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Friday, June 22, 2007

I Ate Rudolph and Got Myself a Firklover

My Norwegian cousin and her friend came to visit for a few weeks. She brought me fun food from Norway!

My beloved chocolate Firklover (Four leaf clover? Really? Not hazelnut lover's?). My fiiirkloooover (Say it as Carrie did when talking about her Russian. Hehe.) is studded with chunks of crunchy hazelnuts ie. filberts (Oregon's state nut ya know!) in a smooth, creamy base. I've gravitated toward dark chocolate these days, but will always make an exception for the extra creaminess of Norwegian chocolates. The Kvikk Lunsj (quick lunch) is like a KitKat. And the FruktNott (fruit and nut) is hazelnuts and raisins.


This extra-large bar of Melkesjokolade (milk chocolate) is from my brother's trip last year but I had the photo sitting around so I thought I'd post it as well.

Lil' sis asked for a box of After Eight mint chocolates. I've mentioned receiving these chocolates as a gift after a meal of nem nuong (Vietnamese grilled pork patties).

Anyway, after parceling them out amongst my many cousins, there's only a few bars of already opened FruktNott and one Firklover left. Oh! Everyone wants a Firklover!

And because of I was thinking of ya'll, I asked my cousin to bring me some fun food. She brought me smoked salmon (I keep telling them we have salmon in the states...), brown cheese, reindeer salami, and caviar in a tube.


On her last day, I made a Spanish potato omelet and served it with the smoked salmon. She thought it was excellent.

She told me to eat the brown cheese with waffles. But I wasn't in the mood to cook. Norwegian waffles are really soft, not like the crunchy American kind. I didn't think my hemp and flax seed frozen waffles would go well with brown cheese anyway. So I grabbed some Triscuits (they're lil' sis's, I'm not a cracker person), squirted out some caviar from the tube and gave it a shot. The caviar tasted like salty salmon mousse. Not bad. I remember it tasting really fishy when I had it in Norway, but this wasn't bad at all.

Rudolph tasted like the elk meat my dad gets made into salami. A little bit gamey than normal salami, but not too pungent.

The brown cheese tasted a bit like smoked gouda.

So I piled the cheese and reindeer salami onto the caviar-topped Triscuit and ate it all together. Not bad at all.

The brown cheese will probably end up in cold cut sandwiches. My cousin says the reindeer meat is like jerky and to just snack on it. As for the caviar, I think I'll make canapes or something with it.

Anyway, thought ya'll would like seeing some of my Norwegian goodies. You know how much I love fun foods.

14 comments:

  1. I think I'm just game for the cheeses and all the chocolates. :D

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  2. Wow! That breakfast looks amazing. I'm totally drooling over here. Now, I normally don't eat breakfast or like it much but give me a bagel with some lox and I'm set for life. I love smoked salmon, lox, and gravlax yummmm!

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  3. Firklover sounds kinda dirty ;-)

    As for poor Rudolph, hope his red nose wasn't in the salami as well ;-) And what about Blixen and Trixen and ...I don't really remember the names of the other reindeers!

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  4. Tigerfish,
    Hehe. :)

    Jaded,
    Now, I know you're not much for reading, so I'll just tell you that the Spanish potato omelet recipe is linked right in this post, or on the sidebar in alphabetical order. :P

    W&S,
    Ha! You can't have my Firklover! All mine!

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  5. Wow all those goodies look really cool! Mmm chocolate and hazelnuts... match made in heaven.

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  6. Jaded,
    Over there ==> All my recipes. :)

    Amy,
    Mmmm. My Firklover was heavenly. ;)

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  7. I'm surprised you liked the norwegian food, as its IMHO pretty boring.either no flavour or just salty. Firklover, means four leaves clover, ;)

    Very nice blog. Keep up the good work.

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  8. Skinny Ricebowl,
    Well, when I'm in Norway, my food of choice is kebabs, soft is, and vaffels. :)

    Really? I could have sworn my cousin told me firklover meant hazelnut lover's. 4-leaf clover makes no sense. Must ask her again.

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  9. Reindeer? That's different.

    The stuff on the crackers looks reminds me of stuff my dad used to bring back for us when we lived abroad. It was cheese in an aersol can and we loved it as kids.

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  10. fir is the norwegian slang for fire, which means four, klover mean clover ;). If you look closely on the wrapping u'll see the clovers above the firklover label. 4-leaves clover is a symbol for luck, u r lucky to eat a firklover hehe

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  11. Kelly,
    Reindeer are just moose or elk really. :)

    Skinny Ricebowl,
    Sniffle. My firklover is all gone. Everyone wants a firklover. :(

    Hey, what makes brown cheese brown?

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  12. the brown cheese is actually not a cheese. It's made of the leftover product from the cheese production, "myse" in norwegian, think its called whey in english. Then you add milk and cream and cook it so most of the water vaporized. In the whey you got the milk sugar lactose, when you heat sugar you get caramel, and caramel is brown, so voila, you get brown cheese ;). And no, goat milk is not brown.

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  13. Skinny ricebowl,
    Thanks for explaining! Caramelized cheese, I learned something new! And yes, I knew goat milk isn't brown. I make an awesome baked goat cheese on pesto to spread on bread. :)

    ReplyDelete

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