Neverending Lax Adventures

That's right. More gravad lax creations. I'm getting tired of the stuff. =( This time, I made those tuna breads you find at Asian bakeries except I replaced the tuna with lax. My version had bits of lax, diced onions and diced hard-boiled eggs in a mayo base that topped a soft bread. I'd actually tried this recipe out once before but it was an absolute fiasco. I only recently figured out why a lot of my attempts at baking are fiascos. I'd been using a digital scale that measured out troy ounces!! Big difference.

The time, I weighed everything out in grams. Honestly, I prefer metric when it comes to cooking. Regardless, this attempt was a success! I gotta say it was pretty darned good. Strangely, it didn't taste like the Asian bakery ones when it was hot out of the oven. After it cooled though, it tasted like the real stuff! Wow! Thankfully, this turned out to be a great way to use some of the lax up because the eggs complemented well with the lax. The original tuna recipe didn't call for eggs but I decided to throw them in based on experience in Iceland. I'd had their gravad lax with mayo and a hard boiled egg, and it was great. So I think in this bread, the success hinged heavily on the addition of the eggs. Hooray! =9~

I was so happy with the success that I forced some upon my sister to try it out. She too said the bread part tasted real which was a pleasant surprise. She was most doubtful of my creation. The only problem with my results is that they are too small. I was in a rush and didn't have time to let them double before baking. They were supposed to look like "wreaths" but instead, I got snails. Haha!! It didn't help that I could remember what they were supposed to look like, and I was unable to interpret my shorthand notes.

Plokkfiskur

My desire to relive my meals from my travels continues. Actually, this happens every time I return from a trip. =) It's like taking a bit of the trip home. Well, I've had an overwhelming desire to relive the heavenly flavours of the traditional Icelandic dish of plokkfiskur that I enjoyed at 3 Frakkar (3 overcoats) in Reykjavik. I scoured the internet in search of it. Not too many results but most of them more or less were the same. It's peasant food so it's rather basic in both ingredients and cooking method. Hmm, from the looks of it, the recipes aren't going to yield what I thoroughly licked up in Iceland. Granted the dairy products available in Iceland are tastier (fattier) that all the homogenized skim crap found here, I still can't imagine such a simple concoction of boiled potatoes and leftover fish would be as lipsmackingly delicious as the unctuous version at 3 Frakkar. Hmm, I suppose they're famous for a reason...My impression of their version is that that gratinated the plokkfiskur. Nevertheless, I forged ahead and made my own version of plokkfiskur cobbled together from a bunch of recipes. It turned out expected nevertheless: inferior. It essentially tasted of mashed potatoes with fish in it. Nothing special. It didn't even look particularly interesting. Ah, I shall have to revisit this.