Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 100g plain flour (sifted)

• 2 eggs

• 300ml milk

• Pinch of salt

• Butter

• Optional - Spring flowers (hawthorn, elderflower etc) or finely chopped blanched greens (nettles, rocket, spinach etc)

Method:

Whisk together the flour, eggs, milk and salt until smooth. Stir in any extras, if using.

Melt some butter in a pan and add a ladle full of batter to the pan.

Cook for a minute or 2 on each side, until golden brown.

If you have a sweet tooth, serve with honey. Nettle and honey is lovely.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon 

Braggot

Take a look at my older post on the basics of homebrewing if you are new to the subject here

Ingredients:

• 30g hops

• 1362g honey

• 500g amber malt extract

• 12 pints water

• 1 teaspoon Wine yeast

Method:
Put the hops into a large pan and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile put your honey and malt extract into a large, sterilised bucket or fermentation bin. Strain the hop water through a muslin cloth into the fermentation bin.

Stir well to dissolve all the honey and malt extract. Pour in 6 pints of cold water and stir.

Check your gravity, it should be around 1060. If not you can adjust up or down by adding more honey or water, as necessary. This should give you a braggot around 7.8%.

Add your yeast and leave to ferment for 2 to 3 weeks.

Don’t forget to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

Sterilise your bottles.

Add a ½ teaspoon of honey to each bottle and siphon the beer into the bottles. Cap the bottles (or use swing tops) and place somewhere warm for 2 days before moving to somewhere cool.The braggot should be ready to drink in 2 weeks, 3 is better.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available on Amazon now

Flat Bread

Ingredients:

• 100g bread flour + a little extra

• 2g salt

• 60 ml water (give or take)

• Optional – Small bunch of roughly chopped herbs or fruit/nuts, for example; nettles/rosemary/walnuts or a tsp of fennel/cumin seed etc

Method:

Put the flour and salt into a large bowl and mix together.

Add any extras (if using) and slowly add the water and mix together to form a workable dough. You can add more or less water depending on how your dough feels. I find it varies slightly every time.

Tip out onto your worktop, dust your hands with flour and knead for 5 minutes.

Roll the dough into a ball and dust with a little flour.

Flatten to around 0.5-1 cm thick.

Cook for 3 or 4 minutes on each side in a hot frying pan, without any oil.

This recipe is taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon

Getting started with homebrew

The first rule of making any kind of brew, is to make sure you sterilise everything. Buckets, bottles, siphons – everything that comes into contact with your brew. You can buy sterilising powder in home-brew shops, Wilko’s or online. Follow the directions on the packet and clean everything thoroughly.

Once clean, rinse the equipment well.

The next thing is to make sure you have a hydrometer. These are cheap to buy and will help you to know when your brew is finished fermenting. It will also enable you to estimate the alcohol content of your finished brew.

• Take a reading before you add your yeast. This is known as the Original gravity or OG

• Take another at the end. This is known as the Final gravity or FG

• Using a simple formula, (OG – FG) x 0.13 = %, you can then figure out the alcohol content of your finished brew

• For example if your original gravity is 1080 and your final gravity is 1000, then using the formula (1080 – 1000) x 0.13 = 10.4% alcohol content

The original gravity of most wines and meads should start at around 1050 – 1100

The original gravity for beer should start at around 1040

The higher the number, the higher the potential alcohol content of your brew, however this is also limited by the type of yeast used.

Your brew will either finish fermenting when the yeast runs out of food (sugar) or when the alcohol content is too high for the yeast to live in.

When your brew stops bubbling, or slows to less than 1 bubble a minute, use the hydrometer to see if your brew is finished fermenting. Move your brew somewhere warm and check the gravity over a period of 3 days and if the reading doesn’t change, fermentation has stopped.

