Master creates recipes but wants cooks to add own twist
Chef behind world’s ‘best’ restaurant shares tips
FRESH from an appearance on Saturday Kitchen, Claus Meyer has spent the morning chopping up a raw innerthigh of beef to make beetroot tartare with horseradish.
The restaurateur, businessman and chef is what you’d call supremely Nordic – from his no-nonsense attitude, to his chiselled, Viking cheekbones.
That and the fact he spearheaded the Nordic cuisine food movement and co-founded Noma, widely considered the best restaurant in the world.
“It’s difficult to compare anything with Noma,” he muses, “but it wasn’t my achievement alone, I had a very good chef and friend and partner with me in René [Redzepi], and he grew a lot through the project. He was an unknown chef when we started, now he’s the most known chef in the whole world.”
However, Meyer’s personal ideas on food, and his recipes for home cooks, have only just become available in the UK.
When he first wrote The Nordic Kitchen, it was at a time where, he explains, having launched Noma and Nordic Cuisine, he “wanted to translate all the culinary ideas and bring them into a home cooking context”.
Meyer can seem severe, and the recipes spare, but, he says: “I consider my food like a draft – people should not be afraid to change the recipes slightly, and they should definitely season it so it works for them. Chopping up things and putting them in a salad bowl is easy, but getting the dressing right? It’s so important.”
Roughly 10 months ago, the 52-year-old moved with his wife, three daughters and two dogs to New York, although he’s “not missing Denmark as much as I would have expected”.
As you’d imagine, he gets very few days off, but when he does, Meyer says: “I play tennis and do sport with my girls, I try and discover New York.”
But besides cooking, being there for the family and down-to-earth, basic family things, like taking a long Sunday breakfast together, there is not much time.
Feeling inspired? Here are three Nordic recipes from Meyer’s book to get started with ....
FISH CAKES WITH TARTARE SAUCE
(Makes 4) 600g skinless cod or haddock fillet 1tsp sea salt 2 eggs 2tbsp plain flour 150ml whipping cream 1 carrot 1 baking potato 1/2 handful of dill, chopped Freshly ground white pepper 10g butter 1tbsp rapeseed oil Boiled potatoes or good rye bread, plus salad and tartare sauce, to serve
Put the fish in a food processor and mince coarsely. Add the salt and pulse the minced fish until it is sticky. Place the fish in a mixing bowl.
Add the eggs, flour and then the cream, a little at a time, and stir well until the minced mixture has a good, firm consistency.
Peel the carrot and potato, and grate them finely. Squeeze the moisture out of the vegetables with your hands and stir them into the fish cake mixture. Finally, add the chopped dill and white pepper. Refrigerate the mixture for 30 minutes before frying.
Fry large spoonfuls of the mixture in the butter and oil over a medium heat.
It is important to be patient so that they form a beautiful crust on the underside before you turn them.
Serve with boiled potatoes or good rye bread, as well as a green or more rustic salad, and a generous dollop of tartare sauce.
SEARED HANGER STEAK WITH FRISEE LETTUCE
(Serves 4, or 6 as a starter) 600g hanger steak (available from your butcher, see tip below) 10 thyme sprigs, chopped 2tbsp olive oil Sea salt flakes and freshly ground pepper 1 frisee lettuce (or similar curly leafed lettuce) 1/2 handful of parsley 1 small red onion 2tbsp cider vinegar 2tbsp cold-pressed rapeseed oil
Remove the largest tendons and membranes from the hanger steak and rub the meat with the chopped thyme, olive oil, salt and pepper.
Heat up a griddle pan and fry the steak for a short time over a very high heat – give it two to three minutes on each side so it’s still quite pink and juicy in the middle.
Meanwhile, cut off the root of the lettuce and divide it into large leaves. Wash the leaves and dry in a salad spinner or with a clean tea towel. Pick off the leaves from the parsley and wash and dry them as well.
Peel and finely slice the red onion, then mix with the frisee and parsley. Toss with the vinegar, rapeseed oil, salt and pepper.
Remove the meat from the pan and leave it to rest for one minute before cutting it into thin slices and serving with the salad.
Tip: Hanger steak, also known as butcher’s steak and what the French call onglet, is so called because it hangs from the diaphragm, and is located just above the kidneys. You can order hanger steak at your butcher’s, or just replace it with flank steak.
RHUBARB CAKE
(Serves 8) For the cake layers: 4 organic eggs 125g sugar 150g plain flour 1tsp baking powder Butter, for greasing For the rhubarb compote: 300g rhubarb stalks 150g unrefined cane sugar 1 handful of lemon balm (a plant similar to mint, which can be found growing wild – or you can leave this out) 1/2 vanilla pod To assemble: 50g blanched almonds 50g white chocolate, plus extra shavings to decorate 500ml whipping cream 1 rhubarb stalk A little sugar, for sprinkling
First, make the cake layers. Beat the eggs and sugar together in a bowl until pale and foamy. Mix the flour and baking powder together and sift into the batter, then fold in gently with a spatula.
Grease a spring-form cake tin (about 22cm in diameter) with butter and pour in the cake batter. Bake the cake in the centre of a preheated oven at 200C/Gas Mark Six for about 30 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
When the cake is completely cool, carefully cut horizontally into three equal layers with a sharp knife.
Now cook the compote. Cut off the tops and bottoms of the rhubarb stalks, but be careful not to remove the white ‘foot’ of the stalk, which is where the rhubarb flavour is most concentrated and best. Rinse the stalks in cold water, cut into 1cm to 2cm pieces and put in an oven-proof dish with the lemon balm. Split the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the seeds and mix with a little of the sugar.
Mix the vanilla sugar into the rest of the sugar, then sprinkle over the rhubarb. Stir well and add the pod to the dish.
Bake in a preheated oven at 150C/Gas Mark Two for 15 to 20 minutes until the rhubarb is tender but still has a firm bite. Remove the dish from the oven and leave the compote to cool completely.
Chop the almonds and white chocolate roughly. Whip the cream, set half aside for decoration and gently fold the almonds and chocolateintotheotherhalf.Add the rhubarb compote and fold in.
Assemble the cake with the flavoured whipped cream between each layer, and finish by decorating it with the pure whipped cream. For the best effect, use a piping bag. Another decorative trick is to create rhubarb shavings by running a vegetable peeler lengthways along a rhubarb stalk. Toss the shavings with a little sugar before scattering over the cake, and finish with shavings of white chocolate.