Reading: The Best Seafood from the Cold Clear Waters of Norway

They tell you not to judge a book by it’s cover, but The Best Seafood from the Cold Clear Waters of Norway has a beautiful silver salmon beveled cover that intrigues you pick it up, take a look inside and be inspired by the pages within.

This is not a traditional cookbook. It covers all bases: the raw material, how to handle and conserve products combined with recipes that are both classic and contemporary. Weighing in at 2.5 kg, it has over 400 pages of innovative seafood recipes from the Culinary Institute of Norway, accompanied with wine recommendations for each recipe.  I love little touches like this.

However, as beautiful as this book is it saddens me that the recipes I have tried so far don’t leave me with a feeling they have been well tested.  Perhaps it is the way it has been translated from Norwegian into English, but the more I use the book the more frustrated I get.  It almost feels they have produced this book purely to advertise the wonderful seafood selection that Norway has to offer; from salmon and trout, herring and mackerel, cod and halibut, shrimp, crab, lobster and sea urchins.

Don’t get me wrong, this can be the perfect gift for the seafood lover that wants inspiration to wow friends at a dinner party and it is good to learn step by step how to fillet various types of fish, open shellfish, make sashimi or broth.

We have made several of the recipes in the book and ear marked many more for the future inspiration,.

 

Pros:

• Many recipes to excite you ranging difficulty from level 1 (easy) to level 4 (difficult)
• Use of traditional Norwegian Seafood, there is even an entire section on stockfish
• Wine pairing recommendations for each recipe
• Beautiful, inspiring pictures with EVERY recipe to give you  inspiration for plating up

Cons:

• A little on the expensive side at 75 Euro, 598 NOK, 106 UDS (but please don’t let that put you off if you are serious about seafood and cooking)
• Not always clear how many each recipe is meant to serve
• Many of the recipes we have tried do not feel complete in terms of timings
• A coffee table book

The Verdict

This book is for the experienced cook that loves seafood, enjoys plating up tasty food that will impress those you share it with or want to expend your seafood knowledge.
If you want to get a flavour of some of the pages, Click here