This morning it was dark and pouring with rain when my kids biked off to school. I put on my waterproofs (no such thing as bad weather – only unsuitable clothing!), got on my bike and battled the wind and rain down to the beach…in order to strip it all off and enjoy my ritual morning skinny dip in the sea with a friend. Life is good!
Got home – starving as usual – and feasted upon a piece of ryebread with slices of that Danish classic, sprængt oksekød (salted beef)… Life is really good!
The beef was left over from last night’s dinner of hot sprængt oksekød, carrots, tatties and peberrodssauce (horseradish sauce). (Not the most attractive dish, I grant you. Unless you’re a big fan of grey meat?)
It’s a very easy dish to make and the cooking method is the same, whether it’s duck or beef. Boil one litre of water and about 300g of cheap table salt for a few minutes until the salt dissolves. Let it cool and add your piece of oksebryst (beef, about 500g) or andebryster (4 duck breasts). Let them sit overnight in the salty-as-an-old-seadog pickling liquid.
The next day, pour off the salty liquid and cover the meat with fresh water. Bring to the boil and remove any white, foamy stuff.
Add a carrot, bay leaf, a sliced onion and a small handfull of peppercorns, pop the lid on and simmer gently for about an hour.
Remove the meat, leave to cool down slightly and then slice thinly. While it’s cooling down, you can be getting on with the peberrodssauce. Now, traditionalists will make the sauce by starting with a roux, adding some of the cooking water and then adding horseradish and some milk or cream. I decided to go with this modern (and easy peasy) version from Karoline’s “Granny’s Food” cookbook…
You simply take about 3 large tablespoons of creme fraîche (38% fat) and 3 large tablespoons of crème fraîche (18% fat) and put them in a little pan along with 3 tablespoons of grated horseradish (you’ll find tiny pots of it in the chiller section, keeps forever), salt, pepper and about ½ a tablespoon of sugar. Heat through gently. I added more sugar ‘cos I like it that way…
Heat through gently. I added a bit more sugar to mine – because that’s the way I like it! The peberrodssauce turned out really good and tasted great – both hot last night and cold this morning.
After dinner, DDH (dear Danish husband) gave me his verdict on the sprængt okse. “Well, it looked and tasted like it’s meant to…” Praise indeed! 😉
Velbekomme! Have a marvelous Monday!
Diane 🙂
It looks great. What sort of salt did you use, please?
Ordinary, cheap table salt – don't use anything expensive! 🙂