Nordic Fish from Chile?!

Susan and I have a friend's barbecue to attend tonight (his name is Josh, so he sent us an invitation to "Josh-ecue 2010" . . . not just a barbecue, methinks, but an event!), which put the kibosh on our having a Scandinavian Saturday supper tonight.  So Hillary and I made a Scandinavian dinner instead.

When Hillary and I got back from grocery shopping this morning, Abigail and a neighbor girl were outside playing, so I encouraged Hillary to join them, telling her that I would start the meal.  Well, I had made most of it by the time Hillary came in from playing--but she did assist by making a pitcher of pink lemonade and slicing a lemon to use for garnish, making place cards and setting the table, and taste-testing with me.  We chose a couple recipes from Trina Hahnemann and made a few adjustments with delicious results!

To the left is nypoteter i blått ost krem ["new potatoes in bleu cheese cream"], and to the right is ovnsbakt ørret med ristede grønnsaker ["baked trout with roasted vegetables"].  My place card (below the rosa limonade ["pink lemonade"]) says "Karsten," which was my Norwegian name at Camp Trollfjorden last summer.  It's a beautiful day, so we ate dinner out on the veranda at noon--our first meal out there for the summer!

Those are four Chilean sea trout fillets, butterflied and sprinkled inside with lemon-pepper seasoning and dried dill weed and then stuffed with fresh lemon slices.  They're on a bed of sliced carrots and leeks tossed in olive oil, salt, and ground black pepper.  It was a little out-of-the-ordinary for us to eat fish that still had the tails on, but those tails (and the skin) came off easily.  When I uncovered the baking dish, it smelled like a harbor (in a good way), and the fish was moist, savory, and fishy (again, in a good way) and perfect with the vegetables drizzled with the cooking juices.

This turned out to be essentially a hot potato salad.  Those are new potatoes, boiled and then sliced immediately and mixed with chopped leeks, radishes, and chives in a dressing made of bleu cheese crumbles and light sour cream flavored with dried dill weed.  The recipe called for rygeost [Danish: "smoked cheese"], which local stores do not carry.  The recipe suggested substituting smoked ricotta, but that's not available locally, either.  We went with bleu cheese for its strong flavor, and it was delicious.