Nordic Food Lab

Researcher: Youngbin KimStart date: 03.04.2014End date: 28.08.2014 OverviewSik-hae is a Korean traditional fermented fish product with flounder, cooked grain, red chili powder, garlic, and sometimes with vegetables and malt extract. I experimented with developing a similar technique for flounder here in Denmark. I used a mixture of cracked barley and cracked rye for the cooked grains, horseradish and garlic for spicing, and 10% salt of the whole weight of fish for initial salting treatment. The final result is versatile, for example providing a different topping for the classic Danish smørrebrød. Sik-hae is a Korean traditional fermented fish product with cooked grain, red chili powder, garlic, and sometimes with vegetables and malt extract. In Korean, it is written as ‘식해’, which could be written in Chinese as ’食醢’. ‘食’ means ‘eat’ or ‘grains’ and ‘醢’ means ‘salted or fermented seafood’ (Lee & Cho, 2004). This type of seafood fermentation originates from South East … Read more

by Guillemette Barthouil One of our great sources of inspiration are the food cultures of East Asia. Our exploration of umami taste, for example, has made us rediscover the wildness of our own region’s fermentations. The bridges between these cultures are not only contemporary, but can also be traced down through history. While looking into these foodways, an unexpected similarity arose between gravlax and sushi. These two preparations are nowadays eaten raw or lightly cured. Through looking at their etymology we understand that both were once fermented fish. ‘Gravlax’ means ‘buried salmon’ or ‘grave salmon’. It is part of the wider family of the Scandinavian fermented fishes which includes Swedish surlax (‘sour salmon’) and Norwegian rakfisk (‘soaked fish’) [Falk and Torp, 1906]. Harold McGee explains that these techniques were used in remote places where huge quantities of fish were caught in a short period of time and where (and when) salt … Read more

by Anna Sigrithur & Avery MacGuire Overview This post explores the Scandinavian traditions of using tree bark flours in cooking—in particular the use of birch and pine barks in the cuisines of indigenous Sami culture. Birch Papery white bark, long lean trunks with eye-like knots, the warming sweet smell of the sauna – birch trees (both Betula pubescens spp. and B. pendula spp.) are an iconic symbol of the Nordic region. They were among the earliest trees to re-colonize the land after the last ice age (Kullman, 2002) and grow abundantly all around the Northern Hemisphere with species spanning from Morocco to Greenland (pfaf.org). Aside from their distinctive outward appearance, many parts of birch are also used for food: their sap is traditionally drunk fresh, boiled down into syrup, and even brewed into beer (Buhner, 1998), and the small buds, harvested in the winter before they begin to shoot, are … Read more

posted by Justine de Valicourt The Quebecois love their squeaky cheese. All those French speakers in eastern Canada know these very fresh cheese curds that whine surprisingly under the teeth. The worst part? Translated directly, these delicacies are called “cheese shit”, from the Quebecois “crottes de fromage”, because of their appealing shape. They are also the key ingredient in a typical fast-food dish that is strongly attached to Quebecois culture: poutine. As a Quebecois, I was asked to prepare this legendary meal for my colleagues. Most of the time, this high-caloric meal is composed of french fries (deep-fried in old oil), squeaky fresh cheese curd and gravy (from powder). At the lab, however, we like to begin from scratch – so the potatoes were cut, parboiled, and deep-fried in fats we clarified from different meats, the gravy was from a delicious duck stock and leftover mushrooms, and the cheese, clearly, was … Read more

posted by Sebastian Moreno Henao As a Latin American, cebiches are very familiar to me. There are many varieties, from México to Chile, across Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and many other places as well. It is the same with its etymology. A lot of theories have been proposed. One of them says it comes from a Spanish word: “cebo” which means “bait”, probably because of its similarity to chopped fish. Another proposes it comes from the word “escabeche”, which itself comes from an Arabic-Spanish word: “sukkabak” , a method to preserve meat in vinegar. And a third suggests that it comes from a Quechua (indigenous language from some South American tribes) word: “swichi” which means ‘fresh fish’ or ‘tender fish’. It is also due to these different etymology that one can find so many variations in the spelling. The many forms of this traditional dish share one common trait, which is how acids can … Read more

