Mørbradgryde - Danish Pork Stew

 I remember my Mor (mom) making this dish as a kind of special company, celebration meal.  And I kinda wonder why? 

Cause it's dead easy to put together and totally delicious to eat as well. 

What is this amazing dish?  It's called Mørbradgryde in Danish, but the basic translation is Pork Stew.  Let me break down the word.    Mørbrad is pork tenderloin, and gryde refers to a pot that it is cooked in, so pork tenderloin cooked in a pot.  Just your basic stew. 

Honestly, this is one of the easiest dishes to put together, and makes you, as the cook look amazing.  

Which never hurts.  

Personally I love getting compliments on my food, even when I've not slaved over a hot stove cooking all day.   

Did I mention how easy it was?  

It bears repeating.   It's easy.  And very forgiving as well.   I've made it with lots of mushrooms, fewer mushrooms, more cream, less cream, more sausages (various kinds), you get my drift.  You need to make it your own.   The constants here are the ingredients.   And you can have a company worthy dish on the table in less than an hour.  

Serve with your carbohydrate of choice.  Whether it be noodles, rice or mashed potatoes, it's all good.  I like serving it with buttered egg noodles, but as I said, any kind of noodles are good, mostly. I'm not fond of spaghetti noodles with it, but that's a personal preference.  You do you.   

To start with, prep the tenderloin by using a very sharp or boning knife to remove the silverskin.  You can just use the tip of the knife to cut under it.  It can almost literally be peeled away, with the help of a very sharp knife.   You don't really want it, as it does not cook away and makes the tenderloin tough. 

After removing the silverskin, cut the meat into 2/3 -1 inch slices and then quarter the slices.

The finished dish, Mørbradgryde.

 

Mørbradgryde - Danish Pork Stew

Yield: 4-6

Author: Sid's Sea Palm Cooking adapted from many recipes

Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 40 MinTotal time: 50 Min

This is an easy-peasy, quick company-worthy dish that comes together quickly and is ready to serve in less than an hour.

Ingredients

• 1 Pork Tenderloin, 1 lb. size - with silver skin removed and cut into chunks
• 8 oz. Bacon strips cut into lardons (cut into pieces),
• 8 ounces white button mushrooms, sliced
• 8 oz. cocktail wieners, or European style franks cut into quarters
• 1 16 oz. can chopped tomatoes
• 2 onions, roughly diced
• 3 carrots (diced or cut into coins
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp dried thyme- or 2 sprigs fresh thyme - remove after cooking
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Chopped chives to serve, totally optional

Instructions

1. Turn oven on to 350 degrees
2. Prepare the meat, by removing the silverskin and cutting it into 1 -2 inch chunks
3. Peel the carrots and cut into coins, then cut the onion up, and set aside.
4. Take the bacon strips out, and cut them into roughly 1-inch wide lardons or pieces.
5. Heat up a Dutch oven or heatproof casserole on top of the stove. Add the bacon, and let it cook for a couple of minutes, to render out the bacon fat a little. Then add the cut-up pork, let it brown on all sides, stirring constantly. Finally add the onion, mushrooms, and carrot pieces. Cook them for about 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly to keep them from browning too much. Finally add the can of tomatoes, and spices and stir together. Let it come to a simmer, then add the cream and cocktail sausages, stir together, place a lid on it, and put it into a 350 degree oven to finish cooking. You can also turn down the heat, and let it finish cooking on top of the stove, on a very low heat for about 40 minutes, either stove top or oven.
6. Serve over rice, buttered egg noodles, or mashed potatoes and sprinkle a few cut chives on top to serve.

Notes

You can easily double this recipe. If you love mushrooms, simply add more, if you want more carrots, just add them. I love making this with heirloom carrots, cause I like the different colors of carrots, but regular orange carrots are just fine as well.

Estimate only

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Boxty with Smoked Salmon

 I used to participate in Fish Friday Foodies, but then my husband passed away and honestly, I just didn't feel 'it' anymore and basically stopped cooking and experimenting.  

Then Wendy said this was going to be the last Fish Friday Foodies, and I went, 'No! ', I'm finally starting to cook and experiment and play in the kitchen again, and I wanted to play this time.  I love Boxty's anyway and topped with Smoked Salmon, AMAZING!!!! especially with some Creme Fraiche on top.

