They made it look so easy and it was really easy...when you had two experienced lefse makers standing right next to you, giving you step-by-step hints and instructions. It's slightly harder on your own. Especially if you let a month go by and can't remember what the heck you're doing! But it all eventually turned out and it actually was a really fun way to spend an afternoon. And my husband is delighted with me (more so with the lefse, I guess.) So if you want to give it a whirl...here's how you do it!
First, you need some supplies:
Things you should have:
- Large Bowl
- Bath towels
- One cup measure
- 1/2 cup measure
- 1/3 cup measure
- One tablespoon measure
- Cookie Sheet
- Butter knife
- Dish towels
Things you might not have-
- Potato Ricer
- Grooved Rolling Pin
- 2 Lefse sticks (We only had one, and we made it work okay.)
- Griddle (They actually make lefse grills...for $100. We used our pancake griddle and it worked fine.)
- Cloth covered top for rolling (We just stapled a pastry cloth to our wooden cutting board. Worked great.)
And the ingredients:
- 5 lb. Idaho Potatoes
- Lots of flour
- 1/2 cup plain Crisco
- 3 T. Salt
1. Peel the potatoes and cook.
2. While hot, rice into the large bowl. Then immediately mix in 1/2 cup shortening.
3. Cover with a dish towel and refrigerate overnight.
4. The next day, add in 3 cups of flour, 3 T. salt and mix well.
5. Portion out with the 1/3 cup measure. It should make about 2 1/2 dozen.
6. Roll into balls (look for cracks and squeeze them together). Put the balls on a tray that has flour on it so they don't stick.
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| Liliana was allowed to "help" with the ball making. After that, we waited until naptime because she would have been a disaster with all of that flour around! |
8. Make sure your cloth covered board is well, WELL floured. (Recoat the board with flour often...you really can't use too much flour it seems.) Put one of the balls on it and pat it down a little bit. Coat it with a little flour and make sure it's round. Then roll.
Side-note: I'm a bit of a perfectionist (that might be an understatement). I won't even attempt something if I don't think I'll rock at it and hate when others see me fail. So I start rolling out the first ball of dough, and it was an epic fail. Epic. It was squarish and had holes in it and was stuck to the board in spots. Jeremy leans over and says to me, "Isn't it supposed to be round?" Nice. You can imagine the look I gave him while I shouted "YES AND MAYBE IF I WAS A 90 YEAR OLD NORWEGIAN WOMAN, IT WOULD BE!" My mother-in-law chose that moment to walk into the kitchen to see how things were going and was promptly booted out of said kitchen until I managed to figure out what the heck I was doing. I got better with practice.
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| Look Jeremy...it's ROUND!!! |
9. This part is a bit tricky...you need to transfer the lefse from the board to the griddle. This is where the lefse sticks come in. It's easier to show than explain:
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| Put the stick on top, and flip the edge over. It tears easily, so be gentle. |
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| Turn the stick, rolling the dough around it. Use a butter knife to follow along in case any parts are sticking. |
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| The lefse should be wrapped up around the stick and you carry it over to your handsome lefse cooker. |
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| Handsome lefse cooker than unrolls it onto the griddle. The second it starts touching the griddle it gets really soft, so you have to do it kind of quick. |
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| I rolled while Jeremy cooked. It worked out really well this way. I would not attempt making lefse with only one person |
11. Stack in a pile between bath towels (I bet you were wondering what those were for!) The towels help it cool slower, trap in moisture and therefore prevents brittle edges.
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| As they cool, fold them in fourths and stack as shown, so the edges cover each other up...which also keeps it from getting brittle. |
Lefse freezes really well. We put ours four to a bag and froze most of it to take out for holiday gatherings. Whatever wasn't immediately devoured by the family that is....turns out Liliana loves lefse just like Daddy!!!
Tomorrow's post...Lutefisk!
KIDDING! I draw the line at that one.
Wow! That's a lot of work! Now that you made it, how do you serve it or is it just eaten that way.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the guys who led the workshop there are endless ways to eat lefse. :-) Basically, they said that it can do anything a tortilla can do...only better. :-P Jeremy likes his with butter and sugar and warmed up. Some people put brown sugar or cinnamon on it. Or of course, you can go totally Scandinavian and put lingonberry jam on it.
ReplyDeleteMy family puts butter, cinnamon and sugar...Dave's family eats it with dark karo syrup (disgusting!! don't try it!)
ReplyDeleteWe went to a lefse making workshop at the church we went to in Duluth and were taught a MUCH easier way to move the lefse. I found a youTube video, she is the SLOWEST lefse roller on the planet (in her defense, her lefse is very round) so skip 2 and a half minutes into the video which is where she starts moving it.
Basically, you take the lefse stick and using the point you carefully slide it under the middle of the round and carefully slide it outwards, then repeat going the opposite direction. Then you can slide it in the middle and pick it up to transfer it to the grill. Works like a charm!
I would love to try your recipe, ours is much different!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNmPmlfLjFo