I put these up as a second chapter to 'How do I Do This Properly' over on Archive of Our Own, because several folk asked me for recipes for the food at Emil's feast. Since not everyone does Archive, thought I'd put them up here too.
THE RECIPES FOR EMIL’S FEAST
LOBSTER AND SEAWEED SOUP
Many recipes for lobster soup produce a bisque, a creamy soup. Those generally contain flour, butter, rice, cream or milk instead of only butter as this one does. This one makes a clearer soup.
Ingredients:
2 litres water (some recipes use dilute seawater. I prefer rainwater, since I think there is enough salt in the lobster and seaweed). This water will be used to make the stock, either by cooking the lobster in it first, then adding and simmering the stock vegetables until they are soft, or by simmering the shells, claws and scraps of lobster meat along with the stock vegetables to make the base for the stock. OR you can use two litres of chicken stock in which to cook the lobster and simmer the vegetables and shells. OR you can do the same with fish stock. Whatever you have or whatever you prefer.
1 large or two small lobsters (smaller lobsters are generally sweeter)
2 cups of finely cut stock vegetables ( carrots, celery, leek or onion, parsnips, alexanders root and stems - whatever you enjoy)
Half a cup of butter
Optional, but I like this: a cup of finely julienned vegetables: carrot, burdock root, celery, white beet, leek, young turnip, whatever you enjoy, to be added to the soup with the lobster meat, after the shells and stock vegetables have been removed.
A loosely filled cup of dried seaweed, less if you don’t like a strong seaweed flavour. You can use dulse, kelp, ulva (sea lettuce), laver, nori, or just about any edible seaweed, or a mix of several different ones. Only use carrageen if you are making a bisque style soup - it is delicious, but thickens and colours the broth more than other seaweeds. I like it better in cream soups or desserts.
Fresh herbs to taste (I use about a cupful, but I like my soup herby). Mostly parsley, but you can add dill, tarragon, marjoram, sorrel, even a little sage, lavender or rosemary. Herbs should be shredded just before adding to the soup when it is nearly ready. A few chopped spring onions, garlic greens, chives or suchlike for garnish.
A light grinding of black pepper to serve. Of course, in Minnaverse Iceland, pepper might not be easy to come by, even though it is easily cultivated in greenhouses or as a houseplant, but a readily available substitute in Northern Europe is the seeds of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), an umbelliferous herb and vegetable which has flavours of celery and pepper.
Method:
.Heat the stock or water to a rolling boil. Add the lobster (if you are cooking it from alive/raw). Once the lobster is cooked (usually five to ten minutes depending on size - the shell will turn red and the lobster meat will be firm and white all through), remove it from the water with tongs and put aside until cool enough to handle. Keep the stock warm on a very low heat while you dismember the lobster.
.As the meat is separated from the shell and the claws cracked and meat removed, add the empty claws and bits of shell to the stock, along with the vegetables. Bring back to the boil and simmer, covered, for half an hour (longer on a lower heat gives a better flavour to my taste, but cooks differ).
.Strain the broth from the vegetables and shells. At this point the French style is to puree the shells and vegetables to a paste, push this through a sieve to remove any scraps of solid shell, and slowly blend the puree back into the broth, but if you want a light soup rather than a bisque, just strain the broth off, reserve it for the soup, and the scraps can be used later to make another lot of stock.
.While the broth simmers, tear the lobster meat into small pieces.
.Heat the butter in a pan until it is frothy and beginning to brown. Add the julienned vegetables if you are using those, stir until the vegetables are coated with butter and beginning to colour slightly, then add the pieces of lobster meat and toss lobster and vegetables in the hot butter for a few minutes. Both should be coloured but not heavily browned. .
Add these to the broth. Simmer until the meat is heated through and the vegetables cooked al dente, which usually only takes a few minutes. Add the fresh herbs at this point and turn off the heat.
.Lightly toast the seaweed, either in a dry frying pan on the stovetop or on a baking tray for a few minutes in a hot oven, until it is crisp and brittle but not burned.
. Serve in heated bowls, garnished with spring onions and toasted seaweed. Top with ground pepper or ground seeds of alexanders.
Serves 2 or 3 as a main meal, 6 as a starter.
