Louise Mérus loves simple, but really tasty food. Here are two salad bravuras.
A good example is an entrepreneur and a chef by Louise Mérus about food philosophy is a salad made of potatoes and smoked herring.
In Mérus’s dish made of smoked herring, potato and egg, the good ingredients get to shine, because the food is simple. besides this, the food is also very tasty. Browned butter, which finishes the whole thing, takes care of that at the latest.
Making browned butter is not difficult. Mérus encourages it, because the nutty taste of the butter is very delicious. Browned butter is a gimmick you can use to add flavor to any food.
If you can’t find smoked herring at the fish counter, and you don’t want to smoke it yourself, you can very well replace the herring with another smoked fish.
The sauce kick also guarantees the wonderful taste of the Christmas salad. The salad is topped with vinaigrette and nuts. These give it its own delicious extra flavor.
In her childhood home in Kirkkonummi, Louise Mérus runs the company Danskarby, which offers, among other things, cooking courses. Jenni Gästgivar
In addition to the Nordic countries, many of Mérus’ recipes have influences from a completely different country and culture. In 1995, he moved with his childhood family to South Africa, where he also attended the prestigious Gordon Bleu cooking school.
Nowadays, Mérus lives with his family in Finland and runs the company Danskarby, which offers various courses, in his childhood home in Kirkkonummi.
The Mérus family still travels to South Africa almost every Christmas. So this year too.
– Our eve is really Finnish, i.e. quite traditional. The table includes, among other things, herring, grayling salmon, roe and ham. Instead of a bow box, my mother makes a box out of a musk gourd.
Seafood such as oysters, lobster and fish are often served on Christmas Day. They are served with salad and local “champagne”, i.e. sparkling wine made with the Cap Classique method.
Browned butter completes the dish. Jenni Gästgivar
Smoked herring with potatoes, egg, capers and browned butter
300 g smoked herring
2–3 slices of Malax loaves
about 100 g of Västerbotten cheese
400 g of potatoes
4 boiled eggs
pickled red onion (see recipe)
browned butter (see recipe)
100 g of sour cream or sour cream
1 tablespoon capers
1. Peel and boil the potatoes for about 15–20 minutes, depending on the size. Allow to cool. Split and chop.
2. Boil the eggs until half-hard (7–8 minutes), rinse with cold water, peel and split.
3. Remove the skin and reeds from the smoked salmon. Arrange the fillets on a serving dish. Add the potatoes and eggs around the smoked herring.
4. Cut the Västerbotten cheese and the Malax ball into small cubes and sprinkle over the fish.
5. Spoon the crème fraîche around the servings. Add marinated red onion and capers.
Marinated red onion
0.5 dl vinegar (12%)
1 dl sugar
1.5 dl of water
2–3 red onions
1. Mix vinegar, sugar and water in a bowl.
2. Peel and slice the red onions thinly, preferably with a mandoline.
3. Put the onions in the broth, mix and transfer to a jar. Close with a lid and let it set in the fridge for at least an hour.
Browned butter
80 g of butter
1. Brown the butter in a saucepan, stirring, until it gets a light brown color and a nutty aroma (approx. 125 degrees).
2. Pour butter over the servings just before serving. Finish with dill and black pepper.
Christmas salad
2 oranges
100 g of fresh kale
1 fennel
about 100 g of red cabbage
4 fresh figs, in blocks
half a small silver onion, thinly sliced
1. Peel the oranges with a knife so that the white peel part (albedo) is removed and the flesh remains visible. Cut into blocks and squeeze the remaining juices into the vinaigrette.
2. Tear the kale leaves into smaller pieces. Rub them lightly with oil and a pinch of salt to soften the texture.
3. Slice the fennel and red cabbage into thin slices (using a mandoline if you like). Also slice the silver onion into thin rings. Cut the figs into blocks.
4. Combine the kale, fennel, red cabbage, orange wedges, figs and onions in a bowl.
5. Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and mix gently.
6. Sprinkle caramelized nuts on top just before serving.
Saffron vinaigrette
0.5 dl olive oil
2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar
0.25 g saffron (about half a packet)
half a clove of garlic, finely grated
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of salt
0.5 tsp black pepper
Juice of 2 oranges
1. Mix all the vinaigrette ingredients together in a small bowl.
2. Finally, add orange juice to taste and mix well.
Sugar nuts
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon of butter
1 dl walnuts or pecans
1. Melt the sugar in a frying pan over medium heat. Add butter and nuts. Bake until the nuts get a nice golden brown color and the sugar caramelizes around them.
2. Pour the nuts onto baking paper to cool.