Making Lutefisk for the Holidays

 Well now that the election is over, it is time to celebrate.  The holidays are coming and there is one thing that saxophone players all agree on, it is that lutefisk is required for fete and frolic.  Well, they may not all agree, but it is universal at my house.  My Grandma Olsen was Swedish.  She convinced all of her grandchildren that they were Swedish ("Eat this, you'll like it.  It's Swedish like you.")  I was probably in college when I finally figured out that I'm more English than Swedish.  But by then it was too late.  No way would I eat something made with kidneys.  But a fish that was caught on the other side of the world, dried out three years ago, soaked in lye, boiled and then smothered with butter?  Sign me up.

The town I grew up in had enough Scandinavians that it was possible to get tørrfisk, the whole dried cod that forms the basis of lutefisk.  When the local fishmonger told my grandfather that he wasn't selling as much anymore and it would be the last year for tørrfisk, Grandpa bought all he could afford.  Like many traditional foods (sauerkraut, turnips, potatoes), I think that they became traditional because they kept so long during the winter.  In the 1300's when it was dark and snowing outside and you were down to your last candle, you would have been glad to have a turnip to gnaw on.  Then, with the passage of time (usually decades), you would look back fondly on those glorious evenings with the family gnawing on turnips by candlelight.  But it probably started out as a Y1K survivalist food.

Tørrfisk has to be one of the champions of preserved food.  When dried, a huge cod fish takes on the size, shape, and weight of a baseball bat.  When Grandpa cornered the market on dried cod, he put about 20 fish into the rafters of the unheated outbuilding where he kept his panel truck.  The tørrfisk was up there for years, dwindling down by a piece every Thanksgiving and another at Christmas.  Maybe there would be some dust and a few bird droppings on it, but nothing that would impair the processing, as we will see in a minute.

I have had lutefisk prepared by others.  Some people complain that lutefisk is a foul, fishy, Jello-like material.  It can be.  But it is like other uncommon dishes.  Take venison, for instance.  Some complain that venison is tough and rancid with a gamey flavor.  It can be if it wasn't handled and prepared properly.  Same with lutefisk.  It is easy to mess it up.  That happened one year at Grandma's house and she was not happy.  The "failure" came up for discussion every year thereafter.

So here goes with what I learned.  Not exactly a recipe, as this isn't an exact science.  First, the ingredients:

Tørrfisk
Lye

Wasn't that simple?  I know, most recipes include the amount of ingredients.  Well, how big is your tørrfisk?  Then I can tell you how much lye.  No tørrfisk, no lye.  Hah, hah, my favorite lutefisk joke!  For the traditional DIY lye method, see the final footnote.

Another complaint I hear is "I'm not eating anything made with lye."  Then don't read the label on your olives.  Lots of foods are fully or partially processed with lye.  I shouldn't list them because even more people will whine.  But I will anyway.  Bagels, pretzels, corn chips, ice cream, ramen noodles, mandarin oranges, Coca-cola, chocolate.  That's right.  Coke and chocolate.  The two basic food groups of the anti-lutefisk forces.

Google 'tørrfisk' for a picture of what a dried cod looks like.  Getting pictures is easy.  Getting your hands on some good tørrfisk isn't so easy.  Although you can actually buy it on Amazon, the prices are a little crazy.  Trying to buy it elsewhere online isn't so easy because many vendors sell only in large quantities (50 lb. bundles like Grandpa bought).  One of the easiest purchases is to buy it already cut into pieces.  That saves you having to cut up the pieces like I do using my electric Skill saw.  Be aware that when you buy the cut up pieces on Amazon, you will get tails (worthless) and gill plates (almost worthless).  Here is what my cut up pieces look like.

That doesn't look like very much fish, but now for the magic of lye.  I should say that lye is available in several versions.  Most of us are familiar with household lye, commonly used to clean out sewer drains.  Not very appetizing.  Also, I am told, not very safe.  Household lye, like the Red Devil brand, may contain things like asbestos or traces of heavy metals, as it is not intended for consumption.  Food grade lye is sold by its chemical name, sodium hydroxide or caustic soda.  Guess which one Grandpa used?  And I lived.  Now, where was I?

