>> Funding for this series has been provided in part by the following... >> Up Norway, curates Norwegian travel experiences in the footsteps of "New Scandinavian Cooking."

>> ♪ No, take me home ♪ Take me home where I belong >> Vgan, the full taste of chocolate.

>> Grieg Suites.

Chocolate with apples from Norway.

♪♪ Havila Voyages.

Pure Northern.

>> Viestad: This is certainly a different way to cook.

And a different way to travel.

Food on the go.

[ Theme music plays ] Hi, and welcome to "New Scandinavian Cooking" from Trondelag in mid-Norway.

I'm Andreas Viestad.

Fall is here, and even though some days might be bright and sunny, there is a chill in the air, something that will cut through your bones and make you crave something that's warm and comforting.

It is the time for stews.

And even though the craving for stews may be more or less universal, the way they're made says a lot about the place, the people, and the nature.

This is something that we're going to see in today's program, as we travel south on the Dovre Line.

We'll start off here, in the bread basket of mid-Norway, where I'll make a rich beef stew with rye bread and porcini.

As we venture into the magnificent mountain region of Dovre, it's not only the landscape that changes but also the livelihood on the farm.

And the food that's produced.

This is the land of perpetual hills and majestic mountains and sheep everywhere.

I'm going to make a lamb stew with mild aromatic spices from the highlands.

And as we reach the flatlands again, the diet becomes richer, and pork dominates.

I'm going to make a fresh-tasting version of a Norwegian classic, pork knuckles with stewed peas.

Our first stop on today's journey is one and a half hour outside of Trondheim, the small village of Oppdal, where I'll visit the cattle farmer Lars Erik Megarden.

Lars Erik an ex-military, and after years as a professional soldier, with several tours in Afghanistan, he's now a full-time farmer on the family farm.

His herd is a peaceful gang of Limousin cattle.

After calving in March, there are about 100 animals on the farm.

And all summer, they roam freely.

So you raise beef.

What kind of beef do you specialize in?

>> I grow Limousin cattle here in Oppdal.

And they are particularly suited, for this mountain environment.

So they are used to walk up in the mountains, to find the very tasty, and fresh grass all time because in this mountains are chalk areas, the ground gives us all the flavor up to the grass.

Which comes back in the meat.

>> Viestad: So in a way, while people say that in Champagne or in Burgundy, there's a sort of chalky soil that helps give the wine a lot of flavor.

It's the same here that gives your meat flavor.

>> Definitely, definitely.

>> Viestad: I look forward to tasting it.

We have a tendency to think that the best cut of meat is the fillet, but the fillet, yes, it's tender, but it's not very interesting.

The flavor is in many of the other cuts, that are often referred to as more modest or lesser cuts.

I'm going to make a stew now using chuck.

It's muscle that has been used quite a bit.

It's got a little bit of sinew, little bit, bit of connective tissue and fat.

But that's not a problem for the dish because it will all start to melt and become gelatinous as it cooks.

And I'll follow an ancient recipe and an ancient technique.

I'm going to cook the dish in a clay pot.

I've preheated this pot in a very hot oven, 500 degrees Fahrenheit, 250 Celsius.

And here I've got abt a pound, a little more than a pound, 500 grams, of meat.

Just cut them into chunks.

And while the meat sizzles away, I'm adding one onion and about 5 cloves of garlic that I just halved.

And 2 bay leaves.

About a teaspoon or so of black peppercorns.

And then some porcini, dried porcini.

And some salt, sprinkle of salt.

This part of the country has been one of the most productive when it comes to agricultural lands.

Lots of beef, lots of grains.

There's been beer being brewed here for more than 1,000 years.

This is a local brew, quite dark beer.

And then finally, just a good generous lump of butter.

And one of the things that we've always eaten a lot of here in Norway is bread.

Bread is our staple food.

And today, bread is always fresh and always easy to chew.

It wasn't like that in the old days.

Maybe people would bake, you know, once a month, and the bread was something that you had to chop your way through with an axe.

So people often use bread in the food, not just with the food.

And that's what I'm going to do now.

This is a local rye bread with a little bit of wheat, that will thicken the stew.

And some whole grains that will be nice to chew on.

So I've brought the dish to a boil.

So now it's all very, very hot.

And one of the things that you had to remember when you cooked in the old days was to try and conserve energy.

So you had a tough cut of meat, but you didn't necessarily have firewood enough to let it boil for hours and hours and hours.

So what people did was to wrap the pots in hay or something else that would insulate and just leave it for hours and hours.

And it would keep cooking in the residual heat.

That's the technique I'm going to use now, although not hay.

I'm going to use towels and a suitcase.

So first I'm just closing the lid on the pot very tightly using a string.

And then wrap it with towels, high-quality bathroom towels that have never been used.

Then I try and maneuver it into a lovely princess suitcase.

