Rakfisk



Rakfisk ( pronounced ) is a traditional eastern Norwegian dish made from trout or sometimes char, salted and fermented for two to three months, then eaten without cooking.

Etymology
Rak derives from the word rakr in Norse language, meaning "moist" or "soaked" (Falk and Torp: "Etymologisk ordbok over det norske og det danske sprog", 1906). The word descends from Proto-Indo-European req, which means "source" or "drop", and is the root of "rain" and "irrigation". Fisk is the Norse word for "fish".

Preparation
Rakfisk is made from fresh trout or char, preferably over 750g. Remove the gills and guts and rinse well so that all the blood is gone. Scrub the blood stripe with a fish brush. Rinse the fish and put it in vinegar solution for about half an hour. Let the fish rest and the vinegar run off for a while. Then place the fish in a bucket with straight sides, close side-by-side with the abdomen facing up. Fill the abdomen with sea salt (60g per kilogram of fish). Some sprinkle tiny amounts of sugar on the fish to speed up the "raking", but not more than a pinch for each layer of fish.

Then place the fish under pressure with a lid that fits down into the bucket and a weight on top. The rakfisk bucket is put in a cold place (a stable temperature at about 4 degrees Celsius is the best, but it should be below 8 degrees Celsius at least). After a couple of days you should check if the fish is brined. If not enough fluid has formed to completely cover the fish, add salt brine containing 40g salt per litre of water. Some place the fish at a higher temperature for some days to make it brine better, but one should be very careful with this. Leave the rakfisk for two to three months. Rakfisk is well conserved in the brine. When the fish is appropriately "rak", you can put it into a fresh 4% salt brine, which will slow down the "raking" process. Another method for slowing it down is to put the tub in the freezer (or outside if cold enough) for some time. As long as the fish is lying in the brine it will not freeze.

Note that all recipes for rakfisk states that the fish must never be in contact with soil. This is very important because of the risk of the wrong bacteria growing in the fish, especially Clostridium botulinum which causes botulism.

Eating
The finished product does not need cooking but is eaten as it is. Rakfisk is usually served sliced or as a fillet with raw red onion, lefse, sour cream, and almond potatoes. Some also use mustard-sauce, a mild form of mustard with dill. Although not an everyday meal, approximately 500 tonnes of rakfisk are consumed in Norway annually.

It is not recommended that Rakfisk be eaten by people with a reduced immune defense or by pregnant women.

Origin
The rakfisk dish is related to the Swedish surströmming and probably shares its origin in Scandinavian culture. When people first started eating rakfisk is controversial. The first record of the term rakfisk dates back to 1348, but the history of this food is probably even older.

References and external links

 * Rakfisk (Norwegian)
 * Rakfisk and botulism

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