Smørrebrød with flæskesteg and rødkål

Danes love their pork, enjoying it in all kinds a ways, from sausage and rullepølse, to patés and chops, and of course, to roasts. The most famous Danish roast is known as flæskesteg, which translates to (drum roll.....) pork roast! Most common at Christmas time, a nice flæskesteg is often served with red cabbage and candied potatoes, which eventually results in next-day leftovers which are ideal on buttered Danish rye bread as smørrebrød. My kids and I refer to this meal as the Viking leftover feast!

Crispy svær!

In my opinion, what makes a Danish roast so delicious (aside from the high quality of the pork), is the presence of the flæskesvær, or crispy pork rind, which is most often omitted from roasts in Canada. This is a real shame, and in my way of thinking, a mistake. I am not a nutritionist, but I am going to go out on a limb and guess that pork rind may not be the healthiest part of the pig, but it certainly may be the tastiest. So does that mean Canadians have a preference towards health over flavour? If so, how do you explain Poutine or Smoked Meat? In any case, in moderation, a bit of rind contributes to overall happiness - of that, I am sure. More on happiness in a moment.

Use roasts from this area

In order to get the right kind of roast, you'll probably have to visit a butcher and request a special cut, because you want a roast with the skin on. I find that the blade-end of the loin (near the shoulder) provides the nicest roasts - they are a bit on the fatty side so they aren't too dry. You can certainly omit the rind if the butcher isn't able to provide it, but what a shame! A crispy pork rind is sooo delicious - you can't stop at one bite! And kids, at least my own, will eat it until they explode! I have even seen fisticuffs break out over the last remaining bits of svær. Ah, yes! We Vikings know how to have a good time! 

Happy Danes

A note on Danes and pork: Denmark is not a big country. There are about 5 million Danes packed into an area a bit bigger than the Toronto Skydome. And yet, they somehow manage to pull off a couple of amazing feats. 1) They produce approximately 25 million hogs a year (each requiring a startling amount of food production), and 2) even though they share their little country with so many pigs, they rank as the happiest nation on Earth in annual Human Happiness surveys. This is true and well documented! (see World Map of Happiness for proof) What is not well known is that there is also a World Hog Happiness index, and Danish hogs rank very near the bottom of the list. 




Recently, a study from the Danish Ministry of Agriculture determined that there is, in fact, an inverse relationship between the happiness of Danes and the happiness of Danish Hogs. When DAnes are happy, pigs are not. 


Hmmm. Very interesting!

In order to make the smørrebrød, start, as usual, with buttered Danish rye bread. Add a dollop of mustard and cover with two slices of roast pork. Drop a spoonful of red cabbage on the pork and top with one or two thin pieces of pork rind. Very yummy!

A bit about red cabbage. You may be able to find prepared red cabbage from Germany in grocery stores or delis of a European persuasion, but I find that the Danish variety (at least the way I was taught to make it) is more tangy and delicous. Called rødkål, there are probably as many recipe variations as their are households, but they are all based on a sweet and sour style from simmering the cabbage in vinegar and sugar. Some people also like to add extra character through the addition of apple jelly, but I personally prefer to use sliced Granny Smith apples and a bit of thyme in my red cabbage. This adds a very nice spicey, tart quality that compliments the taste of the cabbage perfectly. And really goes well with roast pork.

  

Prepared rødkål

Here is what you will need to know to make flæskesteg and rødkål smørrebrød.


Ingredients for Roast Pork

Roast ready for the oven

• 1.5 kg Boneless pork roast with rind (from blade end of loin is best)
• 2 tbsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper corns
• 10 Bay leaves

Instructions for Roast Pork

1. Using a very sharp knife (or a scalpel, saw or whatever else can puncture the tough skin), score the skin into strips about 1/2 cm wide.
2. Sprinkle salt evenly over the pork skin.
3. Cut bay leaves in half and insert them, along with the peppercorns, into the incisions in the skin.
4. Set the roast on a rack in a roasting pan, then place in a cold over and roast at 400°F (~200°C) for about one and a half hours (until the internal temperature reaches 150°F) and the pork rind is crispy.
5. If the meat is finishined, but the pork rind remains soft, you can bump up the temperature to 475°F (~250°C) and continue cooking for 10 more minutes, watching to make sure rind doesn't burn. 