This is certainly a different way to cook and a different way to travel.

Food on the go.

The Dovre Line continues up, up, up into what feels like the top of the world... [ Horn honks ] ...Norway's highlands.

And I think I can feel a little bit of heat coming through the suitcase, but the stew is stewing away inside the suitcase.

It's a quite, you know, heavy dish.

It's got meat.

It's got porcini.

It's got rye bread and beer.

So I want to complement it with something a little more light tasting but still with some of the same ingredients.

Here I've got some grains, cooked grains.

This is barley and spelt.

Both have been grown here in Norway for centuries, if not millennia.

And I've just soaked them overnight and given them a light boil for a few minutes.

So they're still quite firm.

They are cooked but still quite firm.

And I'm serving with some dried apples.

You can also use a nice yellow or red apple, thinly sliced.

But I think that these dried apples are very nice.

They are a little more like a dried apricot.

And some herbs.

Here I've got some lovely mint.

And some oregano.

This is flowering oregano.

And I'm including the flowers as well.

They don't taste that much, but they are edible, and they look great.

Some parsley and a little bit of kale.

And then I just cut it into smaller pieces, and this is a really smart way to cut herbs.

It's quite efficient and doesn't make that much of a mess.

Just mixing it well and adding a little splash of apple cider vinegar.

A good generous splash of oil.

And just a small sprinkle of salt.

I'm excited to see how my stew is coming along.

[ Chuckles ] It's...

It hasn't made a huge mess, and it's still warm.

A little bit uncomfortable to touch.

So that's a good thing.

And let's look at the proof.

It's dark and wonderful, and with those deep aromas that only come from a slow, successful braise.

And here it is.

There's something about that hunger you feel when you've waited for a dish for a very long time.

Mmm.

Mmm.

That was very, very nice.

Mmm.

You can find all the recipes at our website, newscancook.com.

Normally, the journey from Trondheim in mid-Norway to Homer in the east takes about five hours.

But who's short on time?

For me, the journey is the aim, so I intend to make several stops along the way.

My next detour is to meet Laritz, who's a sheep farmer at Falkstugu, the highest-situated all-year farm in the country.

The Dovre Line passes over the mountains.

We're now at Hjerkinn Station, more than 1,000 meters above sea level, more than 3,300 feet.

And I'm going into the highlands.

Lauritz Fjellstue is the 11th generation to farm on this high altitude.

And together with his wife, Christiana, they also run the historic lodge for pilgrims to Nidaros or tourists who just simply want to enjoy the mountain.

And I'm talking to Lauritz about what cuts to use, and we both agree that the best and most flavorful cut is the shank.

The lower part of the leg.

The most important part regional product in these highland areas is lamb.

When you look at the landscape, it looks barren.

It's hard to imagine that anything can find its sustenance here.

But when you look closer, there are hundreds of different edible plants and herbs.

Not necessarily edible for us, but edible for the sheep.

So that's why the farmers will let the sheep roam around on the mountainsides all through summer.

And the sheep have now just been gathered, and they're allowed to finish off with a little bit of green grass before winter hits.

I'm going to make the most out of this aromatic, almost gamy meat by making a hearty stew, with some wild herbs and some domesticated herbs from the region.

And I just start off by searing the meat in butter.

I think the most important thing is that you sear the meat properly.

That starts off a few different browning processes that give you some of those rich seared flavors.

And then I'm going to add the vegetables afterwards.

It's not so important to have the searing effect on them.

I'm just going to add one carrot, coarsely chopped, just for a little hint of sweetness.

And really the same goes for one onion.

This is from a farm just down the valley.

And then I'm adding a little bit of celeriac, not much, but mainly just as a spice, really.

And one slice of rutabaga as well.

And there are going to be more root vegetables and some mashed root vegetables to serve with it.

So this is just to accompany it and give the stew, as well, a bit of depth of flavor.

But the most important flavoring is the spices and the herbs.

I'm going to make a Norwegian curry, if you will, or a masala, a combination of herbs that will grow here.

This is dill seed, and you know how fresh dill has this sweetness to it and also freshness to it.

Well, when you take the seeds and you dry them, they have much of the same sweetness but another depth of flavor.

And not the same freshness, but they've actually gone from being what we call a herb to being a spice.

So I add about a teaspoon or so, minus what blew away.

[ Chuckles ] And then the Nordic equivalent of cumin, caraway.

It grows in large parts of the country, and it has quite distinct flavor.

So I'm adding a little bit less, about half a teaspoon or so.

And then there's mustard.

You can also grow mustard in Scandinavia, even though it's not done to a huge extent commercially.

And the interesting thing, by using mustard seed instead of using mustard, powdered mustard or fresh mustard is that it releases its flavor more slowly.

So there will be a little bit of a mustard flavor to the stew, but you'll also have these little seeds that burst in your mouth and give you a little flavor explosion.

