I love my food and I love my kitchen gadgets – my breadmachine, ricecooker, crockpot, mini grill, etc etc. But did you know that those crazy (but lovable) Danes have their very own kitchen gadgets?
Let’s start with the most common ones. The one on the left with the white handle is a cheese slicer – which gets used every Saturday and Sunday mornings, when we eat warm rolls topped with jam and Danbo cheese for breakfast. The other gadget, the one with a wooden handle, is a parsley chopper – which I use whenever I make persillesovs, parsley sauce (to go with stegt flæsk, fried belly pork).
These next ones only come out of the cupboard once a year. At Christmas time. The two ‘frying pans’ are for making æbleskiver, Danish Christmas donuts. My husband (who only cooks once a year…) makes up a huge batch of donuts – about 150 – together with the kids. We freeze the donuts in batches, then eat them warm with sugar and jam – the whole lot washed down with gløgg – in the run up to Christmas. Yum! 🙂 If you want to try making the donuts yourself, the family recipe is right here. On the righthand side you’ll see a wooden contraption with the butterfly screws. Don’t fear, this is not an instrument of torture… It’s a rullepølse presser. A press for making rolled pork sausage. You can buy them in the shops but our one was made by my husband’s brother in woodwork class at school. He made it for his mum, bless him! 😉 (I’ve only ever used it once but I can confirm that it did the job just fine…)
And what do you think this is for?
If you’ve ever eaten suppe (a broth containing meatballs, dumplings and carrots) in Denmark, you might be able to guess…
It’s a bollesprøjte. You put minced meat or dough in the metal tube, push down the wooden plunger and – hey presto – out pop boller, mini meatballs or dumplings. (You use a knife to slice them off as they pop out.) The bollesprøjte belonged to my Danish father-in-law who – even when he was well into his late 80s – always made his own soup dumplings from scratch. Unlike myself – who always buys them readymade from the freezer cabinet at the supermarket. Hmm, perhaps I should have a go at making them myself? Watch this space for an update…
Have a terrific Tuesday! 🙂