Fisk

Erken's fried eel from 1914: the eel is skinned, cut into pieces without slitting the belly, salted, breaded in flour, egg, and rusk crumbs, deep-fried for 5 minutes, and finished in browned butter. Served with lemon, fried parsley, and remoulade sauce.

Erken 1914, p. 135: Boiled fish mixed into a thick brown sauce with anchovy butter and chopped gherkins, cooled, formed into cakes, breaded in egg and rusk crumbs and fried. Served with fried parsley.

Flounder fillets are half-cooked in white wine or fish stock, turned in a butter stirred with finely chopped onion, parsley, and mushroom or celery, and then finished slowly in bouillon. Served in their own stock, garnished with lemon and tomato.

Erken 1914, pp. 135–136: A curry sauce of butter, flour, curry, milk and fish stock, seasoned with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Cold cooked fish is gently warmed through in the sauce over a water bath without boiling.

Erken 1914, p. 135: Cooked cod picked into large pieces on a platter, doused with melted butter mixed with tomato purée, sprinkled with parsley and garnished with lettuce leaves.

Erken's fish dumplings in lobster sauce from Stor kokebok 1914: a white sauce of butter, flour, milk/fish stock and sour cream, seasoned with sherry, cayenne and sugar, with cooked lobster and warm fish dumplings. Served with puff-pastry leaves.

Erken's 1914 instructions for opening a boiled lobster: the claws are removed, the head and tail are split lengthwise, the chewing stomach (the 'pope') behind the eyes and the intestine (the 'string') are removed, the claws are cracked gently, and the roe and 'green' are saved.

Boiled mussels layered in jars with bay leaves and whole peppercorns, covered with vinegar and mussel stock, brought to a boil in a water bath and sealed tightly for storage.

Boiled mussels breaded in rusk crumbs and egg, fried golden brown in fat and served with fried parsley and lemon – a French-inspired starter from Erken's fish chapter.

Lobster à l'américaine from Erken's Stor kokebok (1914): boiled lobster in a sauce made from a stock of crushed shells and bouillon, thickened with butter and flour, flavored with tomato purée and the lobster innards pressed through a sieve, with mushrooms, and finished with stiffly whipped cream, grated horseradish, parsley, salt, and paprika.

A cold lobster preparation from Erken's Stor kokebok (1914): the tail halves are filled with a mousse of lobster purée, white sauce, fish aspic, and half-whipped cream, garnished with aspic-coated lobster pieces, truffle, and oysters, served on lettuce leaves with mayonnaise.

Erken's "Lobster au naturel" (1914): 6 lobsters are boiled and cooled in the cooking water, split, and arranged on an oblong platter around a bread base with a silver skewer holding lettuce, crayfish, and empty lobster shells. The heads are stood up against the base, and the tail pieces are laid in a ring. Garnished with lemon, lettuce, and tomatoes filled with mayonnaise.

Erken's homemade ansjos (1914), Norway's spiced sprats: 6 l small herring/sprats sit 4 hours in a brine of 3 l water and 1 l salt, are drained, and layered at once in a jar with oil in the bottom, belly up and every other layer reversed. Ground spices are strewn between the layers, then it matures cool for 6–8 weeks.

Fresh herring, deboned and each stuffed with an anchovy, brushed with egg and milk, breaded in rusk crumbs, rye flour and salt, and fried golden in butter. Served with mashed potatoes, vegetables and butter or a sweet-and-sour sauce.

Erken's breakfast herring from 1914: cleaned large sprats are salted 3 hours, wiped dry, rolled around a pitted olive, packed tightly into small glass jars and covered with a whisked mixture of cooking oil, vinegar, water, sugar and pepper. Keeps a long time in airtight screw-top jars.

Classic kryddersild (spiced herring) from Erken's Stor kokebok 1914: fresh herring is pre-salted for 5 hours, left 18 hours in vinegar, dried, and layered in a crock with coarsely crushed allspice, cloves, white pepper, bay leaf, and confectioners' sugar. Pressed and matured for 3–4 weeks.

Lucifer herring (lucifersild) from Erken 1914: a cold herring salad of soaked herring cut in strips, mixed with boiled potatoes and raw apples, dressed with a piquant dressing of onion, parsley, chervil, tarragon, oil, vinegar and pepper.

