Sprængt oksebryst is corned beef Danish Style, and is so easy to make that I am ashamed at myself for taking so long to get around to this blog post.

It's usually made by taking the same cut of meat as beef brisket, salt curing overnight and then cooking until tender in a spiced broth. Traditionally, it is served as smørrebrød with grated horseradish and Danish "pickles" - or what we would generally call Piccalilli. And yes, it is very tasty!

I will be updating the blog post with the recipes for corned beef and Danish pickles in the very near future, so come back soon!

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!

Like with all cuisines from countries with northern climates, what we eat changes with the seasons. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter all have their own characteristic tastes and this holds true for Danish smørrebrød.

For instance, some smørrebrød, like shrimp, are at their best in the spring. This is when the tiny shrimp are harvested. Tomatoes and chives are perfect in the summer when fruit and vegetables are plentiful and ripe. In the winter, I like something that provides warmth and comfort while whisking away the bone-chilling feeling that pervades our frigid nights. This week's blog post is dedicated to one such smørrebrød, a succulent and savoury meat treat that is perfect in the colder, dark months or winter. It is a true Danish comfort food made simply from roast beef, fried onions, sliced pickles and grated horseradish heaped high on buttered Danish rye bread.

A hyggelig cafe in Copenhagen. Where is it?

Speaking of comfort food, I should probably use this opportunity to introduce everybody to a very Danish concept called HYGGELIG (pronounced with great difficulty as something like hu-ger-li). This little word is used all the time in converesation by Danes and is often cited by foreigners as "the word" that can most quintessentially sum up the totality of Danish psyche - the never-ending pursuit of hyggelig. So what does it mean? Well, unfortunately it doesn't really translate to a single English word, but perhaps words like Cozy or Snug come close to capturing the meaning of hyggelig. For me, it simply means that something is enjoyable, pleasant, happy, fun, and cozy all at the same time. It is an adjective that can be applied to many nouns, but I find it is used most often by Danes to describe parties, dinners, homes, and other places where one has enjoyed themselves a great deal. So, with this concept in mind, I find that eating smørrebrød together with friends and family can be a very hyggelig thing.

Hyggelig homes near Roskilde. Where is it?

So, getting back to the subject of this week's post - roast beef. Yum!  In my opinion, what makes this smørrebrød so good is that the combination of ingredients are just so perfectly together, certainly in terms of the savory, tart and spicy flavours, but also in terms of the different textural components - tender beef, chewy rye bread, crunchy pickles and the silky smoothness of carmelized onions.

Sliced flank steak

Building the Open-faced Sandwich 

In terms of preparing the smørrebrød, there is not much to do. Of course, roast beef is the basis for this sandwich, so you want to make sure you have excellent meat. Roasting in the oven is an option, but I prefer to simply fry a thick flank steak until it is done to medium-rare (you know the steak is cooked when a meat thermometer inserted into the middle of the steak reaches a temperature of about 145 F). Once cooked, allow the meat to cool for about 15 minutes and then slice as thinly as you can. Place the slices of beef on a slice of buttered rye bread.

Place the following garnishes atop the sliced steak and you're ready to go: 3-4 rings of fried onion, 1 sliced dill pickle, 1 tablespoon of freshly grated horseradish (prepared horseradish will also work), and optionally a sprinkling of chopped chives.

The Danish Degree of Difficulty for this smørrebrød is Brigitte Nielsen Easy as no special ingredients are needed other than the Danish rye bread (recipe here) and Brigitte Nielsen probably loves to make it (I'm not suggesting she is easy). For those of you who were not alive in the 1980s, Brigitte Nielsen is a fantastisk Danish actress best known for her dramatic roles in great films such as Rocky IV and Red Sonja.

Brigitte Nielsen Shopping for Horseradish

If there is one ingredient that may pose problems for North American shoppers it's fresh horseradish. Horseradish is a perennial plant of the brassica family (like broccoli and mustard). The amazingly phallic-looking horseradish root has no aroma, however when grated, enzymes in the damaged root produce a compound called allyl isothiocyanate that can irritate the nose and eyes. This is what gives horseradish its punch. (You can read lots more about amazing horseradish at Wikipedia). If you can't find fresh horseradish, use the prepared variety instead. Personally, I think it works great here, too.

By the way, if you don't believe me about the phallic appearance of horseradish, check out the pics at the following blog.

Ida Davidsen's in Copenhagen

If you want to experience a wonderful roast beef open-faced sandwich in the most traditional of Danish sandwich establishments, you have to visit Ida Davidsen's Restaurant on Store Kongensgade in Copenhagen. The reference in smørrebrød for generations (since around the 1880s), this restaurant touts a list of sandwiches at least 250 long. While smorrebrod is an everyday food in Denmark, at Ida Davidsen's the presentation and ingredients are decidedly more fancy. Her philosophy on the presentation is very interesting - when it comes to smorrebrod in a restaurant, the rye bread must always be completely covered by the pålaeg (toppings). If you can see the bread, it's cheap - like something you would eat in the woods or when on a picnic with your hands - not something dignified that must be eaten with fork and knife! I confess that occasionally my bread is visible - which is something I'll have to work on - but Ida Davidsen's family have had five generations to perfect their art, so please don't judge me too harshly.

So delicious even with visible bread