Summer Nostalgia
Coming from a seaside town in Denmark, there is nothing that screams summer more than fresh fish. We have vivid memories of heading down to the harbor on a beautiful summer day or evening, eating fish for dinner and having a delicious ice cream for dessert while the summer sun slowly set over the horizon. This typically followed a day of playing lots of soccer, swimming in cold Scandinavian fjord water, biking in the woods, playing cards and board games, building various things out of wood with our grandfather, and watching random DVDs on a tiny TV. Ah, the memories! 🙂
Today’s Recipe
We love fish, whether it’s deep-fried, lightly pan-fried, or in the form of fishcakes (fiskefrikadeller). Pair it with fresh summery vegetables like asparagus, squeeze lemon on top, and it just encapsulates summer in a dish. If you ask us, though, one essential element is missing from that lineup: remoulade. You may be wondering, what is remoulade? Well, it’s an originally French sauce similar to tartar sauce that contains chopped up bits of pickles and seasonings. If you ask a Dane, though, you’ll find that Danish remoulade is entirely its own condiment. It is incredibly popular in Denmark, and is most frequently added to smørrebrød, Danish-style hot dogs, and fried fish. Since you can’t usually find it outside of Denmark, except for in Scandinavian shops, we developed a recipe for our own homemade version!
How to Make Remoulade
Our remoulade has chopped up carrot, apple, and pickles in it to create the taste and texture that we think is best in a Danish remoulade. We start by chopping/grating these up very fine, or even better, blending them in a food processor. Then, we squeeze the liquid out using paper towel or a cheesecloth if you have one. Combine the shredded fruit and veg with the rest of the ingredients, adding turmeric for color. You can also add curry powder if you like the flavor – we sometimes do but it can certainly overpower the rest of the ingredients, so be careful! Mix everything together well and you should be left with the perfect condiment for fried fish, hot dogs, or open-faced sandwiches.
Remoulade Sauce
Ingredients
REMOULADE
- 4 tbsp mayonnaise (homemade or storebought)
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- 1.5 tsp mustard
- 1/2 large carrot or 1 small, grated
- 1/4 apple, chopped or grated
- 1-2 pickles, chopped or grated
- 1 green onion, chopped (or a small amount of chopped red onion)
- Squeeze of lemon juice
- Turmeric (until you achieve the color you want!)
- 1 tsp sugar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
REMOULADE
- Prepare your vegetables/fruit (carrot, apple, pickles, green onion) by finely chopping, grating, or running them through the food processor to break them down into fine chunks!
- After grating or finely chopping the carrot, apple, pickle, and onion, we recommend squeezing the juice out of the fruit + veg – it will help keep the remoulade less runny! We use a paper towel for this, but you can also use a cheese cloth!
- Combine mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, the vegetable/fruit mixture, and lemon juice in a bowl.
- Next, add turmeric until the sauce is as yellow as you like. If you let it sit for a bit in the fridge, it will also deepen in color! Add sugar, then add salt and pepper to taste.
- Taste and adjust if you need to add a little more lemon, sugar, or salt to balance out the sauce.
- Spoon over top of fiskefrikadeller or use as a condiment for anything you would like – enjoy! Store in the fridge and use within 3-4 days.
Yummy! My paternal grandmother was born in Denmark. We had boller but she added nutmeg which added flavor.
Thanks 🙂 We usually add cardamom to our boller – nutmeg sounds really good though, I’ll have to try it next time!
This is fantastic – exactly as I remember remoulade from Denmark. Was a huge hit with my whole family.
(Tusinde tak for denne opskrift. Jeg er lige kommet tilbage fra Danmark. Jeg plejer altid at “smugle’ remoulade med tilbage til USA, men nu behøver jeg ikke mere at gøre det 😁)
Tak for din søde kommentar! Ja, vi har prøvet det med at smugle remoulade ind i landet mange gange før – der er godt nok bedre plads i kufferten når man kan lave nogle af tingene derhjemme 🙂
I love anything mayonnaise, and this sauce did not disappoint.