Ris a l’amande is a tradional Danish dessert, served mostly at Christmas. When served with the traditional Danish christmas dinner, one whole almond is placed in the pudding. The diner who finds the almond will get an extra gift. This usually helps on the number of second helpings, especially since in my family it is common not the reveal who has the almond until all has been eaten!

Ingredients:

one cup (65 grams) of rice (short grain “perl rice” are best)
two cups (1/2 liter) of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
one small cup (50 grams) chopped almonds
2-3 tablespoon sugar
1-2 tablespoon madeira or sherry (optional)
two small cups (0.4 liter) whipping cream

Directions
Smear the bottom of a pot with butter, then heat the milk to almost boiling. Add the rice gradually while stirring. Turn the heat down, cover with a lid and let the rice simmer for about 50 minutes.
Let this porridge cool, then add almonds, sugar, vanilla and wine. Whip the cream and add it gently.

Serve with warm or cool cherry sauce.

Note: Americans tend to like their desert sweeter than Danes, so you may want add extra sugar.

This one is my own and one of the favourites in the family. It’s simple and fast, requires little preparation and tastes wonderfull.

Ingredients

3/4 kilogram (1½ lb.) of lean fish fillet without bones. Cod or similar white fish is best, but trout can do.
A couple of leeks or one or two bundles of spring onions
2-3 cups of cream
Mustard (strong French Dijon is best)
Capers (pickled berries of the caper bush)
Lemon
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
Oil

Directions

- Cut the fish into regular serving size and remove all bones
- Chop the leeks or onions
- Sauter (fry while stirring, giving no color, just softning) in oil on a deep frying pan for a couple of minutes.
- Add a tespoon salt and a bit of pepper
- Add the cream and boil for a while (5-10 minutes) till it starts thickening
- Add two tablespoons of mustard
- Add the pickled capers 3-4 tablespoons
- Stir and let boil for a minute
- Put the fish carefully on top
- Put salt, lemon juice and ground nutmeg over the fish
- Let boil under a lid until done, which is approx. 10 minutes for most lean fish
- Shake the pan a bit from time to time. Don’t stir!
- Serve with white rice and lemon slices.

I generally start boiling water for the rice at the same time that I start frying the vegetables. Giving the rice approx. 20 minutes to finish will syncronize things almost perfectly.
You can vary the strength of this dish a bit by using more or less mustard and capers. You might also want to add different supplementary vegetables. Carrots work very well and my friend Jens says that mushrooms do too.

Fish meatballs… most Danes consider fish meat balls something you buy in the local super market. They’re packed four and four in plastic, and look like plastic, but don’t taste like plastic. Their taste reminds you more of the smell on a fishing peer than the small of fish. The dough used to make them is extremely finely ground, completely hiding the structure of whatever little fish there might be in them. No wonder so few people like them.
My fish meat balls are made from fresh, gound or chopped fish, and taste like they should: of fresh fish.

Ingredients:
½ kilogram (1 lb.) of lean fish fillet without bones. Cod or similar white fish is best.
One large or two small eggs
One onion
Cream or milk (approx. 1 cup)
Flour (approx .1 cup)
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
Butter for frying

Directions

- Grind the fish in a grinder – only once! Nowadays I rarely do this. I chop the fish with a knife in stead
- Put the fish in a bowl
- Grind or chop the onion too or – even better – shred with a shredder into the bowl
- Add a teaspoon of salt, some pepper and ½ teaspoon of ground nutmeg and stir
- Add the egg(s) and stir
- Add a bit of the flour and stir
- Add all of the cream or milk and stir
- Add a bit more flour at a time, till the dough is suitable for setting like meat balls on a frying pan
- Let the stuff rest for 30 minutes
- Add more flour or milk if needed
- Heat a frying pan with butter on it
- Form the meat balls in one hand using a large table spoon.
- Set the meat balls in the hot butter.
- Cook them for approx. 5 minutes on each side over fairly high heat. They must be brown and have a crust.
Serve with potatoes (mashed are very good), melted butter and sauce de remoulade.