Ingredients for rødkål

Ingredients for Red Cabbage

• 1 medium red cabbage
• 1 small white onion
• 3 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp white or cider vinegar
• Pinch oh Thyme
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1/4 cup water
• 4 apples (Granny Smith are my preferred choice)
• salt and pepper to taste

Instructions to prepare red cabbage

Cooking red cabbage and onions

1. Remove out leaves of cabbage, then cut cabbage into quarters and remove the white core. Thinly slice the cabbage with a chef's knife across the quarters width-wise. 
2. Peel and thinly slice the onion.
3. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large Dutch over. Add the sugar and mix together.
4. Add the cabbage and onion and stir to coat with butter.
5. Add water, vinegar, thyme and bay leaves.
6. Heat to a boil, cover and then simmer for 30 minutes.
7. Peel and core the apples, and then slice thinly.
8. Add apples to the cabbage plus a little salt and pepper.
9. Continue simmering for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally and adding a bit of water as necessary (the cabbage shouldn't be allowed to get too dry - there should always be a bit of liquid at the bottom of the Dutch oven).
10. When done, the apples should be pureed and the cabbage tender. Generally, the taste of red cabbage improves the day after cooking. 
11. Serve hot with roast pork and potatoes (for Christmas) or cold as part of an open-faced sandwich (for lunch any day of the week).

This week’s post is all about rullepølse and asier, but before getting into explaining the recipes, I wanted to spend a few minutes providing a bit of background on the culture of open-faced sandwiches and the component parts that are used to build them. Of course, the Danish rye bread is key, as is the butter, but it won’t be smørrebrød without the pålæg.

Pålæg (Pronounced Po-Leg) is the Danish word for "sandwich toppings" and is used to describe the myriad of items that can be placed atop a slice of buttered rye bread. One thing that is important to understand when it comes to pålæg is that there are some toppings that go together, and many others that do not. For instance, while ham and Swiss on rye is a North American deli classic, one would not eat this as smørrebrød in Denmark. There is nothing wrong with it, it just isn’t smørrebrød.

Smørrebrød as art

I think of Danish smørrebrød as an art form that has reached a highly evolved state and as such Danes universally recognize certain pålæg combinations as quintessential examples of the art form. In the same way that all Americans know what goes into making a BLT, all Danes know about the ingredients needed to make dozens of their traditional favourites. Many pålæg are the same or similar to ingredients you can easily find in other parts of the world (like ham or pickled beets), but there are a few pålæg that are uniquely Danish. Rullepølse with asier is a perfect example of a traditional pairing known to all Danes, but good luck finding either of these items anywhere else in the world!

Rullepølse is a Danish charcuterie that ranks right up at the top of the classic and original Danish toppings. Admittedly, the recipe for making rullepølse is a little more involved than some of the others, but you haven’t experienced all that smørrebrød has to offer until you’ve sunk your teeth into rullepølse.

Homemade Rullepølse

Rullepølse is made by slowly simmering a rolled up pork belly that is spiced with Jamaican all-spice and then molding it into a very compact rectangular form. Before you begin cooking, you’ll need to step back and take stock of what you have handy. Obviously, you don’t have rullepølse – that is why you are reading this recipe – for that you’ll need a porkbelly and some spices. But, more importantly, do you have a rullepølse press? A rullepølse press is a medieval-looking contraption – basically a trash compactor for meat -  that is used to form the cooked meat into the distinctive shape. In true MacGyver fashion, you can also jerry-rig a press using regular household items, but more about that later.

Jorcks Passage

If you need a rullepølse press and time/money is not a factor, you can travel to Copenhagen and peruse the cooking shops located in and around Copenhagen’s central pedestrian street called Strøget. What? You tried that already and couldn’t find anything other than H&M shops, fancy furniture and souvenir kitsch? Try this: head toward Gammeltorv and watch out for the entranceway to Jorcks Passage, just before the Baresso Cafe and on the way to Vor Frue Kirke. At the end of this little street to the left, you will find a magical cooking shop full of Danish esoterica - kitchen devices that serve purposes unguessable by non-Danes (and probably a few Danes as well). But don’t be discouraged. Here you can find a reasonably-priced hardwood rullepølse press - just what you need! Now that you are armed with porkbelly and press, a bit of butchers string, and a few other common household ingredients, you are ready to begin to prepare this Danish delight.

Niels  Bohr

In terms of the Danish Degree of Difficulty, I’d have to give rullepølse a rating of “Niels Bohr Hard” due to the amount of preparation and the specialized equipment needed in making this treat. Niels Bohr was a Danish physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his contributions to understanding the atomic structure, radiation, and quantum mechanics. He also worked on the Manhattan Project. According to his mother, the complexities of making rullepølse always confounded the young Niels Bohr. Instead, he focused his efforts on understanding a less tasty form of matter.   

Here are the ingredients you need to make rullepølse...