A short serving instruction from Erken 1914: smoked herring is served split with hard-boiled egg or salad and sprinkled with parsley.

Small anchovy soufflé from Erken's Stor kokebok 1914: a white base sauce of 15 g butter, 15 g flour and 1.5 dl milk is cooled, stirred with egg yolks, soaked mashed anchovies, anchovy brine, cayenne, pepper and salt, and stiffly beaten egg whites are folded in. Baked in small greased molds for 15–20 minutes and sprinkled with parsley before

Erken's basic method from Stor kokebok (1914) for shaping fish dumplings with two dessert spoons (or by cutting them out from an upturned plate) and poaching them slowly in boiling fish stock or salted water for 3–7 minutes, for use in soup or sauce.

Erken 1914: cooked fish dumplings and pieces of celeriac warmed in a brown sauce of butter, flour, fish stock/celeriac water, madeira, salt and paprika.

Erken 1914: fish dumplings and button mushrooms warmed in a brown sauce with fish stock, tomato purée, sherry, salt and paprika.

Erken 1914: cooked, drained fish dumplings browned in lightly browned butter, ideally served with sautéed button mushrooms.

Erken's pike forcemeat: scraped pike flesh is ground with salt and potato starch, mixed with melted butter, thinned with cold milk and cream, and baked as a pudding in a water bath in the oven for 1 hour. Skin and bones are simmered into pike soup.

Classic Norwegian poached cod from Erken's Stor kokebok (1914): 2 kg cod cut into finger-thick slices, salted and gently simmered a few minutes in 3 liters of boiling salted water until the bone loosens. Head, liver and roe are cooked separately. Served with boiled potatoes, lemon, parsley, horseradish and melted butter or hollandaise.

Erken's gratin of cold cooked fish set in a border of mashed potato ringed with dumplings, layered with a white sauce of flour, cream, fish stock and plenty of cold butter, brushed with egg, sprinkled with rusk crumbs and baked 10 minutes over a water bath.

Erken's poached flounder: the fish is cleaned in vinegar water to loosen the slime, poached whole or in slices in salted water, arranged on a napkin with lettuce, parsley, and lemon, and served with melted butter, parsley butter, oyster sauce, or hollandaise.

Basic recipe from Erken 1914 for whole poached small fish (haddock, whiting, trout, perch): the fish is cleaned and "curved" by tying the head and tail together or threading the tail through the eye sockets, then poached in hot salted water (3 dl salt to 3 l water) that must not boil. Arranged on a fol

Erken's boiled halibut (1914): pieces of halibut are pre-salted for half an hour, placed in boiling salted water (optionally half milk) and simmered slowly until tender. Served on a platter with a napkin, parsley and lemon, with melted butter, hollandaise, caper sauce or white wine sauce.

Simple recipe from Erken's Stor kokebok (1914) for whole whiting poached in salted water, served with parsley butter; large fish can be divided into pieces.

A short recipe for garfish: the head and tail are cut off, the fish is cleaned and prepared like mackerel (floured and fried in butter), and the trimmings are boiled into a rich fish soup.

Erken's 1914 recipe for whiting à la Margot: the fish is opened along the back, the backbone removed, the fish salted, peppered, dipped in milk, breaded in flour and rusk crumbs and fried in butter. The opening along the back is filled with maître d'hôtel butter (150 g), more half-melted maître d'hôtel butter is drizzled over, and the platter garnished with lemon slices.

Erken's simple pan-fried whiting: head and tail are cut off, the fish salted in the belly, turned in flour with salt and pepper, fried in browned butter and served with browned butter and fried parsley.

Oven-baked haddock fillet layered with butter and salt, covered with a white sauce enriched with soured cream and lemon juice, baked about 45 min in a hot oven. From Schønberg Erken's Stor kokebok 1914, p. 96.

Erken's halibut à la régence (1914): two 2 cm thick halibut slices are marinated in oil, lemon juice, and salt, layered together with butter- and rusk-breaded oysters between them, and baked for 30–40 minutes in a hot oven. Finished by gratinating with rusk and butter and served on salad with lemon, parsley, and scooped potatoes.