WHOLE BAKED SALMON
Choose a small fresh whole salmon, or one fillet for each person dining. Fresh fish has a clean sea smell, smooth bright scales, firm flesh and the eyes are not sunken or dull. Clean and gut the fish. Wipe out the body cavity. If using a whole fish, stuff the cavity with finely sliced apple and celery or fennel root and about half the quantity of ground hazelnuts as you have used apple/fennel/celery. Add sage or tarragon to taste, and a sprinkle of seaweed if you like, and moisten the stuffing with lemon juice. If using fillets, lay them on a bed of the stuffing. Dab with butter. Cook in a hot oven (360F/185C) for about 20 minutes per pound of fish, or until the fish flakes easily when you twist a fork in it. Serve with a slice of lemon.
ROAST LAMB WITH VEGETABLES
Choose a suitable lamb cut for roasting (leg or shoulder are the usual cuts). Meat should be firm and pink with a layer of fat. Preheat the oven to 360F/185C. Use a small sharp knife to make cuts between the fat layer or skin and the meat. Insert flavouring herbs such as small sprigs of rosemary, slivers of angelica root (they are in Iceland, after all), sage leaves, cloves of garlic or the herbs you like best. Place the roast on a baking tray, place around it suitable vegetables for roasting, cut into pieces of about the same size (potatoes, parsnips, carrots, skirret, salsify, beets, turnips, sweet potato or whatever you like), dab with a little butter and season with salt and a few more sprigs of rosemary. Roast for about 20 minutes per pound of meat, turning the vegetables halfway through the process. When the meat is cooked (juice is clear when pierced with a skewer, meat is still tender) remove the meat to a serving platter, raise the heat slightly and return the vegetables to the oven for ten minutes to crisp up. Let the meat rest for ten minutes before carving to allow the fibres to loosen, and serve in thin slices carved across the grain. You can serve with gravy, mint sauce, finely chopped fresh herbs or whatever you like, but it is fine without further seasoning. If you prefer your meat rare, take it out of the oven sooner.
The roast can be accompanied by green vegetables such as green beans, baby peas, asparagus, broccoli florets, cabbage or whatever you please.
DECADENT BUT HEALTHY CAKE
Make a shortcake base. This one is quick and easy, but if you have a favourite shortcake recipe of your own, use that instead. The trick with shortcake is to mix it only until any pockets of flour in the mix are incorporated into a smooth batter. If you over-mix shortcake it cooks to a tough hard texture rather than light and fluffy, and you want light and fluffy to complement the fruit and cream.
Ingredients:
.Half a cup of softened butter
.1 cup of fine, caster or granulated sugar (yes, you can use beet sugar if you make it fine, which you can do by whizzing it in a blender if you have modern tech, or running it through a fine sieve if you don’t. Just press the granulated sugar through the fine sieve with the back of a metal spoon. Fiddly, but it works. But in our modern non-Minnaverse world we can just use the granulated or caster sugar made from sugar cane).
.Half a cup of buttermilk
.2 eggs
.One and a half cups of all purpose flour (I use one cup of flour and half a cup of almond or hazelnut meal, but I like nutmeal in my shortcake)
.Half a teaspoonful of salt
.Two teaspoonsful of baking powder
.In our world, one teaspoonful of vanilla essence (post-apoc Iceland may or may not have vanilla essence. The plant would happily grow in a greenhouse, but pollinating the flowers by hand and processing the fruits may not be within their skill set). In the absence of vanilla, i would use an extract or tincture of elderflowers, sweetgrass, or best of all sweet woodruff, waldmeister or vanilla bedstraw (Galium odoratum), which grows commonly in Fennoscandia.
Method:
.Preheat the oven to 425F/220C
.Lightly grease an 8x8 caketin or 10 cups on a muffin tray
.Cream butter and sugar with a spoon, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy
.Fold in the buttermilk, lightly beaten eggs and vanilla or equivalent until evenly mixed
.Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the bowl over the moist ingredients, and mix until no dry pockets remain
.Bake for around 20 minutes, or until the cake springs back when pressed and a toothpick or skewer inserted comes out clean.
.Allow the cake to cool, and serve with whipped cream and fruit. Fruit can be either sliced fresh or marinated in lemon or orange juice, wine or brandy. All berry fruit is good (strawberries are traditional), one can also use peaches, apricots or whatever you find pleasing.
.Cream whips much better when it is cold, and holds peaks better when whipped in a cold bowl. You can sweeten the cream with a touch of sugar, maple syrup, honey or a few drops of a fruit liqueur
