Smørrebrød

Last week, I took a class on how to make Smørrebrød, traditional Danish open-faced sandwiches.  The class was held at CPH Cooking Class near Nyhavn.  Most of my fellow students were there because they received the class as a Christmas gift.  What a great gift idea!  There was a Swedish couple, a German couple, a French woman who is a college student, and a Viennese woman who is opening a cooking school nearby.  The French woman was actually born in Gif-sur-Yvette, my French hometown!  It was a 4-hour class.  We made everything from scratch, I mean everything!  Seven students plus two chefs, cooking for 4 hours to make 3 types of sandwiches and a dessert.  It was so much fun!

Kitchen Classroom

Cozy Dining Room

There are plenty of rules that come with making these sandwiches.  For example, they are made with rye bread.  You must always butter the bread all the way to the edges before adding your toppings.  Traditional toppings and combinations are pretty much what you will find.  Certain sauces go with certain toppings, and you don't mess with that.  For example, fish and shrimp are served with a remoulade sauce.

Rye Bread is a must

The first sandwich we made was Rødspætte/Flounder (or Plaice) with Norwegian lobster, remoulade, lemon confit and herbs.  We learned how to filet and skin the whole fish, which was amazing because it was so flat and thin.  I didn't think I'd do a good job, but it turns out I'm really great at filleting and skinning flounder!  We also learned how to confit the lemon and make a traditional remoulade from scratch.

My Swedish Friends Taking Care of the Plaice

Another thing we learned was how to break down Norwegian lobster, a type of langoustine.  That was fun too!

Before

After

The sandwich I was most excited to make was the Tartar.  It was veal tartar, or raw veal, served with tempered egg yolks, Jerusalem artichokes, and lovage mayonnaise.  I worked mostly on this dish.  I learned how to make the lovage oil and then turn it into a mayonnaise.  Tempering the eggs was done by cooking them in oil under very low heat in the oven.  Pretty cool!

My Babies

The third sandwich we made was Hønsesalat/Chicken Salad.  It wasn't your usual chicken salad though.  Our chef, Max was amazing and he made all of the traditional recipes into something so special and fancy.  For the chicken salad, we learned how to confit the chicken legs by cooking them slowly in duck fat.  Max taught us two methods of pickling -- mushrooms (in oil) and onions (the regular way.). We learned how to make tarragon oil and a tarragon mayonnaise.

Fancy Chicken Salad

After all of that, we even made dessert!  We made Danish pancakes, which are made with beer as the leavener, and a vanilla parfait (unchurned ice cream).

When everything was done, we had a huge feast!

Smørrebrød

After taking this class, I've been pickling everything.  It's easy and really tasty.  I will probably make these sandwiches again, but definitely only one type at a time!  It's a lot of work!  

Bon Appétit!