Norwegian & Icelandic · Main

Raspeballer

Intermediate
45 min
roughly 3 of 4 for cost

rich Leads with richness that coats and comforts.

Ingredients

1.2 kg floury potatoes, peeled and grated raw on the fine side of a box grater
300 g floury potatoes, boiled the day before and mashed cold
200 g barley flour
100 g plain flour, plus more if the dough will not hold
12 g fine salt
1.5 kg salted lamb ribs or salted pork belly, soaked in cold water overnight
400 g swede, peeled and cut in large chunks
3 litres cold water
120 g salted butter, melted, to serve

Equipment

Grater / zester

The skills inside

Skimming: foam, fat and a clear broth Mashing & puréeing Shaping by hand The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake

Allergen screen

Found: gluten · dairy

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

Wring the grated raw potato hard in a cloth over a bowl until the pulp is barely damp; stand the juice 15 minutes, pour off the grey water and scrape the white starch that has settled underneath back into the pulp. 15 min
Work in the cold mash, both flours and the salt until a handful squeezed in the fist holds its shape and does not slump; the dough goes grey as you work, which is only oxidation.
Drain the soaked meat, cover with the fresh cold water and hold at a shiver, skimming, until it pulls willingly from the bone; boil the swede separately and mash it with a knob of the butter.
Shape balls the size of a fist with wet hands and lower them into the meat broth; hold the pot at 85 to 90C (185 to 195F) until they have risen and sat just under the surface for a further 40 minutes, and a skewer comes out clean. 40 min
Lift out with a slotted spoon, serve with the meat and swede, and flood each plate with melted butter.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Skimming: foam, fat and a clear broth 73 recipes

It is held below a rolling boil for the whole time. Agitation drives fat and fine protein into the liquid as an emulsion, and nothing skimmed afterwards will take them back out.
The grey foam that rises in the first minutes is lifted off and discarded rather than stirred back in.
Fat is taken from the surface where it gathers, the pot moved off the centre of the heat if that is what it takes to collect it in one place.
The liquid is visibly clearer at the end than it was at the start: it is possible to see down into it.
Nothing lifted off goes back in. What was skimmed is discarded, not tipped back once the ladle is full.

Where it goes wrong The pot was allowed to boil, usually while something else was being attended to. Fat and protein emulsify into the liquid under agitation and cannot be lifted off afterwards, so the finished broth stays cloudy and greasy however patiently it is skimmed from then on.

Shaping by hand 85 recipes

The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.

Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.

At the Table

The Pour: Cabernet or Rioja Reserva
Also Right: Malbec
From the Taps: Porter
Zero-Proof: Pomegranate spritz

Lamb’s sweet grass-fat wants structure: tannin from Cabernet, smoke-echo from Rioja’s oak, or Syrah’s pepper for the spiced routes.

Family notes

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Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Raspeballer The cuisine, deeper Technique films from the Norwegian & Icelandic kitchen