I think that's very, very nice.

So I'm adding quite a bit of that, about a teaspoon and a half.

And fennel -- that won't grow this high, but it actually grows in my garden.

So just a small pinch of fennel seed.

And then a very, very interesting herb that many people don't even think of as an herb.

Namely, birch.

Birch is a tree that grows all over Scandinavia.

The young leaves are very aromatic and sweet.

Not everyone knows that.

So it's not widely used as a flavoring.

But the sheep know it, and in spring and early summer, they nibble at the young birch leaves, and these leaves have been picked in early summer and just dried.

And they give a very nice, warm, earthy, aromatic note to the stew.

One of the things that we don't have in Norway, of course, is saffron.

We've imported it, but when we couldn't afford it or couldn't find it, we've used this, marigold.

Then I just add a little splash of water, just enough to let it just braise quietly.

Put the lid on, and let it simmer for about an hour's time.

And I'm going to serve the stew with mashed root vegetables.

These are potatoes, potatoes from just down the valley.

The nearest place where you can actually grow them, mixed with a little bit of carrot, little bit of celeriac, and a little bit of rutabaga.

And I'm just going to mash it very coarsely.

And of course, a good mash is not really a good mash unless it contains a bit of butter.

There are those who claim that the ratio should be 50-50.

I think that's a bit too rich.

But I am generous, so I'm adding this much, eh?

Mmm.

That's amazing.

The deep, rich, almost gamy flavors of the lamb and with those aromatic spices and herbs, it reminds me of these rich lamb stews in Morocco in the mountain areas there, but here just with the flavors of the Norwegian mountains and the valleys below.

I'll just round it all off with a little bit of cream.

This is lovely organic cream from a local dairy.

And then lingonberries.

You can also use cranberries.

But I'm just adding a few lingonberries to the stew.

And they have this powerful tartness.

And that's a typical flavor combination in Scandinavia together with game.

So it sort of accentuates the gamy flavor of the lamb.

Love it.

You can find all the recipes at our website, newscancook.com.

Norway is wild and beautiful, extreme in many ways.

And to me, there's no doubt that nature does something to the people who live here and to the food.

But people haven't always embraced this hard life.

And who can blame them?

For a while, people left for the capital, and most of all, they emigrated to America.

It's said that it was the building of the Dovre Line that turned the tide.

It made the inland region a lot less isolated, and it spread the food culture to the rest of the country and beyond.

>> We are now approaching Hamar.

>> Viestad: I've come to the end of my journey, the flatlands of Hedmark in the south.

I'm here at Store Gilling to visit Ingeborg Opsand, who moved home to take over the family farm raising pigs.

Pork is interesting meat in the sense that, it has a grandeur to it.

It has cuts that were typically served on the table of royals and nobility -- but also very modest cuts.

And the most modest of them all is the knuckle.

Typically the cheapest cut, it can be a little bit chewy if you don't cook it enough.

But it also has a lot of flavor.

And it's the main ingredient in a very, very traditional dish, pork knuckle with stewed peas.

I'm going to make my version of this dish a little bit fresher, a little bit more colorful.

Here I've got yellow and green peas.

These are dried peas that I've left in water overnight.

So I just add the rk knuckle.

It's lightly salted, so I don't have to add any salt.

But I want a bit of freshness.

So I'm adding 3 apples.

And one red onion.

And instead of stock or water, I'm adding apple juice.

And that's about it, really.

Well, we've got one apple left, and in Norway we have a saying, "Whatever's left is for the pigs."

Now, there are two ways to prepare the dish.

Either let it just simmer for 3 to 4 hours, or if you want it a little bit quicker, and you want a little browning of the pork knuckle instead, you just put the casserole into the oven.

A hot oven, at 400 Fahrenheit, 200 centigrade.

And leave it for about 2 hours.

And it smells fabulous, of pork and of apples.

Two good things together.

And the browning that has occurred on top here is because I've baked it in the oven.

There's radiation heat coming through the lid, and that's a big difference between just simmering it on a plate and baking it in an oven.

Now, I'm going to add one extra ingredient, namely, some fresh peas that I'm mixing in with the stewed peas.

And the secret of preparing pork knuckles is that there is no secret.

Just give it time, and it becomes wonderfully tender so that you can cut it with a spoon, which is what I do.

Remember that you can find all the recipes at our website, newscancook.com.

♪♪ ♪♪ >> For more of the "New Scandinavian Cooking" experience, visit our website or Facebook page.

♪♪ >> Funding for this series has been provided in part by the following... >> Up Norway, curates Norwegian travel experiences in the footsteps of "New Scandinavian Cooking."

>> ♪ No, take me home ♪ Take me home where I belong >> Vgan, the full taste of chocolate.

>> Grieg Suites.

Chocolate with apples from Norway.

♪♪ Havila Voyages.

Pure Northern.

♪♪