Hobbity Yule Calendar: December 16, 2017

Today, we will return to recipes! This one is something for the pork lovers, sent by our Miss Lina. Some sort of pork biscuits, I presume!

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Pork is a big thing during the Norwegian yule, and the mainstay on the yule dinner table is the "holy trinity of pork": Roast pork ribs/pork belly, white pork sausage, and pork patties.

Most Norwegians are incredibly conservative when it comes to how the ribs should be prepared. It has to be roasted to perfection, of course, with crispy crackling. Outside of that, there is little room for variation in the taste department, and the traditional spices are just salt and pepper. Naturally, every yule, some cheeky chefs want us to try something different; spike the pork ribs with cloves, use orange juice instead of water for steaming, add garlic, etc. etc., but they are usually laughed at and shown the door.

Similarly, there is little variation when it comes to the white pork sausage. Everyone buys them from the store, they are all fatty, and they all contain certain yule spices like nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice or similar. The biggest difference between them is:

how fine-ground the pork meat is
how much flour and other filler things are mixed into them
how large the sausages are

Taste-wise, they are pretty similar, although price-wise you often get what you pay for.

Trimmings are also traditional: Boiled potatoes, often doused with fat from the roasted ribs. Possibly some prunes, apples, mustard, lingonberry jam and/or pickles, and definitely pickled cabbage (either red or regular) (the Norwegian version is a bit sweeter than traditional sauerkraut). Some heathens pour a thin brown gravy over the ribs, but they are also usually laughed at and shown the door.

The patties, though: Now THERE is where you can add your personal touch to things. You could buy them in the stores, of course, but there are also thousands of local recipes.

Most patties are rather loose and fatty. I prefer them a bit firmer and with high meat content. So I skip the potato flour/starch and milk that most use, and I add some ground beef to the mix instead. So, here is my own recipe for...

Pork patties

This makes between 15-25 patties

500 grams "medisterdeig" (ground pork meat with ca 25% fat)
500 grams ground beef meat (I use high-quality, low fat meat)
2 eggs
ca 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
ca 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
ca 1/2 teaspoon fine-ground ginger spice
ca 4 teaspoons of salt (try with 2-3 first if you don't want them too salty)
Butter or pork fat for frying

Make sure all the ingredients are at the same temperature (straight from the fridge works). In a bowl, coarsely mix the meats together with a fork, then add the eggs and spices and stir a bit more. You'll want a rather coarse mixture, not too firm. Go easy on the spices if you feel the recipe adds too much, and you can always add more during the testing phase below.

Testing:
Heat your pan and add butter or fat. Take a very small sample of the mixture and put it in the pan, fry it until it is edible. Taste and see whether or not you'd like to add more salt, pepper or spice to the mix. After you're satisified, it is time to start frying proper.

Frying:
Scoop up tablespoons of the meat mixture, roll them into ball with your hands and put them in the pan, flattening the tops and bottoms slightly in the process (you'll want them meatball-like chubby and thick, not burgery flat). Fry until done, anywhere between 4-7 minutes on each side, depending on how hot your pan is and the size of your patties. Put them on a plate to cool while you fry the rest of the patties.

Storage:
Keeps if covered in your fridge for a day or two, or in your freezer until your yule dinner. Enjoy!