At this stage there are a few optional things you can add to your brew. The first 2 things are fermentation stopper, and campden tablets. These are generally added at the same time to wine, mead and cider, and help to stabilise the alcohol by killing off any yeast that might still be hanging around. They also help to prevent any bacterial growth during the ageing process. Add these as per the packet instructions, usually you’ll need to stir your brew daily for 3 days after adding, which will also help to remove any trapped co2.

The next thing is bentonite. This is a naturally occurring clay that draws particles from the alcohol and settles it to the bottom of your container. This clears the alcohol, so you can siphon your liquid into a new container or bottle to prevent a hazy wine.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon 

The Kidnap of Idun

Odin, Loki and Hoenir had been travelling for some weeks. The area of mountains they were in was particularly scarce of anything to eat, so the gods were hungry.

One afternoon they happened upon a herd of Oxen.

‘Ah. Finally’ said Odin ‘I didn’t think we could go much farther without food’

So they got to work slaughtering the animal. Odin made quick work of it, and by the time he was done Loki had lit a fire.

Several hours later the meat still had not cooked. The Gods were confused.

They noticed a large eagle perched in a nearby tree staring intently at them.

‘It is I, who prevents your meat from cooking. Let me have my fill and I will release the spell that prevents its cooking’

Hoenir was angry ‘who are you, that thinks you can mess with us in this manor? Very well, as you leave us no choice, take what you must’

The eagle flew down and pulled off all the finest cuts of meat.

At this Loki flew into a rage, picked up a large branch and swung at the bird. But the eagle was so enormous it caught the branch in its talons and dragged Loki up into the sky. What Loki hadn’t realised is the bird was none other than the giant Thjazi.

By the time they were up in the clouds Loki was really not happy, he begged and pleaded with the eagle to take him back down.

‘Very well’ said Thjazi ‘but on one condition’.

‘anything’ cried Loki ‘just please put me down.’

‘OK’ said the eagle ‘Bring me Idun, and her magical fruits that keep the Gods looking so youthful.’

After some time, the Gods completed their journey back to Asgard and Loki paid a visit to Idun.

‘Idun, I have news’ called Loki ‘Beyond the walls of Asgard we found trees covered in the most wonderful fruits. You should come at once to see them, I think they may be even better than yours. It’s probably best that you bring yours along, so that we can compare them.’

And so Idun followed Loki to the woods where she was snatched up by Thjazi, the giant and flown to Thrymheim, the icy mountain region he called home.

It didn’t take long for the Gods to notice that Idun was missing. Their hair was quickly greying and their skin was becoming wrinkled.

The last person that anyone saw with Idun was Loki and it didn’t take many threats for him to come clean about where she was.

‘Trickster! You will return Idun to us safely, by nightfall’ shouted Odin ‘if you fail in this task, you will leave me no choice but to sentence you to death’.

Loki borrowed Freya’s hawk feathers and flew to Thrymheim. It happened that Thjazi was out fishing when he arrived, so he turned Idun into a nut, picked her up in his talons and flew her home.

When Thjazi returned home and noticed Idun was missing, he flew after Loki in his eagle form. Just as Loki was almost back to Asgard he turned around and spotted Thjazi right behind him.

But the other gods had noticed too. They had built a huge pile of wood around their home and, as Loki flew over it, the Gods set fire to it. Thjazi had no time to notice and flew straight into the flames and was engulfed immediately.

Idun was home safe and that was the end of the giant Thjazi.

Rosemary & Bay Beer

Before hops were common in beer brewing, herbs such as rosemary and nettles would have been used.

If you substitute the rosemary and bay for 35g of dried hops you can also make a simple hop beer.

For more authentic brewing, leave out the sugar, as this would not have been available. You could add honey instead, but this will be more like a braggot.

Without sugar the beer will be a lot weaker, maybe 1 or 2 percent, and so will not keep for long. This would have been made frequently and drunk within a few days at most.

