What went wrong with my Norwegian Potato Flatbread (Lefse)?
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kshama2001
Posts: 27,897 Member
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/278136/norwegian-potato-flatbread-lefse/
I did two things differently from this recipe and needed to use an extra cup of flour so it wouldn't be too sticky to roll.
1. I mixed it in the food processor rather than by hand
2. I refrigerated it overnight rather than for the two hours as I wanted to prep it one day and cook it the next
The potato I used was 18 oz raw / 10 oz baked.
They were ok, but I'm sure I would have had more potato flavor if I hadn't needed that extra cup of flour.
Thoughts?
I did two things differently from this recipe and needed to use an extra cup of flour so it wouldn't be too sticky to roll.
1. I mixed it in the food processor rather than by hand
2. I refrigerated it overnight rather than for the two hours as I wanted to prep it one day and cook it the next
The potato I used was 18 oz raw / 10 oz baked.
They were ok, but I'm sure I would have had more potato flavor if I hadn't needed that extra cup of flour.
Thoughts?
1
Replies
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Were yours more dense in addition to being less potatoey? If so, the extra flour and time in the fridge may have had something to do with that.
And culinary chef I am not, but I wonder if cutting/processing the potatoes and extending the time until cooking altered the flavour. The "fresh is best" adage 'n all that.
Also, these remind me of rotis so I may try the recipe you linked 🤤-1 -
This is the first time you are trying this recipe, I assume?
I can't comment on this one specifically, but I use All Recipes a lot, and it's pretty common to find inaccuracies, mistakes, or omissions in their directions.
I usually rely on the comments section...if there is a mistake, or even if there are some helpful tips or clarifications, people tend to post it with their review. If I see the same tip more than a few times in the comments, then I take notice.
I see that there are only 7 comments for this particular recipe, so that's not terribly helpful with this one, though.2 -
SuzySunshine99 wrote: »This is the first time you are trying this recipe, I assume?
I can't comment on this one specifically, but I use All Recipes a lot, and it's pretty common to find inaccuracies, mistakes, or omissions in their directions.
I usually rely on the comments section...if there is a mistake, or even if there are some helpful tips or clarifications, people tend to post it with their review. If I see the same tip more than a few times in the comments, then I take notice.
I see that there are only 7 comments for this particular recipe, so that's not terribly helpful with this one, though.
Yes, excellent tips for using All Recipes
This is a Chef John recipe, and I usually find them very reliable.0 -
Were yours more dense in addition to being less potatoey? If so, the extra flour and time in the fridge may have had something to do with that.
And culinary chef I am not, but I wonder if cutting/processing the potatoes and extending the time until cooking altered the flavour. The "fresh is best" adage 'n all that.
Also, these remind me of rotis so I may try the recipe you linked 🤤
I had to add the extra flour b/c they were too sticky to roll. Next time I will make same day and not use the food processor and see what happens.
Yes, I guess you could call these a Northern EU version of rotis 2 -
I’ve always thought the potato taste is very subtle. Coming from a Scandinavian heritage, I’ve had lefse all my life. Never made it though. Around here, there are lutefisk dinners this time of the year everywhere, featuring Scandinavian food. (This year they are drive ups). While the star of the show, lutefisk🤢, has never tempted me, I do love lefse with butter and sugar, and Swedish meatballs. My favorites at these dinners.
A friend gets together with others, for a day of lefse making for one of these suppers. It’s all done in one day. I admire you for taking this on👏🏻, too putzy for me. Although I do make Krumkake every year, an equally tedious task.
Best of luck on this! Let us know how it turns out on a new batch.1 -
missysippy930 wrote: »I’ve always thought the potato taste is very subtle. Coming from a Scandinavian heritage, I’ve had lefse all my life. Never made it though. Around here, there are lutefisk dinners this time of the year everywhere, featuring Scandinavian food. (This year they are drive ups). While the star of the show, lutefisk🤢, has never tempted me, I do love lefse with butter and sugar, and Swedish meatballs. My favorites at these dinners.
A friend gets together with others, for a day of lefse making for one of these suppers. It’s all done in one day. I admire you for taking this on👏🏻, too putzy for me. Although I do make Krumkake every year, an equally tedious task.
Best of luck on this! Let us know how it turns out on a new batch.
Thanks!
I was thinking of making my brother Swedish meatballs for his birthday in February...maybe I will try to nail down the lefse beforehand and make that as well.
There were some funny mentions of lutefisk in the series "Fortitude," which is set in Arctic Norway.0 -
I see the problem as being the food processor. Processing releases too much of the starch and would lead to that thick gluey texture you describe. Same reason why using a hand blender ruins mashed potatoes.
