Whenever we visit somewhere new or different we like to try local foods. I went to Iceland two years ago and had a lot of nice things,; this time I went with my husband and we went to various different places for meals. One of the favourite things we ate was plokkfiskur, which is translated as mashed fish, which doesn’t sound very exciting. I wonder if the word plokk might be related to our English word pluck, and I wondered if maybe if you think about the current favourite way of serving meat, as pulled pork/chicken/beef, whether plokkfiskur could be translated as pulled fish… which sounds much more interesting!
When we got home we looked up recipes for it, because it really was so delicious. I think it is one of those things which has as many recipes as there are families who make it! From the look and taste of it, we thought that it was made from flaked fish, cubed potatoes, a little onion, butter, milk, mixed into a creamy sauce. To me it tasted like a white sauce,maybe with some mustard, maybe with some herbs like dill and chives… but this was just the dish we had in the restaurant!
Looking at different recipes, some have cheese, one had curry powder (sounds very nice) one had carrots, tomatoes, celery, wine, chicken stock… this doesn’t sound very traditional to me, but maybe that’s the great thing about the dish, anyone can make it how they like, as long has it has fish, potatoes and a little onion!
We are going to have a go at making it… and I’ll report back on the recipe we use! meanwhile, look at this charming video of a lovely Icelandic lady called Margrét making plokkfiskur for her grandchildren:
Lois Elsden 