Bread, butter and balance

Being away from home, your own kitchen and all your ‘things’ is a good reminder that being happy in the kitchen and at the table really just comes down to three things: using ingredients you’re excited about, cooking/assembling them simply and then having/making the time to sit and enjoy your meal.

Ideally by candlelight

I’ve been lucky to be travelling a lot this month. Most of that was as a host for Pink Pelican’s guided food and art tours. This past week, I’ve been in Denmark with Mum, staying with cousins, researching a tour here next year and eating as many pastries as possible.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about food (as I do) and the things I’m most excited to cook when back home.

A perfect and perfectly salted sliced tomato on rye bread (come summer). A snacky plate of cheese, a drizzle of honey, a bowl of pickles and a few crackers. A boiled egg and soldiers. A bowl of brothy beans with greens, chilli, lemon and a heap of Parmesan. A big curry with friends.

Here are six things and ways of cooking and eating that I’ve observed/loved/experienced this past week and will be bringing home to deploy in our own kitchen.

Sophie x

Whether with beer before dinner or coffee at breakfast, bread, butter (usually whipped and nicely salted) and cheese are a standard.

And of a high standard.

My new favourite breakfast is ‘bolle med ost’ (or ‘BMO’ for short): a crusty, seedy sourdough bun, salted butter, and sliced cheese (I gather it’s usually a semi-soft cow’s-milk cheese, something mild and creamy).

Mum’s first cousin Susie gave me a lesson in making a smørrebrød lunch on Sunday.

It all starts with the rye bread, sliced quite thinly and generously. It’s nice to make up a platter with a few varieties/toppings.

And when it comes to eating your smørrebrød, Susie told me to always start with the fish ones (herring topped with very thinly sliced onion), then the classic ‘fiskefilet med remoulade’, a fried and crumbed piece of fish with lemon slices, then thinly sliced roast beef or pork (with remoulade), and finish with the egg and shrimp (my favourite) or just egg.

Such an easy, good lunch - slices of rye with a few different toppings arranged with care. A step up from a ham and cheese toasty! Not that there’s anything wrong with that….but this feels a bit more fun.

More smørrebrød ‘rules’

• Always eat with a knife and fork

• There must be very little surface area (of the bread) showing

• Keep the toppings minimal; one or two things

• Have a little glass of schnapps to sip on, especially with the herring

A few more to try:

• Rejer (prawns) with mayonnaise, dill and a squeeze of lemon

• Roast beef with remoulade, crispy onions and horseradish

• Leverpostej (liver pâté) with bacon and pickled cucumber

All the food we’ve had here has been so simple, tasty and always perfectly balanced.

It’s got me thinking about how all good meals have contrast – hot and cold, crunchy and creamy, tangy and mellow, clean and bright and dark and rich.

A sommelier/winemaker told us once that, in her view, the perfect pairing for a big steak with a big sauce would be a glass of champagne — the clean, bright bubbles offering the perfect counterbalance.

There’s a great line in Édouard de Pomiane’s French Cooking in Ten Minutes that gets at the same idea;

“fry some chipolata sausages. Serve very hot on a dish and on a second dish a dozen oysters. Alternate the sensations. Burn your both with a crackling sausage. Soothe your burns with a cool oyster. Continue until ann the sausages and oysters have dissaperared”.

Found this quote in a book I bought over here (and am loving) called Nothing New by Jesper Sjodahl.

A few more good contrast-y things I’ve been thinking about/looking forward to making;

• Crunchy granola with thick Greek yoghurt and tangy fruit

• A crusty seeded roll with salted butter and slices of mellow Comté cheese

• A perfectly salted tomato with a creamy bulb of mozzarella.

• Charred corn with lime and crumbled, salty feta

• Spicy nduja on a cool disc of burrata

• A bowl of cold gazpacho with a hot, garlicky crouton

How good is a breakfast plate you can pick at and take your time over?

So many of the lovely cafes we went to (or popped our heads into) in Copenhagen (Apotek 57 and Atelier September namely) and Aarhus (La Cabra) serve a breakfast plate consisting of a boiled egg, butter, bread, a slice of cheese and jam. Often there’ll be a bowl of yogurt and granola on the side.

I loved them all and will be recreating as soon as possible.

A few more breakkie plate options:

• Soft scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, dill, rye toast

• Yoghurt, stewed rhubarb, toasted oats, honey

• Cold cuts, pickles, hard cheese, dark rye

Another cousin, Annie, encouraged us to try ‘social dining’ while in Copenhagen and gave us a couple of addresses to try. We did. We loved.

The idea is you sit at long communal tables; there’s one menu and one setting. The prices are reasonable (unusual for Denmark – most things are SO expensive), and the chance to sit with new people and have conversations and hear different perspectives and experiences and get out of our bubble, well, it was so good and feels important right now. I’d love to see this movement catch on at home too.

Should you happen to have a trip to Copenhagen coming up anytime soon, here are the social dining spaces we were recommended; we went to the first and loved it so much.

Kanalhuset Christianshavn (pictured above) – between six of us on our section of the table we shared a plate of roast chicken, a green salad, rice and pickles and bok choy with a creamy satay sauce.

Absalon — we didn’t get there; I wish we’d had time. It’s a little further out of the city centre in an old church and sounds amazing.

We also went to a ‘canteen’ called Alle Tiders, where they have a daily ‘tray’ (above was what was being served the night we visited – rice, spicy eggs, braised eggplant, pickles and greens) you can order pretty much anytime and share or have on your own. No variations, really reasonable prices and of course, completely delicious.

Walking home from our last dinner in Copenhagen on a hot June night, it seemed like everyone was out and about, having picnics on the canals, in their boats, swimming in the harbour and generally having a lovely, chill time. I loved it so much.

Whether breakfast on a summer's morning or dinner on a cold, dark, wintry night – it seems the Danes light a candle for every meal, and I think it’s wonderful.

I’ve bought myself a few sweet candlestick holders (to add to my already comfortable collection at home), and although candles at dinner are something we've already been doing for years, I’m going to bring in the lighting of them at breakfast too. Or at least on weekend mornings with my breakfast plate.

There’s a sense of ritual and cosiness that a candle brings, don’t you think? And it’s really so easy to do.