It's been a while since the last contest (back in Februrary), in which readers resoundingly elected Gravad Laks (cured salmon) as their favourite seafood smørrebrød. Now it's time to cast your ballots in favour of your favourite meat treat. Here are the contestants:

Ham with Italiensk Salat

Liver paté with pickled beets

Tartarmad (beef tartare)

Dyrlægens Natmad

Hønsesalat (chicken Salad)

Medisterpølse with cucumber salad

Tongue Salad

Tongue in a creamy, dreamy salad

It was my farfar (grandfather) who used to say that he never wanted to eat anything that had been in somebody else's mouth. He always seemed to say this just as the tongue salad was being served - yet he always ignored his own advice as he hungrily tucked in to what was probably one of his favourite smørrebrød.

Tongue: not pretty, but pretty yummy!

OK, I'll admit it right up front - tongue isn't my favourite smørrebrød to make, mainly because the actual preparation is pretty gross - I mean you can see where the tongue was ripped from the poor beast's head - ugh! And you can make out it's taste buds for heaven's sake. But soldiering on through the gnarly bits is worth it, as tongue is a tender, tasty cut of meat and goes very well on Danish rye bread in a number of different preparations - and, of course, washed down with cold Danish lager!

The most traditional manner of consuming tongue is in tongue salad, with finely chopped veal of beef tongue mixed into a creamy concoction that has a citrusy tanginess that stands up well to the meatiness of tongue. 

There are, however, other was of enjoying tongue. For instance, have it with a little Italiensk salat (recipe here), or even prepared in the manner of roast beef with horseradish and fried onions (recipe here). In all cases, it should be eaten with hearty, buttered Danish rye bread (recipe here).

You too can enjoy cow tongue smørrebrød in 3 easy steps...
1) Cow
2) Tongue
3) Smørrebrød

H.C. Andersen

Now, making tongue isn't very hard, but it is a bit time-consuming, mainly due to the lengthy simmering times needed to produce the deliciously tender meat. As such, the Danish Degree of Difficulty of Tongue is Medium - Hans Christian Andersen Medium.

As you probably know, Hans Christian Andersen was a tremendously prolific Danish storyteller of the 1800s. Born in Odense in 1805, H.C. wrote fairy tales which were to become international mega smash hits. He is in very rare company indeed when it comes to Danish celebrity... the Wayne Gretzky of Fairy Tale writers (and Aesop would be Mario Lemieux. The Brothers Grimm? Gordie Howe).

H.C. Andersen's stories 

include Thumbelina, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Match Girl, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, and of course, the Little Mermaid (Den Lille Havfrue). 

The Little Mermaid - Little is right!

Even before Walt Disney made the The Little Mermaid into a household name, she was a star - a life-sized statue in her likeness sits perched atop a rock in Copenhagen's harbour, and is surely one of Copenhagen's most visited tourist attractions. For me, this statue, while pretty, is in a dubious category along with the Mona Lisa, the Manneken Pis and a few other European tourist attractions - iconic, but disappointingly small. I know that makes me seem brutish and uncultured, but I'm just being honest.

If you visit the statue, and I do think it's worth it, you may find that it is closed off to the public. This is due to frequent vandalism that she endures at the hands of her "fans." She's been through it all: pushed into the harbour, doused with paint, set on fire. She's even had limbs severed! Which finally brings me back to cow tongue.   

Yes, it has been severed from a cow, but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy eating it. And if you want to enjoy it, here's what you need to do to cook it...

1) First of all, buy a tongue. Most decent butchers will have something - most likely veal. Beef is fine, if they have it, but it takes longer to cook, since it's much larger than veal.

Tongue - Definitely not for the faint of heart 

2) Soak it in cold water for an hour or two, then drain.

3) Simmer slowly in a pot with vegetables such as an onion, a couple of carrots, a celery stick, parsley - that kind of thing. You can also add a few herbs and spices like bay leaf, thyme, mustard seed, all-spice.

Simmering tongue - this part is easy

4) Cook the tongue for about one hour per pound of meat - keeping the meat covered in water at all times. A veal tongue generally takes one and a half to two hour to cook. Beef can take much longer.

