Norway Food Intel
Spending time in Oslo raised a lot of food questions about Norway. Luckily, we have an in-house expert. Nea Arentzen, who hosts What's for Fika?, spent part of her childhood in Norway and Sweden. Here's what Nea had to say:
I noticed a lot more mixing of wheat and rye flour into pastries. Is this a more modern detail? Also, do you have a rule of thumb for how to incorporate rye flour into a recipe that calls for white flour?
I do think it's becoming increasingly common to see rye flour blended into pastries, and while that's likely a more modern shift, rye has long been used in Nordic breads, buns, and other bakes. It was always a staple in bakery breads when I was growing up. As a rule of thumb, you can swap in about 20–30% rye flour in most recipes—just keep in mind you may need to add a bit more liquid to account for its higher absorption.
Let's talk about lomper, the potato flatbread that's sold in grocery stores and that's also a street food, wrapped around hot dogs. Are hot dog lomper the original pigs in a blanket? Have you made lomper? Can you point us to a good recipe?
Ah yes! I have so many memories eating lomper (and much prefer them to regular buns honestly). I've made them before but not in a long time, and if I were to make them again in the near future I'd use this Norwegian Lefse recipe from Food52 as a good starting point. Lefse and lomper are fairly similar, but lomper are usually made with potatoes, rye and water, and lefse is sometimes made with potatoes, along with milk (or cream), and a little sugar. Lomper are more commonly eaten with hot dogs, while lefse is often eaten with butter and cheese (or sugar)—but you can totally eat them with hot dogs too.
The most unusual dish we had was sliced beef with cream, peppercorn, and chive sauce. The beef had been seared to well done, then slivered and doused in a cream sauce that was heavily seasoned with whole red and green peppercorns and long sliced chives. Is this a traditional dish? Is it even Norwegian?
Yum! While I'm not sure exactly how traditional it is, I have eaten this a few times, more often in Sweden when my grandpa makes something similar. Traditional Scandinavian food does have a lot of dairy, and when I think about classic dishes they always have an accompanying cream sauce.
A lot of the Scandinavian rye crackers you find in America are thick and hard—closer to a ceiling panel than a cracker. In Oslo we kept coming across small super-thin rye crackers that were delicate and lovely. What are these, and can you make us a recipe for them?
You might be thinking of Finncrisp! They're amazing and my family in Sweden always keeps them on hand, along with the thicker kind, called knäckebröd. A recipe is a great idea, but in the meantime I recently discovered that you can buy Finncrisp at Whole Foods! (These are different from what we had but they are definitely thinner!)
On this trip, I also had my first taste of Norway's brown cheese. I gather it's like vegemite, something that locals love and visitors are perplexed by. I liked its sweetness and rich flavor. How do you like to eat it? And where can you find it in the US?
OMG so good! I used to really dislike it as a kid–I couldn't get over the color—but now I'm obsessed with it. The most common way to eat it is on buttered bread, either on regular toast or on knäckebröd, and sometimes with sliced cucumbers or bell peppers. You can also get "messmör" which is pretty much a spreadable brown cheese in a tub. Brown cheese isn't as common in Sweden as it is in Norway, but my grandpa sometimes will add a little brown cheese to the gravy when making Swedish meatballs to add a little sweetness/caramel taste. I've found it at a lot of local NYC spots actually. You can get it at Sahadis, Greene Grape in Fort Greene, and also at BonBon, the Swedish candy store. (Also, on Amazon.)
