Lompe and pølse for Eurovision night

 

  

As the Eurovision final was being held in Oslo, Norway, I made miniature Norwegian hot dogs for our Eurovision tv night.  I wanted cute and kitsch. I used cheerios/cocktail frankfurts or as some Australians like to call them ‘little boys’ he he. Everyone said that these hot dogs tasted better than those with white bread buns (and they feel healthier). They are really pliable and tasty.

Sausage with lompe can be bought at Petrol stations and fast food carts  in Norway. Lompe are thicker than lefse and they don’t have ridges. Lompe also go well with scrambled eggs, swedish meatballs, jam, or cinnamon sugar and butter.

- and congratulations Germany!

  image from wikipedia

My lompe are made small for nibblies.  Before I first made them I read many long explanations of just the correct way to roll them and how it was very difficult and you had to use just the right amount of flour on the right part of the rolling out board.  However, I thought why not make them smaller, roll between two pieces of gladwrap, and then use a circular cookie cutter or a round plate to make them just the right shape?  This worked perfectly. 

It is not recommended to replace the cream with milk as they can become tough, apparently. Also, once you have added the flour the dough should be used straight away.

Lompe

adapted from Lefse Time (recipe, pictures and video) and britta.com (recipe and pictures)

3/4kg  to 1kg - 1.5 to 2lb potatoes (enough to make 4 cups riced potatoes)

1/4 cup butter

1-2 tsp sugar (optional)

1/2 cup heavy cream

3/4 tsp salt

1 to 1 - 1/2 cups flour

Cook the potatoes until tender in the most dry way possible eg you can bake them in their skins; or you can quarter them and steam them, peeled or unpeeled.  Otherwise, boil them in water, and drain them really well.

Push potatoes through a ricer while still hot (the ricer also removes the skins, however I usually peel mine first anyway).  If you don’t have a ricer, push peeled hot cooked potatoes through a sieve.

Measure out 4 cups (lightly packed) into another large bowl. Don’t waste a lot of time here, your potatoes need to be warm to melt butter in the next step.

To your 4 cups of riced potatoes, add 1/4 cup butter in pats so it melts in evenly. Stir a few times to get the butter mixed in well, then set your potatoes aside to cool completely, with a clean tea towel or gladwrap covering them so they don’t form a skin. The potatoes need to be cooled to at least room temperature. Leave to sit 2-3 hours if possible.  If the room is warm put them in the fridge, and try to bring back to room temperature before adding the next ingredients.

When your potatoes are cooled, mix in cream, salt, (sugar if using) and enough flour to make a dough (I didn’t use the full 1 and 1/2 cups of flour) (similar in texture to potato gnocchi). Stir until all the flour is mixed in evenly. Then knead (like bread dough) 10 times.

Depending how big you want your sheets correlates to the size of patties. To roll  nibbly-sized lompe like mine use a 15ml tablespoon. If you want bigger ones 1/3 cup  dough equals a 12 inch round approximately. This gives you a nice, not too thick, not too thin sheet.

Start by heating the pan.  It needs to be quite hot. The Lefse Time recipe and video stipulates 500 deg F (260 deg C).  I used a non-stick chapatti pan and a piece of wood that came with the pan for lifting and flipping over, on my gas stove.

Place a tablespoon of mixture between two pieces of gladwrap. Make sure the mixture remaining in the bowl is always recovered with a cloth. Using a regular rolling pin, roll out the dough over the top of the topmost gladwrap, and roll to an even thickness, fairly thin. Peel off top piece of gladwrap and cut a circle with a cookie cutter (I used a 9cm or  3 1/2”). Peel mixture off bottom piece of gladwrap and half lay on the wooden paddle. Gently manoeuvre onto hot pan.  Cook until the lompe browns underneath and flip over.  Cook again until brown. Lift up and put into a clean tea towel and cover up with the teatowel, so that it cools whilst covered. Repeat for remaining lompe. I found I could get 4 or 5 onto the pan at a time.

To store when cooled, put around 10 lompe into each sandwich sized plastic ziplock bag.  Intersperse with pieces of baking paper if you wish to freeze them. Store in the fridge or freezer.

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