An Ole Scandinavian Lefse Recipe
Yew tak yust ten big potatoes
Den yew boil dem til dar don,
Yew add to dis some sveet cream
And by cups it measures vun.Den yew steal ‘tree ounces of butter
And vit two fingers pench some salt,
Yew beat dis wery lightly
If it ain’t gude it is your fault.Den yew roll dis tin vit flour
An’ light brown on stove yew bake,
Now call in all Scandihuvians
Tew try da fine lefse yew make!
Lefse Recipe submitted by Tom Hovland
- 5 cups riced potatoes
- 1 Tbsp salt (popcorn)
- 1/3 cup cream
- 3 Tbsp butter/shortening (melted)
- 2 cups flour
Cook potatoes (Yukon Gold / Russet-homegrown) with skins on; peel as soon as can be handled, rice and measure. Mix with cream, salt and butter. Cool for 2 to 3 hours – then add flour.
Roll out and fry on lefse grill, cool on cloth. Age overnight in cool place.
Note: lt is sacrilegious to put any foreign object on Lefse other than butter, roll up and eat………
Our Family
Submitted by Kathleen Alme
My 3 sisters & I get together every year a little before Christmas to make lefse. We each bring our own batch of mashed/riced potatoes & then proceed to roll out & fry the whole business – usually ending up with about 25 dozen lefse and lots of flour on ourselves, the floor and everywhere else. We take turns being the ‘rollers’, ‘mixers’ and ‘ballers’ (those who make the right sized balls of dough). We recruit younger family members to be the ‘fryers’ so they can learn the trade. In the early days there were some interesting mistakes. One sister added flour to her potatoes while they were still hot and when we tried to fry her ‘lefse’ the result was oddly crisp – we called it ‘flatsa’, a cross between lefse and flatbread.
We have great fun with the ones that end up funny shaped – “This one looks like Texas!” and have to eat all the ones that are ‘not good enough for company’.
Good times had by all.
Lefse in the Navy, a memorable experience
Submitted by Jim Berg, Albert Lea, MN
LEFSA IN THE NAVY, A memorable experience
It was 1947, I was in the U.S. Navy. I was a journalist on board various ships in the Pacific.
We were in Tsing Tao China at the moment and it was just about Christmas time. Being a good Norsky, I just had to have my Lefsa at Christmas time.
I got an idea, lets see if we could make some on board the ship. First I had to get the recipe from Mom…..That done I asked the cooks on board the ship if they could save me some potatoes one night so that we could make some Lefsa.
I found a friend, “A Norsky” to help and he casually JUMPED AT THE CHANCE.
They saved some all right, picture a metal pan 24 inched across and piled to overflowing with boiled, pealed potatoes. It was the beginning of a love affair. Well we had to “rice them” but we didn’t have a ricer. The cooks had worked all day so they left me and a friend in the mess hall ricing the potatoes our way. They were fully cooked so we squeezed them with our hands but not quite mashing them. you have to have a little coarseness to make good Potato Lefsa.
We had flour, and all the rest of the ingredients. We had a rolling pin, not serrated but smooth. (Serrated is better). We had a good table, and a good oven. (They would not let us have the grill during the night, but the ovens were on all night long.(Had to bake bread in the morning)). It was built much like a Pizza oven is today. (They baked bread, pies, cakes and cookies in these ovens. We used the top oven with the doors open because the rest were too hot.
So we proceeded to roll out the Lefsa. The First few may have been a little thick, not to round, or had one problem or another, a potato lump here or there,but we proceeded to learn, learn from the memory of Mother making lefsa for the Holidays.
We found the butter in the refrigerator, and the first lefsa’s even though they were not round, tasted absolutely delicious. The whole procedure was a bellyful of laughs all night. The more we rolled the better they became. The better they became, the more we ate. We finally ended up with a stack of Lefsa bout 15 to 18 inches high, (Folded over in Quarters)
They were quite large in size, about 15 to 20 inches in for each of them. Now here was the hard part. We DID NOT have a Lefsa Stick. We used 2 Cake frosting spatula’s to pick them up because the ovens were only about 10 or 11 inches high. Picking up Lefsa with 2 spatulas is a little tricky. When you have them lifted off of the table the lefsa looks like an M hanging from the spatula’s.
Now you have to get them to the top oven to get them to cook the right way. We would loose some of them along the way because of the sharpness of the spatula’s. But we succeeded, we got us a good stack of edible Lefsa.
Now comes the fun part……Christmas day….. My friend and I Pick up the lefsa, our Navy Trays, utensils and preceded to Chow Don On Christmas Day.
On the way to our table we heard some comments like, “Where the HE–double toothpicks did you get Lefsa?? Of course we could not refuse good Norskies, so we asked them to join us at a separate table and then we all shared (being in China) a Norsky, Chinese Christmas.
Are not memories fun. Fun to relive the past, Fun to be with Friends, and Fun to be with your brothers and sisters, in thought word and deed………..and fun to be with YOUR FAMILY……
Anybody out there remember on board ship that Christmas of 1947?…………..
Ole from Minnesota………………………….. AKA Jim Berg, on the corner of I-35 and I-90….