5) Remove the tongue from the cooking liquid and allow to cool slightly, then remove the thick outer membrane (this is the part that looks like taste buds - yuck!). You want to do this while the meat is still warm. 

Peeling the tongue - this is one of the grosser jobs...

6) Allow the tongue to cool thoroughly, and then slice thinly cross-wise, being sure to remove fatty bits, tough membranous parts, or any other nasty looking stuff. 

7) Prepare the tongue meat in your favourite 

recipe, like Tongue Salad!  Here's what you need to know in order to prepare a nice tongue salad smørrebrød:

smørrebrød 

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked tongue, chopped finely 
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard 
• 1 tbsp butter, softened to room temperature 
• 1/2 tsp Paprika 
• 1 egg yolk, boiled 
• juice of 1 lemon 
• a pinch of nutmeg

Instructions

1) Put aside the chopped tongue, and thoroughly combine all the other ingredients in a bowl.

2) Add the tongue, and stir to combine.

3) Serve 2 spoonfuls of tongue salad on a slice of buttered Danish rye bread with slices of onion for added crunch! Enjoy with fork and knife!

Sommersalat: smoked cheese and radish marks the beginning of summer

When the weather gets warm and the gardens are springing to life, it's the time of year to start making the delicious veggie smørrebrød called sommersalat (which translates to, drum roll.....summer salad). This distinctly Danish treat pops up at picnics across Denmark when the sun comes out and the weather gets warm. Personally, I have fond memories of enjoying smørrebrød with sommersalat in the garden of one of my uncle's my summer cottages in Hornbæk, on the Zealand coast north of Copenhagen. On those summer occassions, when the entire family would gather for enormous smørrebrød potluck, we could always count on my cousin Dorte to bring along the sommersalat. Thanks, Dorte!

Making sommersalat is very easy, but it requires one special ingredient - an unusually-prepared Danish dairy product similar to cream cheese but with one huge difference - it's been smoked! Called rygeost (or smoked cheese), you can find this in all Danish grocery stores, but if you live in Canada, you need to make it yourself - which is, of course, what I do.

There's more than one way to
smoke a cheese...

I don't have a proper smoker on my back balcony, but I have been known to jerry rig my bar-b-q into a suitable system for adding a modicum of naturally smokey flavour to foods (eel, herring, mackerel, and of course, cheese). For rygeost, however, you have to use cold smoke, so you'll need a way of transporting the smoke away from to heat source and into a secondary container in which you place the cheese. Smoking cheese doesn't take too long, maybe 30-45 minutes, and should be done with a mildly scented wood (no mesquite or hickory - you ain't cookin' ribs, partner - I'd recommend maple or apple wood instead).

Peder S. Krøyer
Self-portrait 1899

Given the fact that you'll probably need to smoke your own cheese, making sommersalat has a Danish Degree of Difficulty of Peder S. Krøyer Medium.

P. S. Krøyer (1851 - 1909), was a Danish painter and one of the most prominent members of the Skagen Painters, a community of Nordic artists who lived and worked in the picturesque Danish coastal town of Skagen (pronounced skay-en) at the end of the 19th century. He's best-known for his paintings depicting beach life in the Skagen area, using a color palette that brilliantly captured the magnificent summer sunlight  that bathed Denmark's most-northerly tip in the late-afternoons. His most famous painting is probably "Summer Evening on the Skagen Southern Beach with Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer" which he painted in 1893.

Summer Evening on the Skagen Southern Beach
with Anna Archer and Marie Krøyer, 1893, by P.S. Krøyer. 

Read more about the Skagen Painters at the Skagen Museum website.

I've never been to Skagen, but I've always thought of it as the quintessential Danish summer vacation spot. It was to Skagen that my father and his four brothers would travel as children in order to escape the humdrum blahs of summertime in post-war Copenhagen (playing with rusty nails in the mean back alleyways of Sydhavn), preferring instead to frolic in the frigid northern waters at the confluence of the Skaggerak and Kattegat. Brrrrrrr.... On the other hand, Skagen beaches, like beaches in the other parts of Europe, are topless, so maybe the kids didn't mind the chilly water that much after all. If you'd  like to know more about tourism in Skagen, check this out. If you'd like to learn more about topless beaches, ask the internet.

