Recipes: Baking that dark, sour bread

Making a rye bread sour dough starter
250 gram of rye flour
4 deciliters of water
Generous pinch of salt
2 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons of yogurt
Mix the ingredients to a mud-like consistency in a bowl. Cling film but punch some holes in the film, so that the sour dough can breathe. Leave for 2 days, on the third day, put some extra rye flour ad water in, and leave for a day or two, until it starts bubbling. Now it’s ready. You can store sourdoughs in the fridge for up to two weeks or more. To keep them alive give them a little fresh rye or wheat flour once in a while.

Rye bread with seeds (2 breads of 1 kg)
For the first day:
500 grams of sour dough
250 grams of rye grains
50 grams of linseed
150 grams of wheat flour
5 deciliters of lukewarm water
1 tablespoon of salt
1 ½ tablespoon of honey
For the second day:
1100 grams of rye flour
3 tablespoons of salt
1 ½ tablespoons of honey
9 deciliters of water
A little corn oil for the baking tins

On day one stir the first-day ingredients together, leave for next day under a wet cloth. On the second day, take the dough from the previous day and knead together with second batch of ingredients for 10 minutes. Take away 500 grams of sour dough for next time you’re baking, put in a plastic container in the fridge. Rub a little oil in two large baking tins and pour in the dough that should be the thickness of heavy mud. Leave to rise for 4 – 6 hours and bake at 170 degrees for 1 hour ad 45 minutes. Then take out of tins and bake for another fifteen minutes. Let cool completely before cutting in thin slices of approx 4-8 millimeters.


Dark rye bread

Curing a salmon “gravad”-style
The dill-flavored gravid-salmon is known by many, and quite easy to make. Eat it like the Danes, on rye with sweet and strong mustard sauce, or with horseradish in something like a salad. Usually mustard or horseradish is used to contrast the rich and dense taste. Black pepper is also an option. Avoid the lemon for this kind of cured fish; it dominates the other flavors too much. Remember the method also works on other fish and meats

For 12:
1 whole filet of salmon. See if you can get it wild, or farmed organic or unstressed. Approx 1.5 kg in weight usually.
6 tablespoons of sea salt
5 tablespoons of cane sugar
1 deciliter of snaps/aquavit (preferably dill-flavored)
1 ½ tablespoon of dill seeds
1 tablespoon of coriander seeds
1 large bundle of dill
Black pepper
Clean the salmon, removing bones and fat. Leave skin on. Dry fish with cloth. Make a ground mixture of salt, sugar, aquavit, dill and coriander seeds and pepper and rub it all over the fish. Place on tray meat side down and cling film. Leave for 2 – 4 days in refrigerator, but turn it over every day so it cures evenly. When served, dry of most of the herbs, chop the fresh dill finely and cover with an even layer. Slice thinly preferable with a long, thin and flexible knife.
Here served with salads, apples, herb mayonnaise and horseradish. You can eat it on rye bread, here the bread is sliced thinly and roasted.

Related article: Saving Lunch
Somehow time had almost passed it over. The open sandwich tradition of Denmark –known as smørrebrød - was not a thing that ambitious chefs or fashionable restaurants would put on their menus.