Alu laukar

My shire had a viking cookout last Saturday. People brought their cooking gear and we did a number of dishes. Since I don't have a fireplace, tripod, pots and such for cooking over fire I decided to try a recipe from the book An early meal, a sauce called Alu laukar.

It is basically a cold green sauce from fresh herbs, beer and vinegar. I used chives, dill and fresh thyme plus geuze (as suggested in the recipe) and malt vinegar.

I was not impressed at first taste, added salt, honey and more herbs, but I suspect that the trick is actually to let it sit for a while allowing the flavours to blend, and that it might be worth the effort pounding all the herbs in a mortar (or whizzing them with a blender). I got fed up with it after the chives, so the rest was just finely chopped.

We ate the sauce with rather fatty smoked pork and it was nice with the acidity and "green" flavour to go with it.

I also made some candied walnuts, just honey, malt vinegar and a pinch of salt boiled together and then tossing the walnuts in the mixture. A bit sticky, but nice.

The others made lamb sausage and a stew from deer or roe, and we made flat bread to go with that. We tried one recipe with mashed peas in it, and one plain flour, water and salt. I liked the pea bread, but some other people were rather sceptic to the whole idea.