Windswept beach at Skagen - a great place to eat sommersalat!

Inspired by the beach?

As I mentioned, I've never been to Skagen  - it is too far out of the way for a quick trip from Copenhagen (takes about 5 and a half hours to get there with a ferry ride to Ǻrhus - another place I've never been to - so I'd be able to kill 2 birds with one stone on this trip). For now I have to content myself with a lovely Skagen watch!
Ok, so this doesn't have anything to do with the summer, open-faced sandwiches, or sommersalat, but I like Skagen watches. The company is actually US-headquartered, but is run by a Danish couple, and they make ultra-thin, lightweight watches with typical Danish-design simplicity. Check out Skagen Denmark watches here. Believe it or not, I do not get corporate sponsorship for the contents of my blog posts. I just post about things I like for free.




Skagen - one place I'd love to visit - but it always seems too far!

 Anyway, now that I've successfully avoided talking about food for several paragraphs, and shamelssly flogging a few Danish brands, we should get back to making this week's pålæg sandwich topping - sommersalad. Yum! Smokey, crunchy, delicously creamy, but somehow light all at the same time!

But before we do, here's one last gratuitous plug for Denmark in the summer - where the days are long, the sun is warm, the sandwiches are topless, and so are the beaches! Life in Denmark can be so hyggelig!

Topless beaches & topless sandwiches
Ah! Summer in Denmark ain't bad! 

OK, here's what you need to know if you want to make your own sommersalat smorrebrød:

Ingredients for sommersalat

Ingredients for sommersalat

• 300 g rygeost (smoked cheese)
• 3 heaping tbsp mayonnaise
• 250 ml (1 cup) thinly sliced radish
• 250 ml (1 cup) chopped seedless cucumber
• 1 bunch chives, chopped
• salt and pepper, to taste
• A few slices of frizzy lettuce
• slices of buttered Danish rye bread

Instructions for making sommersalat

Sommersalat smørrebrød: a mini work of art on bread...

1) Combine smoked cheese and mayonnaise in a large bowl until mixed.

2) Add radish, cucumber, and chopped chives and then stir to combine.

3) Allow the mixture to sit in the fridge for an hour or so to let the flavours blend together.

4) Place a couple of heaping tablespoons of the sommersalat atop a slice of buttered Danish rye bread and then garnish with sliced radish and chopped chive. Enjoy with fork and knife and a crisp Danish lager. Skål!

Remember, if you can't find fresh cheese in your 'hood, you can always make it yourself. I won't go into it in this blog post, but you can basically get there with a yogurt machine and cheese cloth. Read about it here. Then all you have to do is smoke it. Lickety-split!

Tartarmad - good, old fashion smørrebrød

Sadly, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not, some wonderfully delicious delectables fall out of fashion and spontaneously disappear from dining room tables. Tartarmad - or Danish smørrebrød of steak tartare on hearty rye bread - is a perfect example of one such casualty of the fast-paced world of changing food tastes - it has been gone from popular cuisine for ages and ages. Whether it is due to fears of eating raw meat and eggs, or just because there are so many other yummy treats to eat these days, Tartarmad is definitely not on today's culinary radar.

Tartarmad:
Back on the culinary radar

But fear not! I love Tartarmad, and this week's post will show you just what you need to do in order to bring the oldie but goodie back into style in your home...

First of all, let's talk about ingredients. With tartarmad, probably more than any other sandwich in the pantheon of all-time great smørrebrød, you are relying heavily on the quality of its component ingredients - you absolutely need the freshest, highest quality ingredients, especially in terms of beef and eggs. The few extra dollars you'll need to spend on great meat from a top butcher is worth it, in terms of the final taste, and of course in terms of food safety. And the eggs - if you can get farm fresh, free-range eggs, the flavour will be that much better (and safer). And needless to say, it all comes together on thick slices of buttered Danish rye bread.

