Smorg, family style.

I love it when my family does a smorgasbord, especially when I get to join them.  One of the hardest things for me is living so far away and not being able to visit often.   Distance does take its toll, sometimes.

Luckily for me, I have a great family.  I got to take over one sister's kitchen to make a Low Country Boil, and then went to visit my other sister, and she decided we needed to have a Smorgasbord.  As I said, lucky me.

I'll share a couple of recipes with you, later on, cause you know I got some that I'm just dying to make and share here, but for now, let me lead you through our lunch.

To start with the table must be set correctly.   And you must serve the food in the correct order.   This is a given, and not negotiable.

 

 If you look at the above picture, there is a small plate on top of a larger plate.  And very, very important, there is also a snaps glass as well as a beer glass at the top.
 And the beer is already on the table.

 And also very important for the meal, the right ambiance or table decorations.  We Danes like our fresh flowers and candles on a table.   How about combining them?  This was so pretty.

First you have the pickled herring, and a glass of aquavit, the fish needs to swim, after all.

Then the next course is the hot fish serving, in this case a lovely sole and some Cod Roe, OMG, my tongue and tummy were in heaven.  I haven't had fried Cod Roe in years.   And to think I used to dislike it.  Silly me.  

Pickled herring tends to flavour everything else on your plate, which is why we let it have its very own plate.  As well as the rest of the fish as well.

So, now that we have that sticky little how-to out of the way.   Here's the Herring.   And yes, I did capitalize it.  On purpose.

I got to sample four different varieties, giggle.  And they were all good.
My sister made some Carry Sild  (curried herring), then there was this spiced herring as well as a wine herring and regular.   I savored every single bite, and went back for seconds on a couple.

And then as I said before, the fish.      And it must be served with a remoulade.  Which we usually make from some mayonnaise and hot dog relish (the kind with mustard), and a little lemon.  Don't worry, I'll show you how to do it in another post, cause I'm really craving some lovely sole. Again.  And if you notice, I'm still eating my fish on the small plate.  The pink stuff you see is from some Sildsalat.

Then the next course is the hot stuff.

No, not the spicy kind of hot, but a hot entree.

We had some Frikadeller, a chicken made the danish way, with Parsley, and I've shown you how to make both those dishes before.

Then of course there is always the 'pålæg'.   Which is basically various cold cuts or toppings for your bread,  some ham with Italiensk Salat, which I told you about not that long ago.   And of course you have to have Sildsalat as well, and my sister also made a Fransk Salat, and I got the recipe, giggle.  I'll be showing you how to make that in a future post. 
And on my plate there, clockwise from the pink stuff.  That is the Fransk Salat, a little rye bread, some chicken, a frikadeller, some red cabbage, and one of my own personal favourites.  Makral i Tomat Sauce.  (Mackeral in Tomato Sauce.  I kinda broke the rules here, I put fish on the big plate, don't tell anyone, OK?)  And a slice of my brother's cheese bread.  And you know I think I need to make some so I can share the recipe.  I have the cook book he got the recipe out of. Great minds do think alike or at least cook alike. 
Did that make sense?
Another thing we always have on the table is a plate of hard cooked eggs and quartered tomatoes.  In the past my mom would put a strip of anchovy on each egg half, but you can serve them plain.


I also had some lovely shrimp.  And it went so well on the cheese bread. You just add a touch of mayonnaise to the shrimp and serve it.


My brother made his famous (in our family at least) cheese bread to go with the meal. 





And we had rye bread, I took the leftover rye bread home and it is currently residing in my freezer, and as soon as I get to the big city I'm getting some herring so I can eat it properly. 











And somewhere along the way we forgot to put out the platter of  cold cuts.  Some salami, Lyoner sausage and Mortadella.   We ate it the next day though.










 I also forgot to mention the cheese plate, that's also a 'must' for a Smorgasbord.

And we finished it off in style with a wonderful chocolate truffle cake.  Which I still need the recipe for. 

There was plenty of stuff left over for dinner the following night.

OK, I'm now making myself hungry...