How to make Pebernødder

A well known treat in Denmark for Christmas is ‘pebernødder’ or directly translated pepper nuts! Danes offer them during Christmas and sometimes they put them in small paper baskets and hang them on their Christmas tree. There is actually neither pepper nor nuts in them, but a lot of spices and they look like nuts. 

Image here

Do you want to try to make them yourselves? 
We found a simple recipe for you to try!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup packed brown/white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder plus 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. freshly ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ginger
• 1/2 tsp. cloves
• 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. 

2) Beat the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Stir in the cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt until well blended. Mix in the flour, one cup at a time, the baking soda and baking powder until the dough gathers together. With floured hands, pinch off small, 1/2 teaspoon amounts of dough, roll into tiny balls, and place on a baking sheets (you will probably need more than one).

3) Bake in preheated oven until bottom of cookies are light tan, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool 15 minutes on baking sheets. Store in an airtight container.

Danes love liquorice and we will never know why

The Danes love liquorice. They love it.
The chew it, they eat it, they cook with it, they consider it a candy, they put it in chocolate, in your lunch, in your drinks, everywhere! When you eat something you always need to pray that it will not contain liquorice. I have a colleague sitting next to me. Each time i will go to the toilet or to a meeting without my glass of water, he will throw a tiny piece of liquorice in it just to tease me. His name is S. and one day i will get my revenge.

I repeat: The Danes love liquorice.They are obsessed with it.
We will never understand why. Never.
The only thing we can do is observe them and accept this fact.

Denmark.dk visited the world´s smallest liquorice factory "LAKRIDS" in Tåstrup, DK and filmed how they produce this salty substance which Danes love so much.
Here is the video:

Æbleskiver: The Danish Christmas Donuts

Aebleskiver is a Danish dessert, somewhat similar in texture to American pancakes but light and fluffy like a donut. Traditionally served with glogg during December. Cooked in a cast iron pan that resembles an egg poacher. Served hot with syrup, jam or powdered sugar.

Check out how to make your own aebleskiver below:

Risalamande: The Danish Christmas rice pudding

Risalamande is a dessert traditionally served on Christmas Eve in Denmark. It is a kind of rice pudding, usually served cold and warm cherry sauce is poured on top (kirsebærsauce).

Portioned from a large bowl at the end of the Christmas dinner, a whole almond is hidden in the bowl of the pudding. The one who finds the almond wins a gift. The fun is to hide the almond in your mouth as long as possible so that people will keep taking seconds and thirds in an attempt to find the almond and win.

Have you ever tried Risalamande? Time to make your own! Kathrine from Metropolitan University College shows us how to make Danish rice pudding in the below video - enjoy it :)

Must do: grab your friends and have a dinner in Vespa - Copenhagen

We have already mentioned this restaurant in a different post (read more here), but we cannot resist dedicating this post to Vespa in order to introduce you to the place.

Before visiting Vespa, we thought it was a quite high class restaurant: a quiet, calm, fine dining place... Well, it is not exactly like that. We would not recommend this place for a romantic dinner for two or for someone who wants to have a fine dining experience..

So what is Vespa?
Part of the Cofoco family, Vespa is an honest, easygoing, relaxed, simple restaurant that serves Italian food.
That's Vespa. It is in your face, it is clean, real and it does not pretend to be something else than what it really is: quite similar to the attitude of an actual Vespa if you think about it....

source here

And when should i go there?
Are you with your friends and want to have a delicious but at the same time fun dinner with loads of wine? Grab your friends and have a blast in Vespa! They have a special offer where you can have a full menu (antipasti, primo, secondo and desert) with all the wine you can drink (no limits) for around 400 DKK per person (when we visited the place the prices were at 400 DKK. We checked their website apparently now it is 425 DKK. Check their current menu here: http://cofoco.dk/vespa_menu.php).

And how is the food?
The food was great! Do not expect something super sophisticated. As we said Vespa is simple and easygoing. They have simple but delicious Italian flavors. What we loved was that in the beginning they bring you a lot of different antipasti. So right from the start, get ready to taste 10 different small plates of various delicacies.