Salmon à la Doria (Erken 1914): the middle cut of salmon (1.5 kg) is steamed, covered, in the oven with butter and fish stock, served drenched in a reduced milk-and-cream sauce with crayfish butter and crayfish tails, garnished with mushrooms steamed in butter.

Erken's poached pike (1914): pike in slices is washed in vinegar water, brought to a boil in heavily salted water (1 dl salt per liter) and finished off the heat below the boiling point. Served on a platter with scraped horseradish and parsley, with butter melted in a bain-marie, ideally with grated horseradish.

Erken's steam-cooked perch (1914): a whole cleaned perch is salted, laid in a flat-bottomed pot between pats of butter and coarsely chopped parsley, dusted with flour and 1 tablespoon water, and cooked covered over low heat about 45 minutes. The sauce is whisked up and served alongside.

A large pike is skinned and larded with strips of boiled tongue and bacon, basted with 1 l strained meat stock cooked with root vegetables and suet, covered with butter and paper and roasted about 2 hours in the oven. The pan juices are thickened with sago flour.

Pike soaks 4–5 hours in salted water, then is steamed tender in fish stock about 30 min. Crayfish shells and roe are pounded with 250 g butter and strained into crayfish butter, thickened with flour, thinned with stock, seasoned with anchovy butter and lemon, boiled 15 min and strained. Crayfish meat and boiled fish liver are folded in; the sauce is poured over the fish.

Whole roasted pike (2–3 kg) with butter, meat stock, water and sour cream in the oven 1–1½ hours, served with a brown flour-and-butter gravy from the pan juices, glazed chestnuts, Brussels sprouts and roast potatoes.

Pike is split, boned and skinned, cut into diagonal finger-thick slices, breaded in flour, melted butter and rusk crumbs, rested 1 hour and fried golden in browned butter. Served with horseradish, tartar or maître d'hôtel butter and garnished with lemon or tomato.

Flounder fillets are pre-cooked in fish stock and white wine in a baking dish, covered with a brown mushroom sauce, gratinated with breadcrumbs and butter, and garnished with mushrooms and parsley. From Henriette Schønberg Erken's Stor kokebok (1914), p. 85.

Flounder fillets dipped in melted butter, breaded in breadcrumbs and pan-fried light brown, topped with banana halves cooked in clarified butter, served with a sauce of tomato purée, butter, and parsley. From Henriette Schønberg Erken's Stor kokebok (1914), pp. 85–86.

Erken's flounder fillet with green peas: fillets are marinated in melted butter, salt, pepper, and lemon, folded around a raw potato slice, baked 10 min in fish stock in a hot oven, and arranged in a ring with buttered peas in celeriac or turnip cups, served with parsley or tartar butter.

A festive fish dish from Erken 1914: flounder fillets are cut out, salted and briefly marinated in lemon juice, breaded in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, and deep-fried in lard. Arranged on a napkin with tartar butter in a bowl, sautéed mushrooms around, and mushroom sauce alongside.

Flounder fillets where half are breaded in egg and breadcrumbs and fried, and half are poached in fish stock with white wine; arranged with browned white-bread slices topped with tomato and parsley. Served with hollandaise or maître d'hôtel butter. From Erken's Stor kokebok (1914), p. 85.

Erken's oven-baked turbot fillets (1914): the fillets are coated in milk and flour, baked 15 minutes in butter in the oven and served with floured, pan-fried eggplant slices, lemon juice, parsley and browned butter. Serves 6.

Bacalao en salsa: rehydrated, cooked and cleaned salt cod layered in a pot with potato slices, bell pepper strips, onion, butter and tomato slices on top. Warmed cooking oil and 2 dl water are poured over, and the dish simmers, covered, for 1 hour over low heat.

Klippfisk à la russe (salt cod, Russian style): layered in an ovenproof dish with golden-browned onion, butter-fried tomatoes with parsley, hot flaked boiled salt cod and butter-fried bell pepper. Lemon juice and 30 g browned butter over, 10 minutes in a hot oven, served very hot.