Ooey, gooey good!

Simply put, I love this smørrebrød. I love the way the ingredients come together harmoniously and combine to make an ooey-gooey-good lunch. With savoury, tender meat, smooth egg yolk, chewy rye bread, crunchy pickles, and potent horseradish you are getting an exhilarating sandwich experience like few others. It's like eating in a great French bistro, without the surly waiter. Add a bowl of pommes frites, and you have an unforgettable treat.

Clean is good...

A note on food safety and hygiene: I am no food safety expert, but I am not squeamish when it comes to eating things raw. I do realize that not everybody shares my zeal for "living dangerously". So here is my advice for those of you who are thinking of taking a stab at "extreme" tartare eating for the first time. If you have any doubt about the quality of the produce, don't take any chances. Avoid the back alley free-range egg merchants and the suspicious meat rack at the supermarket. Mad Cow and Salmonella have funny names, but that is where the humour ends.

So ends my public service announcement. Now on with the recipe...

Sirloin! Perfect for tartarmad.

So let's start with the meat. You want to go to a good butcher and get a whole (unground) piece of nice quality meat - I suggest sirloin here. It's tender and has a bit of fat to make it taste slightly richer than, say, filet mignon. 500g of sirloin will get you enough meat for 5 or 6 generous smørrebrød.

Once you've got your meat, you need to chop it by hand with a really sharp knife. This is for a couple of reasons. 1) It helps to ensure the best possible hygiene, as meat grinders are notoriously hard to keep really spick and span, and 2) you end up with a nicer coarse texture to the meat. Tender, high-quality meat need not be ground beyond recognition  - there is nothing to hide!

Chop sirloin by hand

Chopping sirloin is not hard, but it tasks a bit of patience. Make sure you work on a clean surface, work fast (without risking your fingers), and try to keep the meat as cold as possible to inhibit the formation of unwanted bacteria.

Once you've chopped it to the desired degree of coarseness, give it a dash of seasoning (salt and pepper), and even throw in a couple of table spoons of minced onion. Then wrap it up in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Nothing to hide  - Yum!

Meanwhile, prepare the other accompaniments:

• Slice a small onion into rings 
• Grate horseradish, if you can find it fresh
• Dice pickles and red beets
• Separate the egg yolks from the egg white (you'll need one egg yolk per open sandwich)
• Put out 3-4 spoons of capers

When you are ready to build the sandwich, here's what you need to do:

1. Start by buttering the rye bread.
2. Cover the bread completely with a generous portion of seasoned chopped sirloin, then flatten the meat out evenly across the top of the bread using a fork.
3. Place an onion ring atop in the centre of the meat.
4. Place one egg yolk inside the onion ring.
5. Serve with accompaniments such as horseradish, pickles, capers, and red beets. 
6. Enjoy with fork and knife and large glass of Danish lager. Skål!

Tartarmad: old-school goodness and pretty, too!

Well preserved Danish fried herring...

Many people ask me about the history of smørrebrød, and how far back the tradition dates. For instance, we're these wonderful open-faced sandwiches popular in the 1800s? Or going back even further, did the Vikings enjoy eating smørrebrød? Or what about 2000 years ago? Do we have any way of knowing what early Danes were eating? Perhaps they were enjoying eating charred herring on unleavened whole-grain bread with the help of flint cutlery? Wouldn't that be amazing!?!

Tollund Man: Well-preserved Iron-age Dane

Luckily we do know something about the lives of Danes from 2000 years ago thanks, in part, to the discovery of the Tollund Man in 1950. This discovery is an amazing story, and I encourage you to read about it on Wikipedia or many of the other sites dedicated to these naturally preserved corpses found in Northern European Peat Bogs. But since I brought it up, I may as well give you a bit of info...These corpses, known as Bog People, were preserved thanks to the acidic quality and the lack of oxygen in the swamps in which their bodies were buried.