• 1 ½ kg pork belly 
• 1tbsp coarse salt 
• 2 tbsp sugar 
• 1 large onion, minced 
• 1 clove garlic, minced 
• 4 tbsp ground all-spice 
• 5 tbsp ground black pepper 
• 2 carrots, chopped 
• 2 celery stalks, chopped 
• 1 onion, chopped 
• 2 bay leafs 
• 4 springs of thyme 
• 2 tbsp oregano

Instructions

1. To begin with, rub both sides of the pork belly with the sugar and salt and then place in a large, thick plastic bag (such as a Zip-lock freezer bag). Allow the pork belly to cure in the refrigerator for about 24 hours.
2. Mix the ground spices together.
3. Remove the pork belly from the bag, pat dry with paper towel, and cover with the minced onion and garlic.
4. Sprinkle the ground spice mixture evenly across the minced onion.
5. Roll up the pork belly into a tight roll (with the onion and spice on the inside.
6. Bind the roll tightly with kitchen string.
7. Place the pork roll, the chopped vegetables, and the herbs in a pot large enough to old everything and cover with water.
8. Heat until the water begins to boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer, cover tightly and cook for about 2 hours.
9. Remove the cooked pork roll from the broth and allow to cool slightly.
10. Cover the roll in plastic wrap, place in the rullepolse press, and gently screw the press closed. The pressing will cause liquid ooze out, so you should have the press on a platter or tray to catch any drippings.
11. Place the closed press in the refrigerator for 7 days to allow the flavours to mellow.
12. Remove from the fridge, unmold the meat, slice thickly, and enjoy on buttered Danish rye bread!

Press the hell outta the  porkbelly!

Improvise

Note on making your own rullepølse press: I’ve come up with all manners of ways over the years of pressing rullepølse into the requisite brick form, but easiest and most effective is simply to place the meat roll into a plastic wrap lined bread form, find a solid flat object that just fits inside the bread form (say a bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin), and press it down on top of the meat as far as it will go. Strap it all together with good old duct tape. Done!

Making the krydrere asier

Homemade Asier

So you’ve made the rullepølse. Is that all that is needed? Alas, no. As I mentioned above, you will also need the natural pairing that accompanies the rullepølse – another exclusively Danish oddity called asier. Asier can best be described as a kind of cucumber that is sliced thickly and pickled. The problem for those of us outside Denmark, is that you cannot easily find asier. So, if you want the authentic experience, you’ll have to make the pickled asier as well. Not to worry - it is not hard.

Real asier is not made from a regular cucumber, but rather a larger, meatier cuke-like gourd called asieagurk (plain old cucumbers are called agurker). I’ve gone so far as to try growing it from seed, but with little success. So instead, I’ve adapted my recipe to use regular cucumbers. If you visit Denmark, be sure to bring back a few jars of asier in your luggage. If that isn’t an option, make it yourself with the recipe below. I find that it is close enough. Note on growing asier yourself: if you want to eat this smørrebrød in October, you’ll need to begin the preparations in April or so. This is definitely not a last-minute smørrebrød.

Make sure, if you make your own asier, that you go out of your way to find some Danes and invite them over for smørrebrød. They will be completely flabbergasted when you present them with your homemade asier. Honestly, they won’t know what to make of it. They’ll say things like: “My mormor used to make this when I was a kid.” And they will weep.

Here’s what you need to know to make krydrere asier (spiced cucumbers):

Ingredients (for about 6x500ml Mason jars)

• 3 kg cucumbers (or asier if you can find it) 
• 2 L water 
• 200g coarse salt 
• Pickling liquid (see below) 

Ingredients for pickling liquid

• 1.5 liters vinegar 
• 600 g sugar 
• 10 small shallots, sliced 
• 5 garlic cloves, chopped 
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds 
• 1 red chili, seeded and chopped 
• 1 tbsp ground All-spice 
• Small piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped 
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh dill 
• 1 tbsp fresh ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Prepare a brine solution by dissolving the salt in boiling water and allowing it to cool thoroughly.
2. Prepare the asier or cucumber by peeling, cutting in half, and removing the seeds.
3. Place the cucumbers in a large plastic container, cover with the brine and place in a cool place for 24 hours.
4. Drain cucumbers and cut them diagonally into 1/2 inch thick slices.
5. In a saucepot, heat the vinegar and sugar together until just boiling and the sugar is dissolved.
6. Reduce heat, add shallots and garlic and simmer for 3 minutes.
7. Add the remaining spices and dill to the cooking liquid, remove from heat and cool completely.
8. Prepare 6 sterilized Mason jars, and then distribute the cucumbers and the spices evenly into each jar.
9. Cover cucumber completely with the pickling liquid.
10. Seal the jar by processing for 5 minutes in boiling water.
11. Place the sealed jars in a dark place. Try to wait 2-4 weeks before eating (the flavours will mellow and blend nicely if you manage to wait longer - I usually can't).

Rullepølse and asier together - a happy marriage indeed!