There are so many wonderful countries that I know almost nothing about, Denmark included. Before cooking this national dish the only thing I knew of Denmark was that they were responsible for Lego’s(I loved Lego’s as a kid). Now I know these facts courtesy of their Wikipedia page.
- The population in Denmark is an estimated 5,707,251 people.
- Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark.
- Greenland is a part of Denmark(Technically an autonomous country within the Danish Realm)
- Stegt flæsk was voted by the people as their national dish(Find out more about this here)
The last point is especially interesting to me. Some countries take great pride in their national dishes while other countries have bigger issues to worry about. Apparently 60,000 people voted Stegt flæsk as the national dish. I really love it when countries recognize importance that cuisine has to culture.
The recipe that I got the recipe from had this to say
The ”Stegt Flæsk med persillesovs” is a must to eat once a week dish
Damn, that is love for your national dish right there, I love hamburgers but I don’t know if I can say they are must to eat every week.
Stegt flæsk is fried pork belly, served with miniature potatoes(new potatoes) and a wonderful parsley sauce. What I really appreciated about the dish was that you could cook everything at the same time unlike a stew or soup. There was no interdependence of the individual parts.
This dish did not require many ingredients. Just to note as well I halved the original measurements expect for the gravy. In hindsight, I wish I had not done this as the meal was wonderful and I would have loved leftovers. For those looking to make this I will add some helpful notes on things that threw me for a loop.
- New potatoes are just regular miniature potatoes.
- Milk 3,5% is equivalent to whole milk.
- Wheat flour is just regular white flour.
So the first step is to slice the pork belly. I highly, highly recommend asking the butcher to do this for you as I found the pork belly really tough to slice.
Once they are sliced, they will need to rest on a kitchen towel for a bit. While that is happening you can get the potatoes boiling and the sauce started.
The sauce required a lot of patience, it is important to note that the sauce never needs to boil. Once the butter is added to the pan, add the flour one tablespoon at a time and whisk, whisk, whisk. Next add the milk a little bit at a time and continue to keep whisking. Finally near the end, add the heavy cream and parsley and continue to whisk. The recipe says the nutmeg is optional but in my opinion it is mandatory.
The pork belly at this point has rested enough and it is time to cook it. I believed it would be easier to cook if it was in smaller pieces so I chopped the pork belly up.
I cooked the pork belly in two parts. First I fried them in a pan for a bit on both sides to give them that nice crispiness. Once that was done I transferred them over to the oven to make cook off some of the excess fat and to give them some more color which made a huge difference as you will see.
Finally everything is done and the dish is ready to be assembled. Make sure to sprinkle some of the parsley onto the potatoes for a beautiful and tasty finish.
I thought that this dish was going to be too heavy but I did not find that to be true. The pork belly was simultaneously crispy and juicy and paired wonderfully with the creamy potatoes. The addition of nutmeg in the sauce reminded me of Christmas(seriously don’t leave out the nutmeg). I would love to make this again, on a dark cold night preferably in December.
Recipe is available here.