around longer. That's why we ski and you don't.
Believe it or not, the valleys have winters fairly comparable to yours (a little colder, actualy), though the summers tend to be much warmer than in Danmark.
I'm a bong, m'dude.
And your winters are warmer still than Danmark's or Switzerland's. It's just always rainy there. Put it this way: Swiss Januarys get an average low of about -2c and Danish an average of about -1.5. Scotland, the coldest part of Bongland, averages around 0c. Again, though, Switzerland has much warmer summers for some reason. UK temps tend to vary relatively little season to season (difference of 9c at most between July and January) compared to Swiss temps (as much as 15c).
Sounds really fucking good user, I'm gonna try this out soon, though I'll probably have it with a sweet potato mash and brussel sprouts.
Only problem I can see is finding a good English cider to use, I've seen some before at my liquor store before but it's not all that common to find around here. Dry cider is preferable, right?
Königsberger Klopse
>salmon
user, I... It's not salmon.
Ansjovis. You musta tasted it. It's disgusting.
And not french fries either, what have you been smoking, it's not deep fried, just strips of potato.
My man you have some real weird version of Jansons Frestelse
You better get ready for the king of winter comfort foods, Dutch split pea soup, also known as snert.
Ingredients:
>400 gr of dried split peas
>2 porkchops or your favorite cut of pork. fatty cuts are fantastic. mix it up if you like
>1 celeriac
>1 large carrot
>1 large onion
>1 leek
>1 potato
>bay leaf
>vegetable stock cube/vegetable stock
>leaf celery/chinese celery (check at your asian grocer)
>some peppercorns & salt
>1 quality 'rookworst' or some other smoked sausage
>fill a soup pot with 1,5 liters of water, add the split peas, raw pork (with bone), bay leaf, stock cube, peppercorns & salt and bring to boil
>simmer for about 30 minutes, meanwhile dice your other veggies and herbs
> skim the foam and take the pork out, remove the bone and dice. Put the meat back in the pot with the veggies.
>simmer until the peas have completely fallen apart and the soup has thickened.
>cut the rookworst into slices and add to the pot
>serve with rye bread and bacon
Protip: make it the day before because it will taste better the next day. Store the leftovers in your freezer.
I mean like alcoholic cider, that's the only thing the English mean when we say cider mate.
>kinda boring and insipid
Those "people" are snobs who gobble at frog feet, most likely.
The dishes are supposed to be simple, relatively cheap, and nutritious at the same time. Hutspot is definitely one of those.
>Schnitzels
>bratwurst
>sauerkraut
>endives
>cauliflower
>kibinai
>meatball
Second this. also try stoofvlees similar to boeuf bourguignon.
>Some reason
Different climates for different places - Switzerland is Continental whereas Britain (and a lot of the other nations mentioned, actually) are influenced more by the ocean (hence all the fucking non-stop rain)
en.m.wikipedia.org
>stock cube
?
I assume this is what he means
Basically some salt and msg and flavouring in a cube. Breddy gud desu
Generally yeah, but if done right it can be comfy.
this is bs
we are much smaller in switzerland
remove 10cm and its more realistic
Your Italian ego might be 187cm yea.
I dont think any culture or region's food is "boring/bland". If it was, people wouldn't have kept eating it for 100s of years unless they absolutely had to.
England is the only anomaly I'm aware of.
first off, i said essentially, i didn't say it's literally that.
secondly, there's many variations of janssons frestelse, most common (at least that i've seen in multiple places in sweden and finland) has been the salmon one.
>they absolutely had to
Kinda, yeah. There's also diversity of local ingredients, history of trade, cultural/religious taboos, technology and cooking techniques, climate, social structure etc. So there are more factors affecting the development of a regional cuisine besides taste.
It's right. Almost.
In all of Switzerland, average height is shorter, yes. And in all of Italy, average height is even shorter than that. But in the immediate areas of the Southern Limestone Alps and the Dinaric Alps which spread into Northeast Italy and Southeast Switzerland and as far east as Serbia, average height is 186cm. Look it up.
English, Dutch, and German cuisine is hearty. I don't see why it gets so much flak when it's good home-cooking.
Never had Nordic so I can't comment. I'd also add in Belgian since Flemish cuisine is Germanic too and there's quite a few tasty dishes.
wtf are you on, I lived in the area for years. North italians are not that tall, the tallest average in the world is 1.85 and you are far from it in manlet country.
See
I now 'cheat' with my own preparations. So gratifying. Comfy food à la minute.