Norwegian ”Fårikål”

“Fårikål” is my own home country´s National dish. This is a lamb and cabbage stew. Mostly Norwegians like to prepare ”Fårikål” to welcome fall season. It even has it’s own day in the fall. ”Fårikål” is prepared with few ingredients, cabbage, lamb or mutton meat, peppercorns, flour, water, salt. It is slow cooked just simmering for hours. Make no mistake, it is delicious and very comforting. Why did I decide to make it in spring? Well it was Easter and lamb is quite traditional to eat. And shame on me, I have made National dishes from so many countries, but never my own countries National dish. I remember I ate it visiting my aunt Martha when living in Norway. They had sheep. I grew up on a dairy farm so we had cattle meat and we had pigs. That might be the reason why we did not have it often.

I used my mothers recipe from her chefs cookbook from 1957. That day she cooked for 379 people and she used 115 kg lamb meat, 100 kg cabbage, 30 liter water, 1, 5 kg flour, 2 kg salt, 400 g whole black peppercorns and 90 kg potatoes on the side. I did have to recalculate for my single household.

Fårikål (Mutton in Cabbage)

Ingredients:

1, 5 kg mutton
1, 5 kg cabbage
4 teaspoons whole pepper
3 tbsp flour
2 tbsp margarine
2 tsp salt
3 dl water

Instructions:

Divide the cabbage into boats.

Melt the butter in the saucepan.

Layer meat and cabbage in the saucepan (meat at the bottom with the fat side down). Sprinkle flour, salt and pepper between the layers.

Pour on water. Bring to the boil, put on the lid and lower the heat. Let simmer until the meat is tender (until it comes off the bones ) about 2,5 hours. Do not add too much water. The cabbage will release water also while zimmering.