The Tollund Man, who appears to have been ritually sacrificed by hanging due to the presence of a noose around his neck, seems to have enjoyed a last meal that was 100% smørrebrød free (so much for my theory). In his stomach were the remains of what must have been a deee-licious iron-age porridge made from veggies and seeds and included barley, linseed, and chamomile, plus a couple of things I've never heard of - bristle grass, which doesn't sound that good, and "gold of pleasure", which sounds pretty darn good if you ask me. Actually, this porridge sounds kinda like something NOMA would serve these days.

OK, so I am a bit disappointed that there was no "Bog Herring" preserved in Tollund Man's stomach, but thanks to adventurous archeologists, I can at least debunk my own myth and safely state that Danish open-faced sandwiches were not eaten on a daily basis by iron-age Bog People - at least not in the 24 hours preceding their execution. Maybe the Viking diet included sandwiches, but that will have to be a topic for another day.

The search for ancient smørrebrød continues...

By the way, if you are interested in seeing the Tollund Man in the darkly preserved flesh (at least his head),  you should visit the Silkeborg Museum in Silkeborg, Denmark, a town about 10km from where the body was discovered. I've never made the trip myself, but what's not to like about a museum dedicated to bog people and other historical artefacts?

So what does all this have to do with smørrebrød? Well, frankly, nothing. But corpses preserved in acid got me thinking about edible things you could preserve in vinegar - like fried herring filets. And in fact, pickled fried herring is a classic topping for Danish open-faced sandwiches served on buttered Danish rye bread - it truly would have been a dish worthy of an iron-age Dane's last meal - but is easy enough to make that you can enjoy it any day.

Here is what you need to know in order to make your own pickled fried herring:

Ingredients Pickling liquid

Ingredients:

• 250ml white vinegar
• 200ml sugar
• 1 tbsp coarse salt
• 1/2 tsp whole all-spice
• 1/2 tsp mustard seed
• 1/2 tsp pepercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 egg, beaten (optional)
• 100 ml rye flour
• 6 herring filets
• butter for frying

Instructions

1) Gently heat the vinegar in a small pot until boiling, add the sugar and salt, and stir until dissolved.

2) Reduce heat, add the spices, and simmer for about 3 minutes, then remove from feat and allow to cool completely.

3) Meanwhile, while the liquid is cooling, dredge the herring filets in rye flour (after optionally dipping them in the egg). Shake of excess flour.

Dredge filets in flour - I prefer without egg

4) Place a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, add the butter, and then fry the herring filets for about 3-4 minutes per side.

Fry 'em up in batches

5) Place the fried filets in a glass casserole just big enough to hold the filets in a single layer.

6) Once the pickling liquid is cool, pour it over the filets and let them rest together for about 24 hours in the refrigerator.

Give it 24 hours to let the acidity and spice do its trick!

7) Serve on buttered Danish rye bread, garnish with a couple of slices of red onion and dill, and enjoy with fork and knife!

Yet another Danish classic - easy to make and oh so tasty!

Frikadeller smørrebrød - the perfect way of dispatching those leftovers!

Frikadeller are Danish meatballs and are commonly eaten as part of the evening meal, and served perhaps with boiled potatoes. They are also great placed either warm or cold atop smørrebrød. Flavourful and oh so light, there are as many frikadeller recipes in Denmark as their are households - and these treasured family secrets are passed on from one generation to the next. But, in fact, there is only one true frikadeller recipe - the one recipe to rule them all - and it is guarded deep inside the most secure vault in all of the Kingdom of Denmark.

The recipe itself for frikadeller is written in the original manuscript of THE definitive guide to Danish cuisine - Frøken Jensens Kogebog - handwritten by the venerable lady of the Danish kitchen herself in 1901. It is also said that the original copy of the unabridged handwritten manuscript (not the commonly published concise edition you can still find in stores today) lists and details the twenty-five "official"smørrebrød - if it is not in the original Frøken Jensens Kogbog, then it is not really smørrebrød. And while I have not seen it with my own eyes, the ancient tome purportedly contains an even lengthier list of things one must not combine together when making danish open-faced sandwiches (ham, blue cheese and pickled herring anybody? Frøken Jensen said "Nej!").