Recipe development for our Pestival menu, by Josh Pollen – one half of Blanch & Shock and one third of London Research Kitchen To consume an ant is an almost absurd study of scale. There may be no smaller legged creature eaten as a principal ingredient, yet the ant’s size belies the intensity of its taste. A wide variety of the12,500 recognised species ofthe  Formicidae family are eaten in cultures around the world, from the Colombian cinema snack of fried hormigas culones (large-bottomed ants, or  Atta laevigata) to honey ant species such as the black honey ant (Camponotus inflatus), eaten as a sweetdelicacy by Australian Aborigines. The nutritional efficiency of ant protein is not high compared to other insects, but that is not the point. They are eaten more as flavourful supplements and sometimes given as symbolic gifts. Simply, different ants exhibit different flavours [1]. Numerous chemical compounds contained in the ant’s exocrine glands are considered responsible … Read more

Researcher: Alec Borsook Overview Alkali cooking techniques are largely underexplored in contemporary kitchens. This post is a basic overview of what alkalis are, what they do, and how they can be useful.A notable fact is that calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2), one common alkali, can be made quite easily in kitchens by burning eggshells, whose calcium carbonate is then converted into calcium oxide (quicklime, CaO), which can be ‘slaked’ with water to become calcium hydroxide. Acidity comes in many delicious forms. Much of the research performed here at the Lab concerns our unending search for them, from our exploration of sour wild things to our investigations of the possibilities of lactic and acetic acid fermentations. Acids can balance flavours, providing brightness and cutting through richness, or they can make you pucker your lips in a delight bordering on pain. But what about their chemical opposites, the alkalis? In continuation of some previous … Read more

by Josh Evans Honeybees (Apis mellifera) have mastered feats of chemical engineering as various as they are alchemical. Their most well-known substances are of course honey, their concentrated, stable, hive-warming energy source, and wax, their pliable, moisture-proof structural material. Yet there are others which nowadays are known primarily only to beekeepers and practitioners of traditional medicines. Propolis (or ‘bee glue’) is used as a structural sealant and potent antimicrobial agent within the hive and carries a beautiful resinous aroma. Royal jelly is what all brood—the immature larvae and pupae—are first fed before being weaned onto honey (unlike the future queen, who becomes differentiated by being fed only royal jelly) and it has remarkable moisturising, emulsifying and stabilising properties. Even the brood are used as food in many cultures around the world and have a delicate savouriness with hints of raw nuts or avocado. Each substance is fascinating in its own … Read more

by Avery McGuire Spring is upon us. The sky is a vast and brilliant blue. The sun is bright and blinding, and lingers longer each evening. Flowers speckle the first grass with yellow, white and periwinkle. The air is sweet with new life. The city is awake. People are out, their cheeks blushed, wrapped in blankets with hot coffee or cold beer in hand, soaking up every golden drop of sun no matter how chilly it may still be. Step out your front door and watch the world budding. There are new shoots and buds, delicate young leaves, and the very first flowers – many of which are not only safe to eat, but healthy and delicious! Ramson Why Wild Plants Like Ramson Naturally Satisfy Our Hunger There’s compelling science behind why foraged plants like ramson (wild garlic) and other spring edibles often leave us feeling more satisfied than cultivated … Read more

by Ben Reade. This paper was first published in ‘Wrapped and Stuffed: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2012′. The complete Proceedings is available from Prospect Books; a video recording of the presentation of this paper can be found here (starting at 33 minutes), and a podcast about it here. People dig for peat. Once dry, this peat burns hot and lets off an evocative smoke that brings to mind the cooking and heating methods of yesteryear. The peat-cutters harvest their quarry from dark brown, water-logged quagmires. Occasionally, these accidental archeologists discover artifacts left by people long gone. One such artifact, among the most commonly unearthed items from the watery, misty bogs of Ireland and Scotland, is known as ‘bog butter’. Due to the frequency of these findings and its mysterious nature, it has been fairly well studied from an archaeological perspective, perhaps the most thorough investigation being … Read more