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A few years ago when my little peanut was literally the size of a peanut (sans shell) Joe and I traveled to Iceland for our delayed honeymoon where we encountered the worst food we've ever tasted.
Why, then, you ask, am I creating a recipe to duplicate something from the land of fire and ice?
I'm so glad you asked. You see hidden in a tiny gift shop along the shore of the glacial lagoon, Jokulsarlon was the best soup I have ever eaten. This brothy, hearty fish-based soup that I have found myself dreaming about since.
I had done a cursory google search to see if the recipe was available a few months ago and found nothing. But yesterday I took charge and realized I never tried searching for "Icelandic Fish Soup," which was gross oversight.
I found a few recipes, melded them with my own ideas and tada:
Icelandic Fish Soup
Though I had long dreamed of this soup, I have to say I was afraid that I only remembered it being delicious because I was so starving that in comparison to all the other food the island offered it was astounding, but when pared with my kitchen of endless possibilities it would fall flat. It did not. This soup is amazing.
Obviously, you could use any vegetables you like, I am writing it with what I used.
Makes a large pot of soup
Takes approximately 1 hour
5 cloves of garlic
1 large onion
2 large carrots
4 medium yellow potatoes
2 golden beets
1 head of broccoli
Handful of green beans
1 jalapeno
1 chipotle pepper or ancho chilli
3 bayleaves
1T. fennel seed or fresh fennel
1 1/2 T. tumeric
2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp. chilipowder
2 pinches ground cloves
salt & pepper as desired
12 oz. crushed or strained tomato
32 oz. low-sodium chicken broth
12 oz fish (I used white fish in the form of Mahi Mahi, you could use any fish but white fish will be the least "fishy")
Handful of shrimp
butter
Chop vegetables and onion. Saute onion in olive oil and butter (or butter substitute) on medium heat while you chop the garlic. Add garlic and spices and saute for a few minutes, being careful not to burn the garlic.
Remove bay leaves and use an immersion blender to smooth onion. Feel free to skip this step if you like onions. But if you don't (or are married to someone who doesn't like me) this is a great way to add onion flavor without the textural mishap.
Add veggies and cook for a few minutes, then add tomato* and broth and 1 1/2 cups of water. Boil for 30-40 minutes. While it is boiling, cut the fish into small pieces and prepare the shrimp. Right before you are ready to serve it, throw in the fish and shrimp and continue on a low boil for 3-5 minutes. I used still frozen fish, but it may take less cooking with fresh fish.
Turn the heat down to low and serve when ready.
Joe said a nice crusty piece of bread would have made a good accompaniment, but I think the soup was hearty enough on its own.
*A note about canned tomatoes: Most people have caught on that BPA, which is used when making plastics can act as a hormone disruptor in humans. It's why we don't drink from polycarbonate plastic water bottles anymore, right? Well, unfortunately we actually get most BPA in our system from canned foods and (this is really scary) carbon copy receipts. The more acidic the canned food, the more likely the can is lined with BPA.
The solution? Buy tomatoes from a glass jar. I finally found some made my bionaturae.
This is the first in a series of blog posts about our Aug. 2007 trip to Iceland. All posts can be found by typing "Iceland" in the search bar.
I figured it was about time I blogged about Iceland.
We tried to sleep on the flight to Iceland because we knew when we arrived it would be morning and several hours off of our schedule of when morning was, so we wanted to be as rested as possible. But, honestly, it was hard to sleep beyond all the normal reasons it's hard to sleep on a plane. I was excited.
We picked up our rental car at the airport and headed to Reykjavik, where we had breakfast. It was the most expensive meal of our entire trip and consisted of what we'd consider a pretty normal breakfast buffet of eggs, sausage, potatoes, breads, jams, butter, milk, juice, cereal and apples and oranges. Iceland, you have a beautiful country, but your food, frankly, stinks. It isn't really your fault, though, because only 1% of your land is tillable soil and you're far away from everything else.
As we left Reykjavik we wandered down a long street that bordered the bleak sea, dark rocks and road made from those dark rocks separated us from the sea. We realized we weren't going the right way and Joe stopped to ask this woman walking her dog for directions. They chatted for quite some time. I think because she really didn't know which way to tell us to go.
We headed out but quickly grew tired, so pulled onto a large gravel parking area and took a nap in the car. Finally, we headed to Geysir, the geyser after which all others are named. Now elderly, Geysir erupts only about twice a day and sits watching over the much more regular, Strokkur.
(view large for full effect)
Then, with little sun left to light our way we headed to Gullfoss, a large nearby waterfall.
There was a long path to a visitor center where we found this diagram that explains how the falls was made:
We used the final shards of sunlight to find Storinupur, the farm where we were staying. Though it was only one family's farm it had its own road sign, just like larger towns. There was also a church nestled into the short hillside with it.
We ate something, pushed our twin beds together and went to sleep.
We launched a new section at work, which has been eating my time like a very hungry caterpillar, but I wanted to throw up a picture I took in Iceland.
I'm also working on a website, so stay tuned.
Here is a sampling of what we have done on our trip so far (you may need to use google to get the full picture):- Seen the sights in the golden circle (geysir and gulfoss)- Seen Pingvellir National Park (where Europe and the Americas are slowly growing apart, physically not metaphorically) - Climbed to the volcanic crater of Mt. Hengill (inactive, we think)- Walked behind Seljalandsfoss and walked to the top of Skogafoss- Hiked the Skaftashedl Loop, seeing both glaciers including the great Vatnajokull, the largest ice cap in Europe and the third largest in the world - Walked on Snivafellsjokull, part of vatnajokull, using crampons and ice axes- Had lovely lobster pizza and lobster pasta in Hofn (pronounced "hup" as though you are hiccuping)- Drove the windiest and windiest roads you can ever imagine (yes, those are two different words) - Seen LOTS of sheep — shy ones, white ones, black ones, brown ones, brave ones, a few that really liked the grass near the road, and a few that even met us on the road.Pictures when we return. Hope everyone is well.
