Hindustan Times
A breakfast feast in Copenhagen
I’m sorry for the break. You know how it is getting ready for a trip abroad. Really had no time in the kitchen.
Now, I’m in Copenhagen, and I do.
I landed in the capital of Denmark last week, and did not expect to spend much time in the kitchen, given that I was covering the high-energy chaos of the climate summit in a new city.
I love the feel of a new city, the struggle to get my bearings, understand the systems and make my way around. Copenhagen is one of the easiest to get used to: It’s super organised and the people are super friendly.
I’ve leased a flat for eight days (there was no hotel room available). It’s got a living room, bedroom, bathroom and, yes, a kitchen.
My landlord, a young digital designer called Andre Knudsen, offered to keep a few essentials in the fridge: Ham, cheese, bread, milk and eggs. He outdid himself. I found three types of ham, all the abovementioned foodstuff, oranges and apples, cheese spreads (like our normal cubes, except these have herbs, prawns, ham etc etc), a Danish dessert (I don’t eat dessert, but this was delicious; sorry I can’t pronounce it, and I didn’t get the name), pancakes, and I’m sure I’m missing some things.
It took me two days to figure out how to start the gas. So, until I did, I was stuffing ham onto cold pancakes or on toast.
On Monday, I felt finally settled, and at 7 am on a freezing day (The maximum temperature predicted for today is 1 degree C), I decided I could do better than this.
You can see what emerged in the photo above.
1. Salad: I bought some wonderfully green, clean salad the previous night, in preparation for the dinner I promised Andre. I broke 3 leaves, chopped three cherry tomatoes and dressed it with a dash of fish sauce that I found in the fridge, some olive oil and fresh pepper.
2. Fried egg on pancake: I was heating the pancake when I got this idea, a la egg on appam. I cracked open a lovely, brown egg and dropped some butter and torn pieces of ham. Lathered on some mustard after it was done.
3. Toast and cheese spread.
4. Milk and orange juice.
Well, I’m happy, and ready for a bracing Copenhagen morning.
(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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OMG! Cheese spread with ham? Sounds like manna from heaven. Curious to know what Danish cuisine is like. For a person who relishes his meat, it may throw up some delectable surprises. Have a Hopenhagenly trip, Samar!
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Samar Halarnkar Reply:
December 16th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Thanks Pervin! Have had very little time to discover Danish cuisines, but tonight my temporary landlord and I are going to cook for each other. I will post that soon as we do.
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aha…i was wondering where u been and happened to c the front page on HT on copenhagen meet and saw u covering it! danish i think r known for their desserts..i remember having somthing called a danish swirl in UK , which was actually a doughnut with heavy chocolate toppings!
btw..nice of u to treat ur landlord to a dinner…the entire things sounds quite nice! (sorry cant c the pic somehow..maybe my offc network is to be blamed for that!)
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Samar Halarnkar Reply:
December 16th, 2009 at 10:04 am
you’re right about the desserts. there was only in my fridge, especially kept there by my landlord. i don’t like desserts, but this was quite wonderful. no idea what the name is, will find out. well, my landlord too is going to cook for me, so this should be very nice.
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Samar,
my cooking enthusiasm far outpaces my cooking skill unlike yours, where they seem quite evenly matched. That’s why I was gratified to see that even a vastly more skilled practitioner can’t get the fried egg to spread perfectly in a circle. Ah, happiness. I shall feel far less defensive from now on.
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Samar Halarnkar Reply:
December 17th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
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Did you good….i mean the break….the out come was Copenhagen’s ham,eggfry n salad.and of course not to forget the dessert.we look forward to the dessert recipe n the outcome of the rendezvous with landlord.
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Samar Halarnkar Reply:
December 17th, 2009 at 11:31 pm
oh gosh, i forgot that!
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