Rømmegrøt

The first day of the new year is a quiet day here in The Blue Café. We had alot of people here last night to celebrate New year's Eve with us, and I spent all day in the kitchen with preparations. I love to give parties and I love to prepare the food needed, but sometimes I strech myself too far. I didn't do that yesterday, but it was not far from, so today is a day to regain strength, a day for reflections. I have watched the New Year's Concert from Wien/Vienna, as I do every January 1st, and now it is my husband who sits in front of the television watching ski jumping from Garmish Partenkirchen, his first day of January tradition.

I took alot of photos yesterday, at least during the preparations. When the buffet was all made I was to busy to greet the guests and forgot my camera for a while. I will post photos and recipes the coming days, but today I have something totally different, traditional rømmegrøt.

When Americans find my food blog many of them writes me to tell about memories of Norwegian food, often shared by an old grandmother or grandaunt. Lefse, krumkake, lutefisk and rømmegrøt are often mentioned then. Heidi wrote me not far ago, and one of her questions was how we make rømmegrøt. We used to have rømmegrøt alot, but haven't eaten it in a while, so her email inspired me to make it for lunch today. We have visited relatives in the US ourselves, many years ago, and when they served us rømmegrøt it was made of butter, flour and milk. That's not the original rømmegrøt but something we call fløyelsgrøt (corduroy porridge) or smørgrøt (butter porridge). The real rømmegrøt is made on rømme, thick sour cream.

rømmegrøt for 3

3dl thick rømme

6 tablespoons of white flour

5dl milk

salt

heat the rømme and 3tablespoons of flour. Let it boil while you stir hard, to force the fat out of the rømme. Gather the fat in a small bowl

add the rest of the flour, stir well

add the milk, little by little and stir well all the time to get a smooth porridge

boil for at least 10 minutes

Serve the porridge with sugar, cinnamon, raisins and the fat.

The porridge is often eaten with a grøtpinne (porridge stick), different types of salted, dried meat and flatbrød (flat bread)

Marta loves rømmegrøt :-)

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I looked through my cd collection today and realized that the Strauss family has not quite found their way there. I have some with Richard Strauss though, and today I am playing Anna Netrebko's Souvenirs. It is her personal selection of operetta classics, salon songs, lullabies and more. She sings (in Norwegian) Grieg's Solveig's Song, and she also sings Strauss' Cäcilie and Wiegenlied.

Solveig's Song for the rømmegrøt, Strauss for the New Year's Concert.
Enjoy :-)

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