[Sca-cooks] OOP- the Lefse experience

[Georgia Foster]

also called ... winging it

So   here is how it went.

>From the very helpful posts on the list, I got proportions of potatoes to 
flour, cream and butter.

Hit the potato bin for the odd-size taters, those too big or too small to 
make into anything where size matters.  Fetched out one football and ten 
marbles, and called em six large potatoes.  Peeled them, cut them into 
half-inch dice and boiled them until I was sure that they were all done.  
Strained them, and used the very thick starch water to kick-start the Oregon 
Trail Wild Yeast starter that made the rolls for the Christmas Day meal … 
waste not … want not.

Since I don’t have a ricer, I shoved the cooked potatoes through the sieve.  
It was not a perfect solution, but it worked.  Given that I was working with 
proportions, I added flour cup for cup with the potatoes.  Salt and Sugar 
being harder to judge, I felt comfortable using my palm as a measuring 
device, and added around a tablespoon of sugar, and around a teaspoon of 
salt.  The idea was to end up with a very soft product, so I erred on the 
side of caution and added a whole stick (half a cup) of butter.  Found out 
that I the heavy cream I thought I had … I didn’t.   At that point I nearly 
scrapped the whole project.  Instead, I grabbed the tub of commercial sour 
cream and added  the very exact measure of … some.  If I had to guess I 
would say it was around half a cup.  I kneaded the mass for ten minutes.  
Working from memory (mother and I made metric tons of Lefse at Christmas in 
my adolescence), I bagged the dough and put it in the fridge over night.  
Memory was telling me the dough was always COLD when we worked it.

Christmas Eve, at six in the morning, I get a phone call.  One of his 10 
brothers passed away in surgery the night of the 23rd.  They will be headed 
for North Dakota in a few hours.  Finishing the Lefse had before they left 
for his home town became an instant priority, since this was to be Mother’s 
Weinact Gift for him.

Took the dough out of the fridge, rolled it into snakes, and cut it into 24 
fairly even pieces.  Scattered flour on a cookie sheet, put the pieces on 
the flour and scattered more flour on top and returned the sheet to the 
fridge.

I don’t have a Lefse rolling pin, but I do have a marble rolling pin … so I 
tossed that in the freezer.  I don’t have a takki either, so I made do with 
the biggest cast iron fry pan I had.

Again, working from memory, I found a new two-inch paint brush with soft 
sturdy bristles.  Scattering MUCH flour on the board, I floured the 
extremely frelling cold marble rolling pin.  Taking a chunk of dough I 
flattened with fingers as far as possible without surrender.  Using small 
strokes, I rolled the piece as flat as I dared.  Then, I remembered 
something mother called a Lefse Stick (which she used occasionally to beat 
us, hence my reason for not remembering its true function until it was too 
late).  It was a long flat wooden object that she used to scrap the 
flattened Lefse off the board.  I don’t have a Lefse stick, but I did have a 
bread knife.  Using the back side, I managed to get the whole off the board 
and into the dry fry pan and only punched one hole in it.  I recall that 
holes were bad.  As the one side cooked, I brushed the flour off the 
uncooked side.  Using fingers I flipped it over and brushed the excess flour 
from the other side.  When the other side was bubbled and the bubbles were 
light brown, I removed it from the fry pan and put it on a foil sheet which 
I folded over to keep the steam in.  I brushed the slightly browned flour 
into a bowl to use for gravy making … waste not, want not.

Repeating the procedure with the other 23 dough bits, I was able to roll one 
out while the other cooked.  I was reminded why mother and I did this 
together, because it was a little hectic doing both the rolling and the 
frying myself.  Not impossible, just hectic.

Some were square, some had a hole from the bread knife, all were pretty 
small compared to the ones we made when I was a girl, but it was Lefse.

So far, I have not had an expert review, but he got two dozen minus one.  
Have to make more at some point soon.

Cheers

Malkin




Jo (Georgia L.) Foster
jo_foster81 at hotmail.com

Never knock on death's door........ Ring the doorbell and run. He hates 
that.

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