First, soak your pieces in fresh water, changing the water every day.   I put it on the back porch so that it stays sort of cool.  By the third day, the pieces should have increased in size.  This is also the time when the skin can be removed.  Although not required, I find that it is worth the effort because the fish will reconstitute more evenly when placed in the lye solution.  Best is to peel from the belly to the dorsal angling from front to back.  From keelson to truck and stem to stern for you boater types.  Using a pair of pliers, it is also possible to remove some of the fins and supporting bones.

Here is the first soak.

After the three day fresh water soak, take the pieces and put them in a glass jar or glazed ceramic crock.  If you put them in an aluminum pot, the pot won't be there in the morning.  That is because we are going to soak the dried cod in a fairly powerful lye solution.  How much lye?  Well that depends on how much water you use.  Put your water in a quart at a time and then, for the last quart, add about 1/4 teaspoon of lye* per total quarts to the final water.  I use a container that holds the three pieces shown above, I add two quarts of water, and then a final quart that has three/fourth teaspoon of lye dissolved in it.  

Here is where the reputation of lutefisk being like Jello begins.  Back when this delicacy was created, you could not purchase sodium hydroxide in a plastic bottle.  You needed to create a solution of caustic soda.  Traditionally, this was done by leaching it from ashes, specifically birch wood ashes.  That process made a fairly weak lye solution.  With lye pellets, a saturated solution has a PH of 13-14, enough to dissolve the skin on your hands, i.e., chemical burns.  At lower concentrations, the solution feels slippery like soap.  In fact, it can be one of the ingredients in soap due to the process of saponification (dissolving natural skin oils).  We are looking for a milder solution even though it takes longer soaking.  

Next, we do nothing.  For about 3 days.  Maybe 4, depending on the strength of your solution.  Where you place your caustic solution will also affect how long it should soak.  Grandma put hers in the unheated room at the back door of the house.  The same place she put the crock of sauerkraut.  Probably 50 degrees Fahrenheit and an olfactory experience when coming in the back door to visit Grandma (the front door was only used for "company," i.e., not family).  I put mine in the cold cabinet on my back porch.  The temperature there depends on the weather, but probably about 50 degrees average in October and then lower through the holidays.  So it takes longer to make lutefisk for Christmas than it does for the November presidential election (which isn't always a celebration).

This picture is actually prior to adding the lye.  You can see that the skin is still on the tørrfisk and it hasn't swollen yet.

Placing it right next to the white wine is perfect.  We aren't keeping it cool because of a concern that it can go bad.  The caustic soda will kill any germs, bacteria, raccoons, etc. that might get into it.  Keeping it cool allows for a slower and more uniform reconstitution of the tørrfisk.  Warmer conditions and strong lye concentrations reconstitute the exterior and thinner areas of the fish too fast.  If reconstituting the fish at warmer temperatures, we would likely "over-constitute" some parts, giving rise to the dreaded "Jello-like" reputation of lutefisk.

After three days (under my conditions) the partially hydrated cod has again approximately doubled in size and tripled in weight.  Assuming we paid $25 per pound for the tørrfisk, we have now reduced that cost to $8 per pound.  We are saving money and making lutefisk at the same time!  

I then pour out the lye solution and replaced it with plain water.  Do that every day for three to four days.  If not soaked in fresh water sufficiently, the residual lye will be weak enough so that it won't hurt you, but it will leave a soapy taste.  People sometimes claim that lutefisk has a soapy taste, another telltale sign that the lutefisk was not properly prepared.  It takes time.  The fish will continue to get larger even as the lye is soaked out.

Here is what the final soak looks like (notice that the skin has been removed).  I had switched to plain water when the tørrfisk had doubled in size from being in the lye solution.  The fish continues to expand although it is now going through the "rinse cycle" with fresh water.  Even the spine gets larger and the lutefisk is filling the jar.  Be careful using anything with a narrow neck!  The pieces are probably 5 times the original size and 20 times the original weight.  Now we have only paid $3 per pound for "fresh" lutefisk!  Fresh lutefisk is another one of my favorite lutefisk jokes.

Even though we took all precautions to not make the Jello-like version of lutefisk, we will have some exterior and thin areas that may have been over soaked.  The fix is quite simple if that troubles you.  Douse the lutefisk with salt prior to final preparation.  Lots of salt (rock salt works fine and it's cheap).  The salt will pull a lot of moisture out of any Jello-like areas, but not penetrate to the center where the lutefisk has just the right consistency.  