So I did.   Years ago I was reading a book and they referenced Boxty's, which are an Irish potato dish.   The theme this month for the Fish Friday Foodies is Irish seafood dishes.   

So what do Irish Boxty cakes have to do with Fish?  Well, there are several recipes out there that include smoked fish inside the boxty's, but I'm just not that fond of including smoked fish inside a cooked recipe, so I searched and searched and finally found a reference to this dish.  Actually I found several references, you can see them here and here and here.
 

As many of you may know, I love my appetizers, so decided to make this as an appetizer cause I could, and I did.  You can however make the cakes a touch bigger, and serve them alongside a nice salad as a light lunch or dinner.  

Now for a fun ditty...

“Boxty on the griddle,

Boxty in the pan,

If you can't make boxty,

You'll never get a man.”

 Just had to throw that in there, cause it was cute.   

Now for one of the best parts of this recipe, you can use that little bit of mashed potatoes from dinner that you just can't bring yourself to throw away.    Many recipes call for adding grated fresh potatoes to leftover mashed, adding some flour, an egg, some milk.  

Come to think of it, I've been making these for years.  However, I usually just add everything together until it looks right, this time round I actually measured it out, just in case you want to do so as well.  

I gotta say this would have been a winner at one of our Tapas gatherings. Come to think of it, I think I need to do a Tapas Night again, and these would be perfect.  

I topped them with some smoked Salmon, my own homemade Créme Fräiche., some chopped chives from my garden and finely minced shallot.  

Dang, they were good.

Boxty with Smoked Salmon

Yield: 6-10

Author: Sid's Sea Palm Cooking

Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 7 MinTotal time: 12 Min

This makes not only a great appetizer but also doubles as a light lunch or dinner with the addition of a salad.

Ingredients

• 4 russet potatoes
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/3 cup flour
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• oil and butter for frying

Topping

• Smoked Salmon slices
• Créme Fräiche - homemade - link in post.- can use sour cream instead.
  
• Chopped Chives
• Finely chopped shallot
• Fresh cracked pepper if desired

Instructions

1. Cook two of the russet potatoes and mash with the butter and cream. Set aside to cool.
2. Grate the remaining two potatoes and sprinkle a little salt over them, then place the grated potatoes into either a double layer of paper towel or a clean cloth and wring the liquid out of them, set aside while you mix up the flour, egg, and milk in a small bowl. Add the cooled mashed potatoes to the bowl and mix well. Finally, add the grated potatoes and stir in. (the grated potatoes might have turned a pretty shade of pink, but don't worry, this is a normal enzymatic reaction, they're perfectly safe to eat.)
3. In a pan, heat up some oil and butter. I use a small spoon to measure out the batter, but you can use a 1/4 cup measure as well. Spoon the batter into the pan much like making small pancakes. Cook until brown on the bottom and then flip over and finish cooking on the other side. To keep them warm, place in a 200-degree oven while finishing off the remainder.
4. Top with a slice of smoked salmon, some Créme Fräiche, finely chopped shallot, and chives.

 

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Brunswick Stew

 I made some Brunswick Stew last month, and decided I needed to share the way I made it.  It's not so much of a recipe, but more of a process.  OK, so you sling a bunch of different stuff into a pot, cook it up and serve it. 

Wait a minute, that's pretty much how this dish evolved.  It consisted of leftovers, random bits of game, veggies and some BBQ sauce, cooked to a nice consistency and then served.  

It has evolved however, the more modern versions of this recipe uses leftover BBQ meat, burnt ends as it were, plus bits and pieces of any leftover BBQ from the night before.  You can read about the origins of the stew here on Wikipedia. 

I do it my way, which results in a pretty tasty dish, even if I do say so myself.  I personally like it served with a piece of my No-Knead bread, but a hunk of cornbread or a biscuit is also lovely.  

Now for why I made this.  I had a half of a smoked chicken, which quite frankly I'm not too fond of, but I knew I also had some pulled pork in the freezer which needed to be eaten soon.

So I took the meat off the bones of the chicken, put it in a pot with the pork, added a 1 lb. or sixteen ounce bag of frozen mixed vegetables to the pot.  Grabbed some of my homemade chicken stock out of the freezer (1 cup if you're into measuring), added that on top, along with a can of diced tomatoes and okra, and about a cup of my favorite BBQ sauce- which is Bullseye, if you're curious.  Let it simmer for bit, then I tasted it, and added 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne for an added bite. 

