In addition to decorating mountains of gingerbread and sugar cookies, a beloved Christmas tradition in my family was eating lefse on Christmas Eve. My Norwegian Great Grandmother would cook the thin potato pancakes every year in her tiny apartment on a piping hot griddle. As soon as the pancake was golden and toasted, we would slather on some salty butter and sprinkle a bit of crunchy sugar.
Vincent Van Gogh, Still Life with Potatoes in a Yellow Dish, 1888
oil on canvas, 39 x 47 cm, Otterlo, Kröller-Müller Museum
I am so particularly fond of this dish that I searched for it on the every restaurant menu I passed while travelling in Oslo. Later I found out that the dish, as I know it, is enjoyed by Norwegian-Americans living in the Midwest United States.
Although Still Life with Potatoes in a Yellow Dish was created during Van Gogh's time in Arles, he abandoned the vivid colour that dominated the works from this period and instead returned to the sombre earth tone palette found in his earlier paintings. The lumpy potatoes are aesthetically similar to the lumpy peasants he painted several years earlier in The Potato Eaters. Traditionally the potato was used to represent poverty and was commonly found in 19th century still life paintings. When potatoes were first introduced to Europe in the 16th century they were predominantly used to feed cattle and often were the source of poisonings when the stems and leaves where inadvertently eaten.
makes a dozen medium size pancakes
3 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 stick of butter
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
Place the peeled and quartered potatoes in a pot of boiling water and cook until tender. Drain and mash well until smooth. Place mashed potatoes in freezer until cooled.
Melt the butter and add the milk, sugar, and salt. Mix well and add to the chilled potatoes. Stir well and add flour until a thick dough is formed similar to a pie crust. On a very well floured surface with a floured rolling pin, roll out egg sized portions of the dough into very thin pancakes.
Place a griddle or frying pan on high heat but do not add any butter or oil. Place the pancake on the dry pan and cook for about one minute until golden spots appear. Flip and cook the other side for an additional minute. Continue this process with the rest of the dough.
Serve with butter and a sprinkling of sugar (also nice with a bit of cinnamon). Roll into a log and eat immediately.
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Hey Megan, so cool to see you featured on the kitcn.com, you deserve it, your posts are so unique and cool :).
Your fan, Heavenly Housewife :D
my slovak mom used to make this all the time with leftover mashed potatoes. add flour to the potatoes 'until they can't take any more,' fire up the broiler, roll out & flatten the mashed potato dough, slip under the hot broiler for less than a minute--when it gets brown flip it & brown the other side. brush with melted butter. food of the gods! (we called it gruoubniki--pro: grew ob nee kee--but i've NEVER been able to google it because i can't spell it : )
Yeah, lefse these days is the sole purview of Scandinavian-American immigrants. Like lutefisk and rommegrot, it is famine/poor people food from the 1860s-1880s. Modern Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes don't eat it any more, except as squares wrapped around hot dogs. Don't ask me why.
A lefse turning stick is often helpful, as is a lefse griddle (a giant round one on legs) and lefse board (again, giant round wooden board covered with canvas to roll the dough out thin).
I miss lefse. My heritage is Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish (and that's it) and we always had it for special occasions back home. If you don't feel like making it yourself, Freddy's Lefse in West Fargo, ND (google it) makes the best store-bought stuff I've ever had. Try and get it fresh. The older it gets, the drier it gets.
Just a note on the toppings - "real" Norwegians (or so I've been told) only eat it with butter - no sugar. Swedes do butter & sugar. Other variations are with brown sugar or jam. I'm partial to butter & sugar myself. Must be the Swede in me. : )
So glad to see this on the Kitchn, but I don't think any Scandinavian has ever called it "lefse potato pancakes." They're more like crepes, anyway. It's just lefse. : )
The way I've had Lefse was a little different than this. I've had it a number of times in Norway and from my Norweign friends. I've had it as layers and layers of Lefse. That you would peel off and eat cold. My memory is failing as if the layers already had the butter and sugar in between or if we added that later. But it definitely involved butter AND sugar. Do you know if this recipe would work that same way, cold? I would love to make this as it was one of my favorite edibles from Norge.
do you use starchy or waxy potatoes?