You need to dry the piece off as best you can and then pour salt over it.  The picture below shows that the salt has drawn out some of the moisture after less than a minute.  After a couple of minutes, rinse it off (don't worry about it too much) and drop the piece into boiling water.  The salt will dissipate into the boiling water and won't make the lutefisk too salty.  If you leave lutefisk in the salt overnight, it can absorb enough salt to make it quite salty (you have sort of made lutefisk bacalhau and might need to soak in fresh water again.)  

Also, don't worry too much about boiling it for a long time so that it is "done."  Lutefisk has already been "cooked" by the lye solution.  Basically all you are doing is heating it up in a few minutes.  That's why I like to start with room temperature lutefisk.  Faster heating of the center avoids the lutefisk sitting too long in the hot water.  Boiling for 20 minutes is the another way to ensure that most of it will have a soggy Jello consistency.  Lutefisk may be the only Scandinavian food that isn't prepared by simmering it on the stove all afternoon and evening.  It seems that everything else, from asparagus to zucchini, is traditionally boiled for a minimum of one hour.

Covered in salt to pull out some of the moisture.

I have read of lutefisk being prepared by putting it in the oven.  The one year that Grandma tried that was the year that the lutefisk had been over-soaked.  One would think that the oven heat would dry things out and get rid of the Jello problem.  Nope, it was a disaster.  The quick "salt cure" method might work if the pieces were rinsed off, but the stove top boiling method seems best.  Besides, there would usually be a turkey, ham, or lamb roast in the oven in preparation for the second course.

So what is this consistency that we are looking/cooking for?  Properly prepared lutefisk is surprisingly like fresh fish.  That must seem odd to those people who have only had the soapy Jello-like version.  But good lutefisk flakes into pieces just like fresh cod.  Well, almost.  It does have a more rubbery consistency than fresh cod and a different flavor.  But definitely not Jello-like.  The test:  If you need a knife, it was not soaked enough.  If you need a spoon, it was soaked too much.  

This blog has taken a little longer than I thought.  And tonight I'm having lutefisk (which is what made me think about writing a blog).  Time for dinner.  I'll post another blog about the one sauce with which I am familiar.  I have heard of a mustard sauce.  Never had it.  I've had just butter poured over hot lutefisk, which is what I do when I'm lazy.  But Grandma's pepper allspice sauce is still my favorite.  I'll try to remember to link to that blog when it is written.

*  Food grade lye is usually pellets about the size of small peas.  Therefore, a level teaspoon of them isn't the same as a teaspoon of finely powdered sodium hydroxide. Probably less.  It's just another problem of trying to come up with an exact recipe.  Time, temperature, and alkalinity all play into the final result.

The really traditional method uses hardwood ashes to create lye.  I use alder ashes.  I burn nothing but alder for several weeks in the fireplace and keep the ashes.  You want the grey powdery ashes, not the chunks of charcoal that are usually mixed in.  What, you want a recipe??  Okay, here goes.  Save enough ashes to fill a 5 gallon food grade bucket.  Pour 2 quarts of water into it (to keep the ashes from sticking in the bottom of the bucket).  Add ashes, water, ashes, water, etc.  You should have added about 3 gallons of water and the ashes should have turned into a slurry.  Wait 24 hours.

Use a stainless steel sieve or spoon to remove the floating charcoal pieces.  Pour off the liquid at the top of the bucket and let that settle.  You should have half a gallon or more.  It will look like dirty grey water.  You can heat this up on the stove and let it cool (for some reason this seems to settle out the fines faster) or just let it sit for a few hours.  Don't be too concerned as the fines left in the lye solution really don't cause any problems.

What you have made is a weak lye solution (wash your hands immediately if you get it on them).  All that means is it will take another day or two longer to soak out the fish than when using a stronger lye solution.  The very fine ashes will settle and you will be able to see the progress of the fish expanding.  The weaker and slower solution tends to eliminate the Jello problem on the thinner parts of the tørrfisk.  In fact, it is possible to partially reconstitute and use it to make a wonderful semi-lutefisk chowder.

The lye water will look a little murky, but the final rinses gets rid of all that.  Does it add a subtle smoky hint to a delicious lutefisk dinner?  Try it and see.