It was great! Started at 7:30pm with some God awful bubbly wine - which one managed to swill down. The venue was Hotel Varmahlíð run by my cousin Gunni's wife Svanhildur. The guest chef was Friðrik V from Akureyri (but as was soon anounced he is from Skagafjörður on his father's side and Þingeyjarsýsla on his mothers). Excellent chef and great entertainer - BBC Food needs to meet this man.
We were seated at 8pm and were given our first "non-course" - one small piece of horse sushi and a taste of smoked horse wrapped around Friðriks' own cummin cheese - so nice. The horse was heat smoked with blue berry ling, an amazing flavour combo.
First course was then brought out - horse carpaccio - with a mouse/froth of súrmjólk and local salad with parmesan:
Delicious
Next was the horse soup: stock made from horse bones and the tortellini were stuffed with offcuts of horse. Again, yummy - but perhaps a little salty for me.
Following this was another non course - a sorbet made from rhubarb and strawberries - a great palate cleanser.
Then came the main. Surf and Turf - Roasted fillet of horse ridden by a lobster wrapped in rice paper along with three varieties of potatoes one of which was violet - amazing colour
I know I have missed another course in all this, but hey - I had to drink a whole bottle of Merlot on my own... (I know not difficult - but the challenge was to make it last the whole 5 hours that we sat there eating! and being entertained.)
The dessert was non horse - a lovely berry icecream and rhubarb and pine nut muffin and fresh chopped mango, pineapple and melon.
Twas truly a good night of good food and a lot of education on the eating of horses in Iceland (it was actually banned after Iceland took on Christianity - eating horse being a fairly pagan thing to do. Thank goodness it is now back in vogue as Icelandic horse is one of the best meats you can eat. Tender, tasty, juicy and low in fat... need I say more
Oh I do, the photos are courtesy of Maggi's blackberry...
7 comments:
That all looks damned good if you ask me.
In Japan we have 'basashi' which is horse sashimi.
The chef did a great job. My mouth is watering.
Perfect desert and palate cleansers, too.
YUM.
Is this an annual event?
This is the first time that this has been done here in the fjörd, but I would say by the extremely positive reaction of all those that attended that this will become a yearly thing. I´ll let you know when the next one is!
I think I've always had slight aversion to eating horsemeat, but I understand it was all just learned from my culture. They mostly make dogfood out of it here. I think I could like it - if it tasted good LOL! It looks good here in your awesome pictures. Oh, btw = I'm working on my very own bottle of Merlot due to the Bear being absent. I think I will manage it just fine.
My Sweetie and I have recently contemplated raising up a potato farm in Iceland. We grow those violet potatos here in our back yard, and it might catch on in Iceland. They are pretty = don't really taste much different, and are certainly eye catchers.
Loved this post!
Yum yum yum I do love the icelandic horse for riding, cuddling and eating!
Hey TS thanks for the visit and the kind words, yes, those violet potatoes were an eye opener - looked really good on the plate and tasted just like... potato.
Hey Maja - time for you to come for a visit to have some roasted foal...
Do they really use horsemeat for dog food and if so where do they get it from.
Cos there's an awful lot of dog food out there.
I've been telling my kids about your horse feast. It really did look yummy.
Man, I miss horse.
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