Category: Viking Food

Iceland is not simply a banquet for your eyes– it’s also a treat for your tastebuds. Wherever you go, you’ll experience brand-new flavours and ancient recipes, made with outstanding components expanded in the fresh air. From rye bread gelato to slow-roasted lamb, here are 7 typical Icelandic foods you need to try out your journey to Iceland. Verði þér að góðu– enjoy your meal!

1. Skyr

Eat like a real Icelander as well as take pleasure in a pot of skyr, the Icelandic yoghurt. This thick and velvety special has actually belonged to Icelandic cuisine for over a thousand years. Made from pasteurised skim milk as well as a germs society, it’s technically a sort of soft cheese, however it tastes more like Greek yoghurt with a milder flavour.

The best means to consume skyr is with milk, cream, jam, berries or fruit, although you can enjoy it au all-natural. It’s also fantastic in shakes, ice cream and cheesecake and also you can locate it in food store throughout the country.

2. Reykjavik’s Hotdog (pylsur).

They were when called “the most effective hot dogs on the planet” by Costs Clinton, and the Icelandic hot dog meets the case. You can discover pylsur (hot dogs) all over Reykjavik, yet one of the most preferred restaurant is Bæjarins Beztu Pylsur, which has actually been serving its well-known hotdogs since 1937.

Made from lamb, beef or pork, the hot dogs are served with tasty garnishes like mustard, catsup, deep-fried onions, raw onions as well as a velvety remoulade. If you can’t choose what to carry your pylsur, simply state “eina með öllu”, which means “one with every little thing”.

Our suggestion? Order two, given that you’ll most likely swallow down the very first one also promptly and you won’t intend to wait in the lengthy queues for one more!

3. Lamb.

Lamb is the ultimate active ingredient of Icelandic foods. The country has a few of the most effective lamb meat worldwide, as their lamb are allowed to roam capitals without fences. The lamb get to pick the most effective little bits of turf, moss and also berries to munch on as well as consume alcohol from sparkling glacier rivers. Their free-range diets (without grain and also growth hormones) produce tender as well as flavourful meat.

The most effective ways to consume Icelandic lamb is with soups, stews and sluggish roasts. Kjötsúpa is a tasty Icelandic lamb soup, made from a lamb shank, potatoes, turnips, carrots as well as onions, while a slow-roasted lamb is one of the most effective things to consume on a cool wintertime’s day.

If you’re really feeling adventurous, you can try svið (lamb’s head). This conventional Icelandic recipe is a sheep’s head halve as well as boiled. It stemmed from a time when individuals could not pay for to let any part of the pet go to waste.

4. Ice Cream.

Icelanders enjoy an excellent ice cream and they eat it all year long! It matters not if it’s rain, hail storm or shine, Icelanders are consumed with their gelato. You’ll locate it in gas stations, cafes and also supermarkets around the country, yet you can also go to some extraordinary specialty ice cream shops.

Several of the best ice cream stores in Reykjavik are Valdis, Ísbúð Vesturbæjar as well as Ísbúðin Laugalæk. You’ll reach taste all the flavours of the rainbow, from timeless vanilla to black liquorice.

5. Harðfiskur (dried out fish).

Harðfiskur (which essentially equates to ‘hard fish’) is a precious Icelandic food. It’s made from cod, haddock or wolffish which is dried in the cold Iceland air till it’s healed by germs. Citizens eat it as a high protein snack or snuffed in salt and also butter. It’s an excellent alternate to chips or popcorn at the films!

If you like beef jerky, you’ll most likely like the Icelandic fish variation, as well as you can discover it at nearly every supermarket in the country. Make certain to stockpile on this traditional treat prior to heading off on a journey to see Iceland’s incredible sights like heaven Shallows.

6. Rye bread from a hot spring.

Rúgbrauð, or rye bread, is a staple Icelandic food that’s been consumed for centuries. It’s typically baked in a pot that’s hidden in the ground next to a gurgling warm spring. The bread is dark brown, dense, mushy as well as tastes fairly wonderful. There are a million ways to eat it, like slathering it with butter as well as lava salt. Or attempt covering it with smoked lamb or salmon, cream cheese or pickled herring.

You can discover rúgbrauð in supermarkets across the country. A few of the most effective places to try it go to Bread & Co in Hlemmur Mathöll, a new food hall in Reykjavik, or at Fontana in the village of Laugarvatn, where Sigurður Rafn Hilmarsson makes this famous bread. You can even attempt rye bread gelato at Coffee shop Loki before the city church in Reykjavik.

A word of caution: Don’t consume way too much at the same time as this tasty bread can have an impact on your bowels. There’s a reason that the locals call it the ‘bread of thunder’!

7. Seafood.

Whether it’s barbequed, fried, boiled, cooked or roasted, fish has been an everyday part of the Icelandic individuals’s food for as long as they’ve lived there. Fishing is the country’s biggest export, as well as there are around 340 varieties of saltwater fish in the oceans of Iceland.

The most typical kinds of fish to eat are cod, haddock and salmon, while several of one of the most prominent Icelandic fish and shellfish dishes include plokkfiskur (mashed fish stew), mussel stews and langoustines (Norway lobster). With a few of the freshest seafood you’ll ever before consume, Iceland will have you coming back for even more!