The best part of this stew is you can, and should make it to your taste.   Use your favorite BBQ sauce, whichever kind of leftover smoked BBQ meat you have, and go for it.  I discovered as I was putting this batch together that the can of diced tomatoes I thought I had in the pantry was gone, but I had a can of diced okra and tomatoes, so it went in.  I had smoked chicken and pork, but you can make this with whatever kinds of smoked meats you have.    Traditionally... you use Corn and Lima beans, but I like mixed veggies so that's what I use.   

In fact I pulled some this out of the freezer the other day for dinner with a friend and we had a chunk of fresh baked bread with it.  And I still have some, just for me.  

Boller i karry (Meatballs in Curry Sauce)

Mom didn't make this dish a whole lot, but when she did, I really enjoyed it.  I also realized it had been a long time since I'd had this. 

Since I had all the ingredients, handy, I decided to go ahead and make it.   Even though I knew that it was way more than I could eat in one sitting or two or three.  

I'm talking Boller i Karry - Meatballs in Curry Sauce. 

However, the meatballs freeze beautifully and I now have enough for a couple more dishes. 

Here's a couple of the progress pictures. 

meatballs simmering, and some of the onion escaped the meatballs, but they just added to the flavour.

apples and onions, with the curry added

Sauce with apples and onions

Cooked meatballs - don't look like much, but they do have a nice flavour.  And these were a touch on the big side, but I ate them anyway.   And froze the rest using my Foodsaver. 

I'm thinking soup, specifically this soup, Klar suppe med kødboller og melboller.  Soup with meatballs and dumplings.  I made some lovely pork stock the other day, and froze it, so I'm set to go.  I'll tell you how I made that in another post.

I also have enough meatballs for this dish, Boller i Selleri (Meatballs and Celeriac), just as soon as I find some celeriac for sale.   Not an easy task I tell you.  But when the mouth wants some, it wants it.  

Boller i Karry

Yield: 2-6

Author: Sid's Sea Palm Cooking

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 20 MinTotal time: 35 Min

This is a true taste of my childhood, grownup style.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. unseasoned ground pork
• 1 small minced or grated onion
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup milk

Sauce

• 1-2 cups liquid the meatballs cooked in
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1-2 teaspoons mild or hot curry powder
• 1 apple, peeled and finely diced
• Opt. add 1/2 mild onion, finely diced or minced
• 1 tablespoon butter (to cook apple in)

Rice

• 1 cup uncooked rice, cooked according to instructions on package.

Instructions

Meatballs

1. Place the meat, onion, eggs, milk, flour, salt and pepper into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix together for about 5 minutes.
2. Bring 4-6 cups lightly salted water to the boil using one teaspoon of salt, then turn down to a light simmer. (salting the water is optional, but it does help the flavour).
3. Form the meatballs into quenelles (think small football shapes), and place into lightly simmering water. Do not let boil. If it looks like it might boil, throw a couple of ice cubes in to keep it to a simmer.
4. Cook the meatballs until done, about 10 minutes.
5. Take meatballs out and let drain, reserving the cooking water.

Sauce

1. Peel and dice the apples and set aside. If using onions, peel and finely dice them as well.
2. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan and add the curry power and the apples and onions if using them. Let saute until the apples are softened and onions are cooked through, about 5-9 minutes. Adding the curry powder to the sauteing apples and onions, helps the curry flavour to bloom.
3. Add the 2 tablespoons butter and flour to the pan and stir together with the curry, apples and onions. Add 2-3 cups of the reserved cooking liquid (from the meatballs), and whisk through. Let cook for a couple of minutes to thicken. I used my immersion blender at this point and make a smooth sauce. You can leave the apples in little chunks if you wish. Simmer for up to 5 minutes, taste and adjust seasonings at this point and add more salt if needed.
4. Add in the cooked meatballs and heat through. Serve with Rice or noodles if desired. We always had rice, so that's my carb of choice.

 Notes:  Traditionally this is made with mild curry powder, but I like it spicy so I used a spicy curry powder mixture.  

You do need to season this to your own taste.  Want more salt, add more, need more butter, use more.  Make this to your taste.