The recipe instructed to, "use the back of a spatula," or, "you can use a ricer," for the potato...9 -
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cmriverside wrote: »I see the problem as being the food processor. Processing releases too much of the starch and would lead to that thick gluey texture you describe. Same reason why using a hand blender ruins mashed potatoes.
The recipe instructed to, "use the back of a spatula," or, "you can use a ricer," for the potato...
Exactly this! I push my boiled and steam dried potatoes through a sieve with a wooden spoon when I make potato farls, flatbreads, gnocchi etc. (I don’t own a ricer).
The processor breaks the starch down too far and changes how the potato mass will absorb flour.4 -
kshama2001 wrote: »missysippy930 wrote: »I’ve always thought the potato taste is very subtle. Coming from a Scandinavian heritage, I’ve had lefse all my life. Never made it though. Around here, there are lutefisk dinners this time of the year everywhere, featuring Scandinavian food. (This year they are drive ups). While the star of the show, lutefisk🤢, has never tempted me, I do love lefse with butter and sugar, and Swedish meatballs. My favorites at these dinners.
A friend gets together with others, for a day of lefse making for one of these suppers. It’s all done in one day. I admire you for taking this on👏🏻, too putzy for me. Although I do make Krumkake every year, an equally tedious task.
Best of luck on this! Let us know how it turns out on a new batch.
Thanks!
I was thinking of making my brother Swedish meatballs for his birthday in February...maybe I will try to nail down the lefse beforehand and make that as well.
There were some funny mentions of lutefisk in the series "Fortitude," which is set in Arctic Norway.
I’ll have to give Fortitude a watch on prime.
I think cmriverside hit the nail on the head. Potato ricer if you’ve got one. It’s great for mashing potatoes too.
Your brother is lucky!1 -
I don't have a comment about the recipe, but you brought back memories for me. As Norwegian descent, we had lefse & lutefisk every Christmas Eve & New Year's Eve. My grandma came from Norway & she made the best lefse. She sent us a box every year. My Mom tried after grandma passed, but hers just wasn't quite the same. I don't think hers had potato in it, tho, so not sure how it was made. My sis lives in MN and used to get it from a place near Rochester & it had potato in it and it was good, it just tasted a little different from grandma's. Now her kids have started making it for their family get together.2
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I'm of Scandinavian descent (Swede and Norwegian here!) and have never tried lefse. Is it sweet? Krumkakes on the other hand...*drool* I plan to make some for Christmas this year.0
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skelterhelter wrote: »I'm of Scandinavian descent (Swede and Norwegian here!) and have never tried lefse. Is it sweet? Krumkakes on the other hand...*drool* I plan to make some for Christmas this year.
Not really sweet. Looks similar to a tortilla but made with potatoes, flour, cream/milk, a little bit of sugar and butter. So sweeter than a tortilla. Swedish here. Husband is Norwegian. It was always served spread with butter and sugar sprinkled on top when we were kids. My mom and her sisters put lingonberries on them.
Krumkake is delicious. I make them every Christmas. I got the recipe I use from the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis years ago. So good, but so fragile.1 -
missysippy930 wrote: »skelterhelter wrote: »I'm of Scandinavian descent (Swede and Norwegian here!) and have never tried lefse. Is it sweet? Krumkakes on the other hand...*drool* I plan to make some for Christmas this year.
Not really sweet. Looks similar to a tortilla but made with potatoes, flour, cream/milk, a little bit of sugar and butter. So sweeter than a tortilla. Swedish here. Husband is Norwegian. It was always served spread with butter and sugar sprinkled on top when we were kids. My mom and her sisters put lingonberries on them.
Krumkake is delicious. I make them every Christmas. I got the recipe I use from the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis years ago. So good, but so fragile.
We are mostly Irish, followed by English and Swedish a distant third. We had no Scandinavian cooking that I'm aware of growing up, but my brother is interested in Swedish things, including food.
We had the lefse with sour cream and smoked salmon. I'd like to try it with butter and sugar, but would sub cranberries for the lingonberries, as we live in Cranberry Country. It's fun being able to serve cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and say "I picked these cranberries myself."
Please share the Krumkake recipe.0 -
We had lefse with lutefisk & mashed potatoes rolled up.0
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kshama2001 wrote: »missysippy930 wrote: »skelterhelter wrote: »I'm of Scandinavian descent (Swede and Norwegian here!) and have never tried lefse. Is it sweet? Krumkakes on the other hand...*drool* I plan to make some for Christmas this year.
Not really sweet. Looks similar to a tortilla but made with potatoes, flour, cream/milk, a little bit of sugar and butter. So sweeter than a tortilla. Swedish here. Husband is Norwegian. It was always served spread with butter and sugar sprinkled on top when we were kids. My mom and her sisters put lingonberries on them.