 Insalata tiepida di polipo e patate – Blækspruttesalat med kartofler, persille, agurk og chili

 Insalata caprese con mozzarella di bufala – Caprese salat med bøffelmozzarella

Prosciutto di Parma – Parmaskinke

Finocchiona – Fennikel salami

Grissini e bagna cauda – Grissini med bagna cauda dip

Merluzzo alla Livornese – Friteret torsk med spicy tomatsovs

After all the antipasti, there are two more courses and a desert. Let's not forget that the alcohol keeps coming as long as you have chosen their special offer that includes the limitless consumption of wine :)

The desert: 

Susine caramellate con gelato al mascarpone – Bagte og karamelliserede blommer med mascarpone is

:) :) :) even though we were expecting something else, we loved Vespa just because it is down to earth. We loved the idea of having so many antipasti in the beginning and tasting all these different flavors. The wine offer was very appreciated :)

:( :( :( The place is small. Which is not necessarily bad, but it was very, very VERY crowded and noisy. There was no music in the background. All this noise and the fact that we were sitting very close to each other made us feel a bit uncomfortable and tired quite soon.


Vespa
St. Kongensgade 90,
1264 København K

Read more about Vespa in their website or in their facebook page
Also visit Cofoco website and facebook page to learn more about them :)

Chico's Cantina Mexican restaurant - bar

Wanna have a brunch inside a jail cell? Or in the jungle?
We have a place to recommend :)

We visited Chico's Cantina and we have to admit, we liked it!
The whole restaurant/bar is divided in 4 different rooms: a common Mexican restaurant room, a bar, a jailhouse and a jungle.
In the jailhouse the actual tables are designed in such a way so that you can actually eat inside a jail cell.

The jail cell

In the jungle there are big round tables, giving the feeling of a bamboo bungalow hidden in the trees, the lighting is quite low and the whole atmosphere is making you feel as if Tarzan and Jane are actually joining you for brunch  (fyi, you need to be at least 6 to book a table in the jungle). 

The jungle - photo source here 

The brunch costed 89 DKK (in their menu it said 160 DKK but apparently they have lowered their prices and have not updated the menus..) and we got unlimited access to a Mexican buffet that had everything: rice, meet, eggs, tacos, chicken, bacon, nachos, salads... Don't expect something super-gourmet but you will eat a lot for a reasonable price in an amusing atmosphere. If you have a sweet tooth then this brunch is not for you since the only sugary thing they have is fresh crepes. Which is not bad at all actually!

See address and reservation number here
Find out more and check out their pictures in their website: http://www.chicos-cantina.dk

Dining in Copenhagen

We all know that Copenhagen has been the culinary capital of Europe during the last years, especially because of Noma restaurant (voted the best restaurant in the world for the last 3 years) and many others that followed its lead.

But let's be realistic... Even if we live here, the majority of us cannot afford a visit to Noma!
Do not be alarmed my friends. There are many other perfect choices here in CPH. Our favorite choice would be the COFOCO restaurants.

COFOCO covers 9 very good quality restaurants serving delicious food. We haven't been at all of them but rumors say that the standards are quite high in all of them and that no matter which one you chose the chances are that you are going to be satisfied! We can guarantee that Vespa, Scarpetta Islands Brygge and Les trois cochons are quite amazing since we have already visited them. The great thing about these restaurants is that they offer some special deals, in which you can have a full 4 or even 5 course menu starting from 200-300 DKK per person (excluding alcohol), which is quite a fair price for a dining axperience in Copenhagen.

Wanna learn more?
Visit them on cofoco.dk, follow them on facebook and have a look on the below video:


Restaurant Cofoco from Hans Frederik Munch on Vimeo.


Yummy right???


Another great thing in Copenhagen is Copenhagen Dining Week.
During week number 7 (mid-end February) Copenhagen celebrates dining with a very special way: some of the best restaurants of the city open their doors offering a full menu with 200 DKK per person. Last February 100 restaurants participated and the experience was great! It was quite chaotic to book a table in the nicest places since the demand was quite big but still there were plenty of choices available. Keep that tip in mind for next February and follow Copenhagen Dining week on facebook to stay updated about 2014 special offers :)

Do you have more places to propose for a quality dining experience at a reasonable price??

Cheers!