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Late Fall Lichen

My wife has a family heritage of making Lutefisk somewhere around the holiday season.

They have it in the freezer section at our local grocery stores (not an item you’ll find at Costco.

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Place in a baking dish

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Cover with foil and bake at 375 until internal reaches 140.

Texture after baking before covering with white sauce & butter

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White sauce is 2 tbl butter, 2 tbl flour, 1/4 tea of salt, 1/8 tea pepper, heat these to melt the butter. Add one cup milk and bring to a boil stirring constantly.

Topped with white sauce and drawn butter.

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I added salt & pepper. I never used to like it but I do now. Had two servings.

Definitely not your normal fish.

Z

SKOL to the Vikings for that unbelievable win!!
The Lutefisk was in good order in keeping with the Nordic tradition.

I sure hope you had lefsa and rutabagas with that!!

Your fish looks good. Nice and flaky.

Have to try the white sauce some time. Where I'm at, it's only served with butter.

So it is salted and dehydrated cod that is then rehydrated and cooked?

So it is salted and dehydrated cod that is then rehydrated and cooked?

No salt. Lye.

I met and married Marcia in North Dakota.  Her parents were Norwegian immigrants.  She hates lutefisk.  I like it but had to travel to a Lutheran church in Williston during lent to get mine.

The lye-preservation was required because they didn't have adequate refrigeration.  Now they do, so lutefisk is only made for traditional reasons.  One of Marcia's Norway relatives told us that there's more eaten in the U.S. than in Norway.

I grew up eating it usually at Christmas time. Very traditional dish in Finland as well. Thanks to the sauce, it's not too bad. I would not try it without it.

Here's some more information about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk

I grew up in a mostly Norwegian town in Alaska,  and most pot lucks would have it.  I remember as a kid we would dare each other to eat it.  Never had it as an adult, may have to revisit it for curiosity’s sake.  In that town it was usually made from halibut not cod.

I grew up eating it usually at Christmas time. Very traditional dish in Finland as well. Thanks to the sauce, it's not too bad. I would not try it without it.

Here's some more information about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk

Welcome, Finn.  I see this is your first post.  I'm glad that you "spoke" up.  Tell us about some of your cooks (and we love photographs).  Is there anything authentically Finnish that you smoke?

So does anyone know history of why preserved with lye and not salt?  Sea faring peoples, they had to know how to reduce sea water, so it is not like salt would not have been available.  Plenty of fuel to run the kettles... 

It is made from aged stockfish (air-dried whitefish) or dried/salted whitefish (klippfisk) and lye (lut). It is gelatinous in texture. Its name literally means "lye fish".

Lutefisk is dried whitefish (normally cod, but ling and burbot are also used) treated with lye. The first step is soaking the stockfish in cold water for five to six days (with the water changed daily). The saturated stockfish is then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an additional two days. The fish swells during this soaking, and its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent, producing a jelly-like consistency.

I guess I have my answer regarding the lye.  My take is the lye has nothing to do with preserving, but is use to achieve the jelly-like consistency...something I am sure we all want in our fish!

Oh waiter...will you please run these ribs through a blender and bring them back to me, I am sure that consistency will enhance my eating experience...

I met and married Marcia in North Dakota.  Her parents were Norwegian immigrants.  She hates lutefisk.  I like it but had to travel to a Lutheran church in Williston during lent to get mine.

Go Coyotes!!!

So does anyone know history of why preserved with lye and not salt?  Sea faring peoples, they had to know how to reduce sea water, so it is not like salt would not have been available.  Plenty of fuel to run the kettles... 

The saturated stockfish is then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an additional two days. The fish swells during this soaking, and its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent, producing a jelly-like consistency.

I guess I have my answer regarding the lye.  My take is the lye has nothing to do with preserving, but is use to achieve the jelly-like consistency...something I am sure we all want in our fish!

Hmmmm.  Jelly-like has only been my experience once, when the cook tried to hold the lutefisk too long before serving and overcooked it.  Otherwise, it's been somewhat soft and flaky.

WRT preserving the fish, as I read Internet articles I, too, didn't see anything about preservation with lye.  It mostly referred to reconstituting fish that has been preserved by drying.  So it appears that the availability of refrigeration eliminated the need for drying fish to preserve them, which eliminated the need for reconstitution.

I remember my dad saying when he was a kid his mother would get it after having been preserved in lye.  He said it was stiff as a board.  She would soak it for several days and change the water before she would cook it.