flipSkyr with wild angelica
Skyr with wild angelica
Why this dish? Son of Erik the Red, Leif grew up on Greenland's dairy farms where, lacking grain, livestock was the wealth. Skyr, that thick and tangy dairy, was the heart of daily Icelandic and Greenlandic diet: a bowl of skyr started the day before work in the fields or embarkation.
Fresh fermented dairy, thick and velvety, with a frankly tangy taste, sweetened here with a little wild honey and perfumed with angelica, one of the few aromatic plants cultivated in the North. Somewhere between Greek yogurt and fresh cheese.
Before the sun is high, my mother filled my bowl with skyr, white and firm as it should be. You find it sour, don't you? That's because it makes you strong for the day. In Greenland, wheat ears do not rise, but our cows and ewes never betray us. Pour a trickle of honey from the southern lands and a few crushed angelica leaves, and you have what you need to stand until náttmál.
- •Skimmed cow's or sheep's milk — a bucket (base)
- •Rennet and a little skyr from the day before — a ladleful (ferment and coagulant)
- •Wild honey — to taste (sweetener)
- •Angelica leaves — a few (Nordic aromatic)
Skyr with wild angelica
Fresh fermented dairy, thick and velvety, with a frankly tangy taste, sweetened here with a little wild honey and perfumed with angelica, one of the few aromatic plants cultivated in the North. Somewhere between Greek yogurt and fresh cheese.
Why this dish? Son of Erik the Red, Leif grew up on Greenland's dairy farms where, lacking grain, livestock was the wealth. Skyr, that thick and tangy dairy, was the heart of daily Icelandic and Greenlandic diet: a bowl of skyr started the day before work in the fields or embarkation.
Before the sun is high, my mother filled my bowl with skyr, white and firm as it should be. You find it sour, don't you? That's because it makes you strong for the day. In Greenland, wheat ears do not rise, but our cows and ewes never betray us. Pour a trickle of honey from the southern lands and a few crushed angelica leaves, and you have what you need to stand until náttmál.
Ingredients (period version)
- Skimmed cow's or sheep's milk — a bucket (base)
- Rennet and a little skyr from the day before — a ladleful (ferment and coagulant)
- Wild honey — to taste (sweetener)
- Angelica leaves — a few (Nordic aromatic)
Ingredients
- Semi-skimmed milk — 1 litre (base)
- Skyr or plain yogurt as starter — 2 tbsp (ferment)
- Liquid rennet — 2 drops (coagulant)
- Honey — 2 tbsp (sweetener)
- Candied or fresh angelica stems/leaves — 1 tsp (aromatic)
Method
- Heat the milk to 85 °C then let it cool to 38-40 °C.
- Dilute the skyr starter in a little warm milk, incorporate it, add the 2 drops of rennet.
- Cover and let ferment in a warm place for 6 to 12 hours until set.
- Pour into a fine cloth and let drain in a cool place for several hours to obtain a thick texture.
- Serve in a bowl, drizzled with honey and sprinkled with finely chopped angelica.
How it was made : Skyr is attested from the Viking Age in Icelandic sources; technically it is a fresh cheese with fine curds obtained by fermentation and light renneting, then draining. The recovered whey (sýra) was used to preserve other foods by acidification. Angelica (hvönn) was one of the few vegetable and medicinal plants cultivated in Scandinavia and Greenland.
The contemporary twist : Plated as a quenelle in a grey stone bowl, with a shard of crystallized honey and an angelica flower, New Nordic restaurant dessert style.
Leif Erikson · Charactorium