Krumkake is delicious. I make them every Christmas. I got the recipe I use from the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis years ago. So good, but so fragile.
We are mostly Irish, followed by English and Swedish a distant third. We had no Scandinavian cooking that I'm aware of growing up, but my brother is interested in Swedish things, including food.
One of my great-grandmothers was Swedish (she was born in the US, but her parents came here in 1889, and several older siblings were born in Sweden). We had no Swedish food traditions that I know of (she was my maternal grandfather's mother, and sadly she died when my mom was only a toddler, and her family did not live close, so my mom wasn't really close to them growing up -- I now know cousins who did grow up as part of that extended family). However, I am now very near (as in I walk or run over there quite often) an historically Swedish part of Chicago and already had been planning to try some bakeries that have been recommended to me, so I am making notes (maybe for Christmas).2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »missysippy930 wrote: »skelterhelter wrote: »I'm of Scandinavian descent (Swede and Norwegian here!) and have never tried lefse. Is it sweet? Krumkakes on the other hand...*drool* I plan to make some for Christmas this year.
Not really sweet. Looks similar to a tortilla but made with potatoes, flour, cream/milk, a little bit of sugar and butter. So sweeter than a tortilla. Swedish here. Husband is Norwegian. It was always served spread with butter and sugar sprinkled on top when we were kids. My mom and her sisters put lingonberries on them.
Krumkake is delicious. I make them every Christmas. I got the recipe I use from the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis years ago. So good, but so fragile.
We are mostly Irish, followed by English and Swedish a distant third. We had no Scandinavian cooking that I'm aware of growing up, but my brother is interested in Swedish things, including food.
We had the lefse with sour cream and smoked salmon. I'd like to try it with butter and sugar, but would sub cranberries for the lingonberries, as we live in Cranberry Country. It's fun being able to serve cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving and say "I picked these cranberries myself."
Please share the Krumkake recipe.
1/2 cup whipping cream whipped with
No sugar added
1/2 cup butter melted & cooled
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp almond extract
1-3/4 cups flour
Beat the eggs, then add the sugar and almond extract and mix well. Blend in the flour, whipped cream, and melted butter with a wooden spoon until smooth. Drop heaping teaspoon onto heated Krumkake iron and close gently. Cook until golden. It doesn’t take long, less than a minute. You can peak, it doesn’t hurt anything. Remove with a thin spatula and wrap around the traditional cone shaped wooden tool. They cool very quickly. Repeat about 60 times.
We dust them with powdered sugar when cooled.
For years I made them on a stove top Krumkake iron. There was many a Christmas Eve morning I got up at 5 am to make them for our family gathering. We all had to bring something and I was assigned Krumkake and my home made caramels. I finally got an electric Krumkake maker. You can make 2 at a time and speeds up the process. My daughter helps make them. She mans the iron, I do the forming around the cones. She says I have asbestos fingers. They are hot. She hands them off to me on the spatula. We have two wooden cones. They cook and cool quickly. By the time the next pair is done baking the cones can be removed from the cooled ones. I’ve done them by myself, it just takes longer.
As I was typing this, it occurs to me that the Scandinavians have some time consuming treats. Lefse, Krumkake, rosettes, fattigman, sandbakkels.1 -
missysippy930 wrote: »skelterhelter wrote: »I'm of Scandinavian descent (Swede and Norwegian here!) and have never tried lefse. Is it sweet? Krumkakes on the other hand...*drool* I plan to make some for Christmas this year.
Not really sweet. Looks similar to a tortilla but made with potatoes, flour, cream/milk, a little bit of sugar and butter. So sweeter than a tortilla. Swedish here. Husband is Norwegian. It was always served spread with butter and sugar sprinkled on top when we were kids. My mom and her sisters put lingonberries on them.
Krumkake is delicious. I make them every Christmas. I got the recipe I use from the Swedish Institute in Minneapolis years ago. So good, but so fragile.
Thanks for the info! Yes, so good! I made them with my grandma and cousin last year (I was the roller lol) and they came out delicious. And very fragile. They always shatter in a million pieces, but they're so good that I don't mind. My friend gobbled them up too.1 -
Thanks everyone!
I made them again tonight, mixing with a potato masher this time. They were still sticky after I added a cup of flour, so I added 1/4 C of potato flakes. So good this time!
I had one with sour cream with dinner and one with sour cream and jam for dessert.
For my bed time snack, I'm going to have one with sour cream and smoked salmon.5 -
Thank you for this discussion. I tried to make lefse for my dad once. He was from Minnesota and had fond childhood memories of his Norwegian grandmother making lefse on a wood burning stove. My attempt was almost inedible. Dad’s gone now but maybe I’ll try again in his honor.1
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