Recipe ideas, Food Blog, Cooking



This summer we had visitors from Australia visiting us in Trondheim. We wanted to let them taste some Norwegian food and therefore we decided to cook up a traditional Norwegian Moose Stew.

In this stew you have lots of beautiful Norwegian flavors.

Under you can see the recipe:

Serves 6 people

1 kg Moose meat

2 large onions

2 shallots

2 1/2 Red Capsicums

4 Medium Carrots

3 Celery Sticks

50 gr leek

5 dl water

3 tbs butter

8 juniper berries crushed in a mortar (in Norway you find these in the spices section at the grocery store, but if you can’t find it at your local supermarket I know that juniper berries are sold in most health shops.)

200 gr Norwegian Sweet Cheese (Brunost) (If you don’t have access to Norwegian Sweet Cheese this can be substituted with ½ tbs black currant jam and 2 tbs goat cheese.

250 ml sour cream

½ ts sugar

Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste

I served this dish with Potato Mash with Sweet Potato and thyme

8 large potatoes

1 large sweet potato

2 tbs fresh thyme

3 tbs milk

1 tbs sour cream

½ tbs butter

Salt and pepper to taste, this dish require a fair bit of pepper so be generous with the seasoning.

How to:

Prime Moose Meat (Elgkjøtt)

Cut beef into narrow 2-inch long strips about 1/2-inch thick. Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. Slice the capsicum and onion into thin slices. Cut the remaining vegetables into medium to small slices. Add the carrot, celery 1/2 capsicum and leek into a large saucepan with 3 dl of water add a pinch of salt and let boil. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a medium to high heat fry pan. Add 1/3 of the meat, onion and capsicum and let fry in the fry pan until meat is seared.

 Add about 1 dl of water in the saucepan and let cook for about 4 minutes then pour it into the saucepan where the vegetables are cooking.

 Repeat the steps with the rest of the meat, onion and capsicum, add the crushed juniper berries and then let cook on low to medium heat for about 45 – 60 minutes. The longer you’ll let the meat cook the more tender the meat and tastier sauce you get.

While the stew is cooking prepare the mash. Peel all the potatoes and boil in water until soft.

Don’t add salt when the potatoes are boiling as this will make the mash “sticky”. So let the potatoes just boil in clear water until soft and mash it with a masher (don’t use an electric mixer). While mashing the potatoes add the milk, sour cream and butter, and taste with salt and pepper. Lastly add the finely chopped thyme.

Now, go back to your stew and add the remaining ingredients and let cook for another 5 minutes. Check the meat, if the meat is not tender enough yet, let cook until the meat is nice and tender. I sometimes may let it cook for a couple of hours. You can also make the stew the day before. Let it cook for a couple of hours and leave it in the fridge until the day after. This will give the sauce even more flavor.

Dish up with the potatoes and serve.

Lamb Roast is a beautiful meal that satisfies your taste palates to the fullest if cooked perfectly.

Everyone loves it, and everyone gets impressed every time if cooked tender and juicy! The truth is that it’s actually a lot easier to make a beautiful lamb roast than what  people often think.

Here are some steps you’ll need to follow:

1. Let the lamb roast sit on the kitchen bench a couple of hours until it’s room temperate. While the lamb roast is on the bench, you can prepare it by rubbing it well with salt and pepper. Feel free to use dried or fresh chopped herbs such as rosemary, sage, thyme and / or parsley. You can also cut small holes in the roast with a sharp giggle and fill them with small pieces of garlic. My favorite is rosemary and garlic lamb. First I rub it well with salt, pepper and dried rosemary, and then I cut small holes in the lamb roast that I fill with garlic and fresh rosemary sticks.

2. The safest way of making sure your lamb roast is perfectly cooked is to use a meat thermometer, preferably digital. Insert the thermometer at an angle into the roast, so that it sits right in the thickest part of the thigh so that the tip is in contact with bone. Place roast in a roasting pan and cook the roast in the middle of the oven at 125 ° C. This is a temperature that allows the roast to cook evenly all the way through and will leave it tender and juicy. How long to cook it for is depending on the lamb roasts weight and how well you want it cooked. As an estimate you’ll cook the roast for about 25 – 30 min per 500 grams.

3. How well done you want your lamb roast is up to you:

At 65 ° C raw to medium

At 70 ° C medium

At 76 ° C well done

4. When the roast is cooked to your liking it is very important that you take the lamb roast out of the oven and cover it with foil. Let it rest for about 20 -25 min so that all the juices flows out to all parts of the lamb roast, leaving you with not only a tender roast, but also beautifully juicy.

5. With lamb roast I love to have  nice creamy mash potatoes and roasted vegetables such as: sweet potatoes, pumpkin, onion, carrots, capsicum, cauliflower, broccoli and of course gravy made from the juices of the lamb roast it self

6. Las, but not least enjoy the meal with a nice glass of red wine.

Start by taking the beef out of the fridge well before cooking, at least 30 minutes before. Beef should be room temperature because then it is easier to make it look cooked without it being extremely dry. You will also find that beef get’s a very raw / cold core if it is cold when you start cooking it.

Cutting thick slices are important. Do not cut them too thin; rather cut them very thick and beat them down to about 2 – 4 cm thick slices. Use a paper towel or a kitchen towel and wipe the beef dry,  the beef should be completely dry before you have it in the fry pan, it is very important that the beef is dry and at room temperate when cooking .  Now you can add spice to your beef, I always prefer a mix of white and black freshly ground pepper, little garlic and just a small sprinkle of soy sauce on each side.

The fry pan should be reasonable hot before you add margarine or oil to it. When margarine has reached the color nut brown you can add the meat. The oil is hot enough when you touch it with a wooden utensil and the oil starts roaring. However as a tip; do not use regular butter. The white and milky parts of the butter will burn when used in high heat. You rather choose between these three options: Oil that can handle high heat such as sun flower oil, oil and butter or cleared butter (cleared butter is when:  you melt the butter and only use the top layer of the butter do not use the white parts of the butter that is lying at the bottom of your cup or saucepan.

How long it takes to cook the beef depends on its thickness. However, the beef slices that are between 3 – 4 cm thick is sufficient to cook for about 2 – 3 minutes on each side and also remember to not put too many steaks in the fry pan at the same time as it may give the fry pan unbalanced heat.

As I have described how to cook a perfect medium cooked beef others may prefer either raw beef and well cooked beef, I have therefore described cooking times for all the three types below.

Cooking times for beef that is about 2 cm thick will be:
Raw beef: Pan fry the beef for about 30 sec – 1 minute on each side.

Medium cooked beef: Pan fry the beef on high heat for about 1 ½ – 2 ½ minutes or until the beef juices seeps out on top, turn the steak beef and cook until it seeps out on the other side. Do not stab the beef with a fork, but use a spatula.

Well cooked beef: Pan fry the beef for about 1 minute on each side on high heat, turn the heat down to low and cook for about 4 minutes on each side over low heat. It is important to turn the steak often.

When beef is cooked to your liking let the steak beef rest before serving. You should leave it on a dinner plate and cover it with aluminum foil and let it rest for about  4-6 minutes.

My favorite beef is served with red wine gravy and scalloped potatoes, seasonal vegetables and roasted cherry tomatoes.