Ingredients:

• 5 rosemary sprigs

• 10 bay leaves

• 500g amber malt extract

• 375g sugar

• 12 pints of water

• Beer yeast (or Young’s super wine yeast extract)

Method:

Put the rosemary and bay leaves into a large pan and cover with 6 pints of water, boil for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile put your sugar and malt extract into a fermentation bin. Strain the rosemary and bay water through a muslin cloth into the fermentation bin.

Stir well to dissolve all the sugar and malt extract.

Pour in 6 pints of cold water and stir. Make a note of the gravity, it should be around 1040.

Add your yeast and leave to ferment for 3 weeks. Whilst a lot of recipes state much shorter times I find the beer benefits from this extended time.

Don’t forget to check your final gravity, if you haven’t already and want to know the percentage of alcohol in your brew.

Add a level teaspoon of sugar to each beer bottle and siphon the beer into the bottles. Cap the bottles (or use swing tops) and place somewhere warm for 2 days before moving to somewhere cool.

The beer should be ready to drink in 2 weeks, 3 is better.

Thors wedding

Thor’s hammer was lost. Well, when I say lost, I mean Loki had ‘misplaced’ it - with a giant.

In order to get it back, Loki promised the giant Thrym that he would give him the beautiful Freya’s hand in marriage.

‘She’ll never agree to that’ said Thor, as Loki explained his plan.

‘She won’t need to’ replied Loki ‘put on this dress….and this lipstick’

And that’s how Thor ends up married to Thrym, spending the reception of the wedding eating all the food and drinking all the mead. I’d like to say they lived happily ever after, but, well, there was still the issue of Thor’s ‘misplaced’ hammer.

Thrym was looking concerned. ‘Freya really does eat and drink a lot!’

‘It’s fine’ said Loki. Freya has been sooo sick with nerves over marrying you, she hasn’t eaten all week!’

‘Of course!’ Said Thrym ‘That makes sense. I am rather handsome. Are her eyes usually that red?’

Er...no It’s just, well. Erm…. she hasn’t been able to sleep with all the preparations for the wedding.

Ah yes, of course!

Listen Thrym, I can call you Thrym, can’t I? We are friends after all? What Freja really wants to see - as YOUR wife, is something really special. Maybe a rarity, a jewel, a certain ...mjolnir?’

‘Well, of course. Anything for my darling’ said Thrym.

And this is how Thor got within range of his hammer. And that's all he needed. Swiftly he drew the mighty mjolnir upwards, striking Thrym cleanly on the chin. Before bringing it down, crushing his skull.

He looked around the room at the Wedding guests and grinned. ‘who’s next?’

Sourdough starter

A sourdough starter is a simple way of making bread without using shop bought yeast, instead you rely on naturally occurring yeasts.

This is great for making Rye bread and Sourdough. It gives an amazing flavour to the bread.

You can use any flour to make your starter.

One way to get a starter is to acquire a bit from somebody you know that already has some and just maintain the feeding cycle. Its easy to make your own starter, using naturally occurring yeast from the air in your Kitchen. You will need a large container, I use a container designed for holding a bag of flour, but have also used large kilner jars.

You will also need flour and warm water. I don’t tend to measure what I add but you are looking for a thick batter, so around 50/50 works well. Give it a good whisk, cover loosely and set it aside – Don’t forget it is going to be fermenting so don’t clip your lid on.

After a couple of days you should see signs of fermentation, tiny bubbles, like the image at the top of the page. If you smell it, it should be taking on a sharp, almost vinegary smell.

Add some more flour and water, whisk and set it aside again. Remember that your starter is now a living thing, so, like you, it needs feeding and watering regularly, I do it every couple of days.

You can remove some of your starter, as you wish, which makes a great opportunity to bake some bread with it! Wait a week to 10 days for the starter to establish properly before trying to bake with it. If you are unable to feed your starter for a period of time, stick it in the fridge. It should keep without being fed for about a week.

Taken from my book ‘Eat like a Viking!’ Available now on Amazon