Erken's salt cod with tomatoes from 1914: soaked klippfisk in slices is steamed for 20 minutes in a sauce of butter, onion, tomato purée, fish stock, and water, then sprinkled with parsley.

Erken's basic recipe for poached klippfisk (Norwegian salt-dried cod): 12 hours of soaking with frequent water changes, brought to a boil in cold water, skimmed, then poached for 15 minutes covered in the oven or off the heat. Served with melted butter or egg sauce and creamed parsnips.

Erken's lutefisk recipe from 1914: stockfish soaked 8 days, kept 4 days in fish lye mixed with 12 l water, freshened 2 days and boiled in salted water. Served with melted butter or pork drippings.

Erken's method for stockfish: beat the dried fish with a wooden mallet, soak it 1–2 days, steam it on a rack under a lid, and serve with oil, pepper, and salt.

Erken 1914: whole mackerel is cleaned without opening the belly, stuffed with parsley and gently poached in salted water (3 l water, 3 dl salt), served with parsley butter; alternatively the fish is cooked in slices.

Erken 1914: mackerel is boiled in salted water, rests 1–2 days cold in its own strained stock and is served cold with horseradish sauce; the stock is thickened with 50 g butter and 50 g flour into a soup with boiled carrots, parsley and chives.

Mackerel fillets in pieces, salted and dipped in a beer-based beignet batter with stiffly whipped egg whites, deep-fried light golden and served with maître d'hôtel butter, brown fish sauce, or tomato sauce.

Whole mackerel filled with parsley butter, browned in butter and fried slowly in cream for about half an hour; served with the pan sauce. Alternatively the fish is fried in pieces with parsley in incisions.

Short 1914 instruction: smoked mackerel is cut into broad pieces and toasted or fried in butter, served with scrambled eggs, spinach, sorrel, or gooseberry purée.

Erken's mackerel fillet from 1914: fillets are poached in equal parts fish stock and white wine under a lid, skinned, and covered with a light butter-and-flour sauce cooked on veal stock, mounted with onion butter and finely chopped herbs (parsley, chervil, tarragon, leek).

Erken's "Fish with Macaroni" (1914): cooked fish mixed with cooked, cut-up macaroni, milk, egg, pepper, salt and grated cheese, placed in a buttered dish with dots of butter and cheese on top, baked light brown for about 15 minutes and served with parsley sauce, white sauce or sauce Colbert.

Classic fish gratin from Erken 1914: a thick white sauce of 100 g butter, 80 g flour, and 5 dl milk is mixed with about 500 g cooked fish, mace, pepper, and 5 beaten eggs, sprinkled with rusk crumbs and baked 45 min. Served with melted butter.

A finer fish gratin from Erken 1914 made of scraped raw fish (haddock, saithe, or cod) mixed into a cooled white sauce with nutmeg, egg yolks, sherry, and stiffly whipped egg whites, baked in a mold 30–45 min and served with espagnole sauce made from stock of fish bones and skin.

Erken's fish ragout in shells from 1914: boiled fish seasoned with lemon and salt, folded into a butter sauce of 50 g butter, 30 g flour and 2.5 dl meat stock with egg yolks, nutmeg, pepper and anchovy butter, plus cooked macaroni. Filled into shells, sprinkled with rusk crumbs and cheese, drizzled with butter and gratinated for 15 minutes.

Festive whiting gratin from Erken 1914: whiting fillets rolled around fish forcemeat mixed with boiled vegetables, laid in a greased dish with chopped onion and a brown tomato sauce with mushroom, mirepoix and sherry, and steamed tender in a moderate oven about 30 minutes. Variant with a forcemeat layer at the bottom and lobster ragout in the center, served with lobster sauce.

Baked halibut in the dish from Erken's Stor kokebok (1914): finger-thick halibut slices without skin or bone are floured and browned in butter, layered in an ovenproof dish with pickled gherkins (asier) between the layers, covered with a brown butter sauce of 50 g butter, 30 g flour, 2.5 dl fish or meat stock, salt, and cayenne, baked about 45 minutes, and finished with 1 dl sherry.

Erken's pressed cod (1914): winter cod is split along the back, salted in a trough for 4 days, pressed between boards with a stone, soaked for a couple of hours and boiled. Served with egg butter or mustard sauce.