My Mother-in-law made this for our Scandinavian-themed wedding (his family is Norwegian, mine Danish) and it was a big hit. She did rolls with butter and sugar, sliced into 1" rounds, served at room temp.
I've also never heard it referred to as anything other than "lefse." "Potato pancakes" (in WI, at least) refer only to the German-influenced shredded potato cakes that are fried and served with applesauce, sour cream and/or maple syrup on Friday-night fish fry. They are nothing like lefse.
Starchy potatoes should work best. My family used to make lefse every year, and while I haven't made it in a while, I know that many of my relatives have begun using potato flakes (like for instant mashed potatoes). A google search should turn up the recipe. I miss lefse, but I sure don't miss the lutefisk that used to accompany it!
Hi Everyone, thanks for the comments.
We always only called it just lefse also but every time I would speak about it to someone who didnt grow up with the dish they would be very confused. I simply included the 'potato pancake' description for all of the readers who are not of Scandinavian descent.
At home we cook it on the traditional griddle with the sticks. Because I am currently living in Australia I found that I could substitute the cooking materials with a frying pan and spatula.
@deensiebat I used a starchy potato. Just use whatever you would make mashed potatoes with.
I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!
I just picked up some lefse at our coop tonight; one benefit of living in Minnesota. We'll be enjoying Norwegian 'breakfast burritos' (scrambled eggs and cheese rolled in warm lefse) tomorrow morning.
As Patti Kay mentions, we can pick it up here at the grocery stores, which is great. I love using it instead of tortillas for tacos. Also very good with Jelly.
We also have a booth at our state fair that sells lefse with a variety of yummy fillings. One of my favorites.
OMG LEFSE. This is the first year in many that I haven't made it. We have a lefse griddle (must have for the high temperature), two lefse rolling pins (with socks), and a homemade lefse stick. We don't use a board - I just stretch and tape the cloth down to the counter instead. We eat it with butter and sugar.
Lefse can also be made without potatos. Very light and yummy, but I still prefer the potato version.
We live in Florida where the humidity can really mess things up. So we use potato flakes for the mashed potatos so the water content can be more carefully controlled. If you have to add too much flour, they can get tough. This year the day was particularly weird and humid, so I ended up needing to put so much flour in that I pitched the batch and said forget it. I like my lefse rolled out translucently thin and with as little flour in it as possible.
YUM.
My family does lefse every thanksgiving and xmas, served with jam. YUM.
I actually brought the leftovers in to work today and sadly no one is eating it. : (
Lefse should not be wasted on people who don't understand it anyway! :)
It can be frozen for later instead!
My hubby let me buy a potato ricer when I said I would make him lefse if I had one. It's nice to see you post the recipe without the "requisite" lefse pan and lefse sticks and lefse magic wand and all that.
For 6 years, my husband and I lived in a little town on the prairies. Like the fictional Lake Woebegon, it was founded by Norwegians (as well as some Danes). The trash receptacles and benches on Main Street were rosemaled, every Christmas there were Lutefisk suppers, and there was a Lefse House, serving lefse, hardanger, krum kake, rosettes (my favourite), sandbakkes... We became real lefse afficionados!
It's still there, if you ever find yourself on the Canadian prairies:
http://www.thelefsehouse.ca/index.php
p.s. The Lefse House ships!!
I am a young Norwegian woman, and lefse is that kind of traditional food our grandparents still make and eat, or the people who live at farms on the countryside or in small towns in the mountains of Norway eat. It is very rare that a modern norwegian family makes or eats lefse. But- there are two exeptions from that "rule". Something called Vestlandslefse is incredibly popular, and is sold in most shops throughout the country, in cafees and in gas stations. It is a ready made sweet lefse with cinnamon, butter and icing sugar, folded together in a small package. Tastes SO good! http://orddeling.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/vestlands-lefsa/
And we also have something called Lompe, which ALL norwegians use every time we eat hotdogs, wienerwürst, or sausages- which we do all the time! It is made exactly like lefse, except the lompe has a round shape, and we put ketchup and mustard on the hotdog, and wrap the lompe around. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pølse_med_lompe.jpg
Just thought I'd fill you in on that! :)
Oh! Lefse is one of my favorite things! My Grandma makes this every Christmas and only at Christmas. I really need to learn how to make it.