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Baked Flounder Filets with Asparagus and Mushrooms

 How about something a little different?  

My brother made this for me on my last visit and very kindly shared the recipe, well, he made a copy of the recipe, and luckily for me I read Danish.  Cause this is a Danish dish.   

And it's easy to make and ready in under an hour.  Not complicated at all.  A perfect company dish.  

I made this for my birthday this year, and invited friends over, so yes it was a company dish.  

My brother served this with Saffron Rice, but did not make the sauce.  I did, make the sauce, cause why not? 

I also have to tell you, I almost licked my plate, but refrained cause I had guests.    It's just plain considered rude to do so in the company of others, but you can do it if you like, cause I'll never tell.   

Here's a few pictures of the process.

and after sweating them in the pan.

Fish and shrimp in ramekins

After un-molding the fish, I will say that there was a little liquid there and next time I'm saving that liquid to make the sauce.  Cause I hated throwing away all that flavor.

I served this alongside the saffron rice, and some oven roasted Mushrooms and Asparagus. 

I also par cooked the shrimp, because the fish cooks so rapidly that the shrimp would not have time to cook all the way.  You can also use cooked shrimp here as well.   

Another note, I had flounder fillets in the freezer, so I used them, but when my brother made this he used some Sole.  Use any mild flavored fish here. 

Baked Flounder with Asparagus, Mushrooms and Shrimp

Yield: 4

Author: Sid's Sea Palm Cooking inspired by a recipe posted in a cookbook

Prep time: 20 MinCook time: 25 MinTotal time: 45 Min

This is a simple to put together dish, perfect for company and totally delicious, and quick. It only takes about 20 minutes in the oven.

Ingredients

Fish

• 12 pieces of thin flounder fillets, 4 large and 8 small. (you can use any mild flavored white fish here)
  
• 12-24 shrimp- par cooked or fully cooked- don't worry about over cooking fully cooked shrimp, they'll still stay nice.
  
• 8 ounces chopped mushrooms
• 1 finely chopped shallot
• 4-6 asparagus spears, cut on the diagonal in thin slices
• 1-4 teaspoon finely grated hard cheese - Asiago or Parmesan
• 2 + tablespoons butter - for greasing the ramekins plus a little for the sauteed filling
• Salt and pepper to taste

Sauce

• 1/4 cup vegetable bouillion
• 1/2 cup Créme Fräiche or full fat sour cream
• 1/4 teaspoon saffron

Saffron Rice

• 1 1/2 cups Jasmine or Basmati rice or long grain rice
• 1/4 tsp. saffron threads
• salt and butter to taste.

Instructions

Fish

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees and place a bain marie in there with a little water inside. ( I used an aluminum pan set on top of a baking sheet and just put a little water inside.)
2. Grease 4 12 oz. size ramekins with butter, set aside.
3. Sprinkle the fish filets with a little salt and place into the ramekins around the sides, lengthwise. Add 3-4 shrimp in the bottom of each ramekin, in a pleasing pattern.
4. Saute the mushrooms, shallot and asparagus in a little butter, for 6-8 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, then add the finely grated cheese and stir together. Divide into fourths and fill each ramekin, then place more shrimp on top of each one.
5. When each one is finished place into the bain marie carefully, and bake for about 15 minutes or until the fish is just cooked.
6. Unmold using a small plate, holding it against the ramekin and turning it over.  You can then slide the cooked fish onto a large plate.  I serve each unmolded fish individually and let my guests serve the rice and other veggies themselves.  
   

Sauce

1. Add the saffron to a couple tablespoons hot water and let sit for about 5 minutes.
2. In a small sauce pan, heat up the vegetable boullion to almost boiling, then add the saffron, take off the heat and whisk in the Créme Fräiche or sour cream.
3. Serve alongside the fish.

Rice

1. Cook rice according to directions, adding the saffron midway through the cook.
2. Season to taste with butter, salt and pepper.   You can also use turmeric in here to get the yellow color, but be careful, cause it can turn it BRIGHT YELLOW, very easily. 

 

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Check out my cookbooks on Amazon. All are available as paperbacks or as e-book. 

Simple Shrimp Recipes - 25 + Appetizer, Entree and Dipping Sauces. 

Nibbles and Bites - A Compilation of Appetizers, Canapes and Finger Foods. 

Hygge - Danish Food and Recipes