Secret location of frikadeller recipe...

While it is a closely guarded national secret, I can reveal to you here that the vault's location is actually in central Copenhagen, deep inside the basement of the beautiful Rosenborg Castle. The vault uses the most advanced anti-theft technology to ensure that Denmark's greatest treasures are kept safe and sound. Not coincidentally, this vault is also home to other precious national treasures, such as the crown jewels of the Danish royal family, which are on display behind thick bulletproof glass out of the reach of tourists and robbers alike. Hundreds of sensors are constantly vigilant for the slightest sign of trouble, and at the slightest whiff of risk, the ultra-secure environment shuts down tighter than Fort Knox - with 8 inch thick steel doors slamming shut in an instant - entrapping anybody caught inside the vault - long before escape is possible.

The frikadeller recipe is a closely guarded secret!

Ok, ok! So none of this is true about the secret location of the frikadeller recipe, the official smørrebrød list, or even the handwritten Frikadeller recipe, but Rosenborg Castle is real, it is highly secure, and it is in Copenhagen. As a child, my imagination was captivated by the seemingly impenetrable safe, and I assumed that it housed secrets even more wonderful than the priceless treasures actually on display - treasures like the secrets of smørrebrød.

Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen

Rosenborg Castle was built in the Dutch Renaissance style in 1606 and was used as a summer residence by King Christian IV as well as other Danish kings. Today, the castle serves as a museum, with many interesting historical artefacts on display including the original crown from the coronation of King Christian IV himself in 1596. Find out more about the Rosenborg Castle museum here.

All this is very interesting, but I am sure that by now you are dying to know how to make frikadeller! So enough of the suspense - here is what you need to know:

Use good meat and grind it yourself

To begin with, frikadeller can be made from different types of ground meat including beef, veal, and pork. I believe the best frikadeller have at least 50% pork, and to ensure the tastiest meat balls, you should use the best possible lean meat you can buy - for instance pork loin, veal cutlets, and so on. This means you'll have to grind the meat yourself (or ask the butcher to do it for you), since typical store ground meats are very high in unnecessary fat. You will find the recipe for frikadeller below.

In terms of using frikadeller for smørrebrød, this is very common in Denmark as a way of using up leftovers from the previous night's dinner, and there are actually a few different accompaniments that you can use - agurkesalat, rødkål, asier and even pickled red beets - all of these sweet and sour toppings compliment the light, savory flavour of meat balls when eaten on top of buttered Danish rye bread.

Variety is the spice of life!

Ingredients for making frikadeller:

Grind pork, veal and onion
together a few times

• 250 grams of finely ground pork
• 250 grams of finely ground veal
• 1 medium onion, ground finely along with the meat
• 1 large egg
• 350 ml soda water
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp flour (rye or wheat)
• a pinch or two of ground all-spice
• freshly ground pepper to taste
• Butter for frying

Instructions

1) Combine all the ingredients (except the butter) in a bowl. The mixture should be quite moist and soft.

Frikadeller ingredients - ready to mix!

Mixture too soft to handle

2) Place a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat, and then melt a couple of table spoons of butter in the frying pan. You will be frying the meatballs in batches.

3) Using a pair of spoons, form the meatballs and place them, one-by-one, in the hot frying pan. Don't put too many frikadeller in the pan at once, or they will boil instead of fry! The frikadeller should not be touching.

Form frikadeller with a couple of spoons 

4) Cook the meatballs for about 3 minutes, and then flip gently (I use a couple of knives for this manoeuvre).  

Fried in batches - don't add too many to the pan at once!

5) Cook for 3 minutes more and then remove the frikadeller to a separate platter. Add more butter and then fry another batch.

6) Once you are  ready for smørrebrød, butter a pice of dark Danish rye bread, slather it with Dijon mustard, place a couple of sliced meatballs on the mustard, and then top it with an appropriate pålæg (for instance, agurkesalat or even dill pickles). Make sure you enjoy with a cold lager beer and a fork & knife.