The main ingredient is peeled potatoes, which are grated or ground up and mixed with flour, usually Barley or wheat, to norwegian potato pancakes the balls stick together. Depending on the proportion of potato pulp and different types of flour, the product will have a different taste and texture.

There are a great variety of regional variations to the dish and the condiments vary locally. They may include salted and boiled pork or lamb meat, bacon, sausages, melted butter, boiled carrots, mashed or cooked rutabaga, sour cream, kefir or soured milk, cured meat, brown cheese sauce and even boiled potatoes. Trade Shows From One Country To The Next. I’m no grandma, and this isn’t my grandma’s Norwegian lefse recipe either. I have rolled out hundreds of pounds of potatoes perfecting this recipe over the last 20 years, because one of my first jobs as a teenager involved rolling lefse at a Scandinavian bakery.

I’ve made just about every mistake — ahem, learned every trick in the book, along the way. Follow this guide and you’ll have perfect Norwegian lefse too! You need full-fat heavy cream and butter because it aids in the elasticity when rolling to get perfectly thin, transparent sheets. I like grass-fed European butter for its sweeter flavor — plus, it typically has a higher fat content. Trust me, you need this stick. The worst thing that can happen is lumps when rolling because they gunk up the pastry board and rolling pin and the lefse will rip. A potato ricer ensures an even mash.

This inexpensive gadget will change your lefse game. Do I need a lefse griddle? You might notice there’s no griddle on the essential list. Before I invested in one I used a pancake griddle on the stovetop and made small sheets of lefse. So, if you don’t want to invest in a griddle more specific to cooking lefse, be sure to roll your sheets the proper size to fit your setup.

The Norwegian lefse recipe below for 5 lbs of potatoes makes about 40 sheets of lefse and takes me about 2 hours to roll and cook. Russet work well due to their high starch, and low moisture content. Because you need the potatoes to be really dry and cool for lefse, cook ’em up a day ahead of time. Dice the potatoes for even cooking — plus, it makes them easier to rice. Boil until they are soft when tested with a fork. Rice the potatoes while they are still hot.