Rakefisk of trout: cleaned, unwashed fish layered with salt and sugar under pressure in a keg, making its own brine and curing for about 2 months. Served with flatbread and butter.

Homemade smoked salmon: an 8–9 kg salmon is split along the back without water, salted 2½ days in 1 l salt and 2 dl sugar under a weight, brushed with saltpeter dissolved in cognac, cold-smoked 8 hours, and matured 6 days. The trimmings are boiled into salmon soup; the salmon is stored dry, not in the refrigerator.

Four methods for giving haddock a smoky flavor: brine + cold-smoke 2 h, dry-salting with sugar 3 days + smoking 4 h, brushing with liquid smoke, or boiling in water with salt and liquid smoke. Served hot with boiled carrots and parsley butter. Stor kokebok 1914, p. 96.

Erken's method for salting herring and mackerel: the fish is cleaned but not washed, sits 18 hours in a brine strong enough to float an egg, drains, and is then dry-salted packed tightly in a trough. Stored cold and dry, soaked before use.

Erken's method for salting larger fish: cleaned, unwashed fish is placed in a trough on a layer of salt and sugar mixed 1 liter salt to 2 dl sugar, salt is packed into the belly, the fish is fully covered and ready to use after 3 days.

Curry sauce for boiled eel from Erken 1914: 50 g butter, 50 g flour and 1 tsp curry thinned with 1 liter of boiling eel stock and simmered 5 minutes; the eel pieces are warmed in the sauce.

Parsley sauce for boiled eel from Erken 1914: a roux of 50 g butter and 50 g flour thinned with 1 liter eel stock, simmered 5 minutes, seasoned with salt and pepper, with 1 tbsp finely chopped parsley stirred in just before serving to preserve the color.

Erken's sauce à la génoise (1914): a butter-based brown sauce with chopped ham, thinned with fish marinade, bouillon and red wine, thickened with egg yolk and seasoned with lemon, anchovy butter and paprika. Served with fish.

Spanish sauce from Erken 1914: a roux of 50 g butter and 25 g flour thinned with 2.5 dl milk and 2.5 dl boiling cream, reduced by half and seasoned with parsley, anchovy butter, lobster coloring, and salt. Served with fish.

Homemade cod roe caviar: loose, fresh roe is removed from the membrane, stirred at length with fine salt (about 10%) and cured cold for 2–3 weeks; served with pepper and lemon juice. Made in April.

Erken's recipe for cold salmon from 1914: the salmon is cooked whole or in slices in a spiced court-bouillon of water, vinegar, salt, carrots, parsley stalks, thyme, bay, and whole pepper, cooled in the stock and arranged with a rich garnish of herbs, lobster roe, stuffed tomatoes, and eggs, with cold sauces such as green herb butter or horseradish butter.

Cold trout à la truite froide: the trout is cooked like cold salmon, the fillets are laid together with tarragon, chervil, and lobster roe on a set tomato base (tomatoes, butter, white base sauce, gelatin, and half-whipped cream) and covered with fish aspic. Chilled on ice; the tomato base can be swapped for shrimp, lobster, crayfish, or vegetables.

Sliced boiled cod roe browned in butter and mixed with shrimp and boiled cauliflower; served cold in mayonnaise or warm in cauliflower sauce.

A cold canapé from 1914: round buttered bread with a lemon slice, caviar stirred with onion, lemon juice, and cayenne, capers in the center, and peeled shrimp arranged around.

French-inspired appetizer: boiled cod liver in small pieces is mixed with oysters, seasoned, placed in buttered shells with a little white sauce, topped with rusk crumbs and butter and gratinated for 10–15 minutes at about 180°C.

Brown herring soup from Erken's Stor kokebok (1914): herring stock cooked from herring and trimmings from herring patties, thickened with a brown butter roux, seasoned with sherry, cayenne, boiled roots and mushrooms.

Herring soup cooked on fresh herring and the trimmings from herring patties: the stock is drawn with water, salt, and milk, strained and thickened with a butter roux, thinned with milk, and served with chives and stiffly whipped sour cream in the tureen, optionally with fish balls, root vegetables, and potatoes.