Reveiwed by local editor Susanne Hohlen for the Danish Pioneer Newspaper
Mid-Minnesota (Brainerd Lakes area)
shohlen@uslink.netIt is with distinct pleasure and honor that I have been awarded the opportunity by the publisher, Favorite Recipes Press, to review the above listed cook book, Cooking Danish by Stig Hansen, the Viking Chef.
This brand new very comprehensive cook book (in text as well as accompanying photos) is a welcome and much needed addition to the scarce selection of existing Danish cookbooks in English on the culinary front. When you are a visual person like yours truly there is a deep appreciation for how the end result is supposed to look like with the easy to follow instructions.
I can also add that I have had the pleasure of meeting the author himself some years ago while my husband and I were living in Ogden, Utah. I wonder if my chicken salad met the Chef’s approval that he and some fellow Danes indulged in at our dining table. The description “The Viking Chef” is not a fair match of the Chef personality wise. No fear of encountering any warrior behavior from this soft spoken and humble Viking Chef with Chicago cutlery in hand or throwing of Le Creuset cast iron cooking ware.
Cooking Danish is covering the whole spectrum of Danish cooking to include Sandwiches & Beverages; Bread & Rolls; Entrees, Side Dishes & Soups; Dessert & Cakes and lastly something for the sweet tooth, Cookies.
Being Danish myself, this wonderful cook book took me on a nostalgic food journey reminding me of my own family’s cooking traditions from both my grandmothers’ kitchen to my own mom who always cooked very traditionally.
Page 103 in the cook book is a reminder of my beloved dad’s (now deceased) favorite meal - fried bacon with parsley sauce and page 133 featuring Rhubarb and Raspberry Soup brings me back to grandma’s kitchen during berry season when she was boiling and sifting all the fruit into soup, all very mesmerizing to a small child.
Whether you are Danish or not or are simply looking to embark on a traditional Danish culinary voyage, I can highly recommend this cook book with easy to follow recipes for every day use or Holiday meals, gathering around the nicely set table and live candles and embrace the “hygge” which is the foundation of the Danes. Velbekomme!
Reviewed by Mike O’Bryan
Scandinavian Heritage Foundation News Letter - September/November 2007
Favorite Recipes Press, Nashville, TN, 2007Many of our members already know Stig Hansen as the chef that began the Eight-year tradition of the annual Danish Week at Nendel’s on Canyon Road. While in Portland, he was president of the Portland chapter of the Danish Brotherhood. He has also worked at the legendary Scandia Restaurant in Los Angeles and now lives in Utah.
This winter Stig is coming back to Portland for a couple of special visits. He will sell his cookbook at SHF’s annual ScanFair, December 1 and 2 at Portland State University and will teach SHF’s Cook & Eat class on January 26, 2008.
He was born in Denmark, has been around Danish food his entire life and this cookbook is both a testament to his knowledge of Danish food and to his understanding of how to write a cookbook that anyone can use. Cooking Danish combines step by step instructions for every recipe and pictures for a good number of the dishes so you know what the food should look like. That’s often a detail left out of many cookbooks, leaving the cook to try to figure out how to serve the dish.
I have a couple of new Scandinavian cookbooks which are very good, but this is the only modern Danish cookbook I have seen (I hope to be told that I’m all wet after this newsletter is delivered to your doorstep). Cooking Danish covers the spectrum of Danish food: sandwiches, beverages, breads, entrees, side dishes, soups and dessert. I have it on good authority that one of the most pleasant and Danish of savory breads/rolls is Smøbirkes (poppy seed triangles). It’s in Cooking Danish and Stig makes preparing this buttery Danish croissant look easy (no croissant is simple to make, but all nationalities of croissant are worth the time and effort)
Velbekomme!