Skidne Æg - Dirty eggs

This is part of our Eurovision inspired Danish-fest. Skidne Æg is a traditional dish, and makes a lovely sharing entree when plated up as we did, or you can serve in individual dishes.

The eggs are meant to be a little runnier than this - that lovely inbetween softboiled and hardboiled, but we overshot the mark as we were too engrossed in the pre-show buildup! Even so, it was a very tasty dish. I'm thinking, too, that you could replace the mustard with curry powder for a, well, curried version.

You can use whatever mustard you enjoy, but be cautious with the hotter ones as you may need to use less or face the wrath of the mustard god.  We used dijon because it is one of my favourites, and I had it in the house at the time!

Ingredients

4 eggs
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
1/2 litre milk
3 tablespoon mustard
salt to taste

Method

Boil eggs and boil until they are cooked as you desire (technically medium boiled is what you aim for, but do whatever you like best). Peel.

Make a roux with the butter and flour.  Add milk in gradually until you have a white sauce. Add mustard, stir through, season with salt and pepper to taste. If your eggs have cooled too much add them to the sauce to reheat, otherwise place eggs in bowl/s and pour sauce over.

Eat with rye bread, flatbread, or even with strips of crispy bacon... we served it with my flatbread recipe (just omitting the caraway!)

Kale Stew

I've been enjoying kale over the last few months - baby kale in salads, older kale in stirfrys or cooked similar to cabbage and served with whatever it is I'm eating. And crispy kale chips are a perennial favourite in this house! This dish is nowhere near as healthy as any of those options, but it is very delicious. This stew is great as an accompaniment to ham or other meats, and it is just as nice on its own with some mashed potato.

Ingredients

1 kg Kale
75 g butter
200ml cream
1 cup of good quality vegetable stock
2 tablespoon flour

Method

Rinse kale well and Discard any discoloured leaves and tough stems.

Slice into ½ inch thick slices with a sharp knife.
Make a roux with 50 gram of butter and the flour, stir in the vegetable stock and stir till it is smooth.
Add kale and the cream, then season to taste.

Boil gently for 10-15 minutes. The kale stew should not be overly runny, it should have a rich creamy consistency.

Caramelised Potatoes

This is another of those nice-but-naughty recipes. Not especially healthy, but very tasty. This little side dish comes from Denmark, who were the hosts for Eurovision this year. In honour of our hosts we had a traditional Danish dish - ham, with kale stew, and caramelised potatoes. The sweet caramel potatoes went very well with the saltiness of the ham.

1kg Small potatoes, peeled
40g sugar
50g butter

Boil the potatoes until cooked.

Heat the sugar in a frying pan over a medium-low heat for 2-3 minutes until the sugar melts. DO NOT STIR THE MIXTURE. If you need to redistribute the melted sugar shake the pan. If you stir it you may crystallise the sugar.

Add the butter & When it starts foaming add the potatoes and coat them with the mixture. I find a pair of tongs and a spoon works well to do this.

Cook for a further 4-5 minutes until nicely golden and browned. Serve.