Reykjavik Rick Stein's Long Weekends

A little bit of what you fancy does you good,

and that's precisely what I think about taking off on a long weekend.

Not too far away, not obvious like Paris or Rome.

I'll dive into the culture and enjoy the scenery,

but food will always be key.

So if, like me, you love seriously fresh fish, cod especially,

and the sweetest lamb fed on wild herbs and berries,

and swimming in secret pools,

deliciously warm, surrounded by snow...

'Plus the odd glass of something, well, unusual and strong.'

Skal!

'..then this weekend could be for you.'

# Hey, Rick

# Where we goin' this weekend? #

Reykjavik.

# Are we flying a few hours away

# For some delicious food, they say?

# So, Rick, make the booking

# And let's get cooking

# And get those taste buds goin' this weekend. #

When I first started thinking about Long Weekends,

I was really thinking of olive oil, wine, pasta etc.

But then some bright spark at the BBC said,

"Rick, why don't you go to Iceland?"

Got the wrong coat.

'And here I am.

'It's like Fargo, with perhaps just a touch of Twin Peaks.'

Well, I've just got off the plane and I am already totally amazed by

the landscape, it's so bleak and so vast and so white.

I looked on the weather and it said six degrees.

Erm...minus six degrees.

But, what I didn't realise was the wind-chill factor,

it must be about minus 20 degrees,

so I've got to find something a bit more Icelandic to wear.

What I'm looking for is fish.

I mean, Icelandic fish is legendary, cod particularly.

And the langoustines, langoustine soup.

Great fish pies, great fish soups.

A little bit concerned about the fermented shark

and the stinky skate and the lamb's testicles.

But, you know, I figure if the locals like these things,

well, I might too.

RICK SIGHS

It's nice and toasty. It's freezing out there.

'It's lovely and warm here.

'as, I'm being told, all the buildings are,

'thanks to cheap geothermal energy.

'It just comes out of the ground.'

LIFT DINGS

'I've got a feeling I've chosen a good hotel here.

'It's right by the harbour and it's very Scandinavian.

'The perfect refuge.'

Oh.

This looks really nice.

Oh.

Plenty of tartan.

Plenty of tartan. HE LAUGHS

Oh, look at this.

Oh, I've got to check this out.

Oh, that's superb!

A little bit chilly out here, but look at that view.

Just where I want to be.

'Except a beer would be most agreeable.

'And I'm going to meet up with Ymir.

'Now, he's someone who lives and breathes the food of Iceland.

'A great advocate of getting out of the city

'and into the snowy landscape.'

Ymir, why do you think people come to Iceland?

I mean, it's cold, it's dark.

And you've got fermented shark, which smells and tastes horrible.

YMIR LAUGHS

That's a...that's a good point!

But...

It's only cold and dark in the winter.

No, people like Iceland because of, I think it's three reasons.

The obvious one is the nature, cos it's untouched.

You do have this sense of, sort of, like, cleanness and innocence.

-Absolutely.

-Yeah.

-That's one thing.

The people are kind of untouched.

We're new on the radar.

And, erm...people are just friendly.

I mean, it's not forced. It's natural.

-And that is so, so nice, so...

-It's genuine.

-..unusual in this world, I think.

-Yeah.

So, that's like, that's like two reasons,

and the third one in my opinion is the foods.

We don't import a lot of things. We...

Greenhouses, we supply ourselves with everything.

And this is...

The more I travel, the more I realise how rich I am

with what I have.

It's just the best pure product we can ever find.

That's the three main reasons.

He offered me some fermented shark, but I said,

"No, thanks, I'd had a big, big dinner!"

But we've made a date to meet up again in a couple of days.

Time for bed.

It's my first morning in Reykjavik

and I've come down to the docks at dawn.

Well, I say dawn, but in midwinter, there's only

about five hours of daylight, so that's not very early.

I couldn't help but think of that line from

Yeats' famous Sailing To Byzantium,

the one that goes, "No country for old men."

It's really cold here.

Well, this is my first impression of Reykjavik.

We arrived last night.

Coming from the airport, I got a sense of what it was like,

but as soon as we got here it's gloomy.

It's not quite daylight and it's ten o'clock in the morning,

so you can get some idea about how short the days are.

But I'm out here on the harbour, my first love,

and I suppose the thing that's really drawing me to Iceland

more than anything is the search for the perfect cod.

HE LAUGHS

And I don't have to go very far to find it.

Back to the hotel.

Cod for breakfast.

Lovely.

Well, I'd heard about this dish.

It's just called fish in a pan, and I ordered it.

Well, the first thing I went to, obviously, was the cod.

Erm...

Thinking about the late and much lamented Keith Floyd,

who once said, "The piece of cod which passeth all understanding,"

it certainly was that piece of cod.

It has this delicious, firm steakiness

when it's as fresh as this.

And as soon as I'd tasted that, I just thought, "I'm in heaven."

And now I've just seen it being made by Jon, and this is what he did.

In one pan - now, this is a three-pan dish -

he fries in butter - no olive oil here -

potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli.

In the second pan, he spoons the cod with this foamy fried butter.

I love that.

Next, finely chopped shallots and apple vinegar.

Very important, that, apple vinegar,

because everything in those pans was local

and that's what I was really warming to.

And then he took a third pan

and put some celeriac puree in the bottom of it...

then added the vegetables and then the cod.

Finally, he went back to the vegetable pan

and added some kale.

He let the kale wilt, and then put that on top of the vegetables

and the cod.

And then he garnished it.

First with some very thinly sliced yellow beet,

some chard leaves and a slice of lemon.

And then he finished the whole thing with a dressing

made with mustard seeds, dill oil and apple vinegar.

And I have to say, it's delicious.

Believe it or not, this is our mad cameraman, Chris, let off the lead.

GLEEFUL LAUGHTER

Overnight, there's been a big snowstorm.

It's transformed Reykjavik into a winter wonderland,

and it's SO chilly.

My first job is to get the right clothes.

Well, I think that looks very nice. Very Icelandic.

The great thing about Iceland is that everyone knows everyone.

And word has got around that I'm here,

with the result that the mayor has invited me over for guess what?

Waffles!

In what other capital city in the world would the mayor invite

you in, sit down and have a chat?

It's that sort of place, Iceland.

'I happen to know there's a Facebook page dedicated to the mayor's hair.

'Yes, his hair!

'Only in Iceland.'

Hi!

Just getting his mixer ready.

-Dagur?

-Yes?

Very nice to meet you.

'Now I see why.

'He's actually got very nice hair.'

-What a lovely house.

-Thank you.

-Welcome.

-Thank you. I mean, I was just saying.

it's such a great privilege to be invited by the Mayor of Reykjavik

in to have some waffles.

By the way, I really love your sweater.

It's very nice. I feel very much a local here now.

-LAUGHING:

-Yeah, you sure look like one!

RICK LAUGHS

So you do this once a year, then?

Yes. It has become a habit that, on Cultural Night,

which is actually the anniversary of Reykjavik,

we have this big festival in town,

and so one of the neighbours had the idea of opening up their house

and make some waffles and coffee, very traditional Icelandic.

So we decided to take part maybe ten years ago.

And so, now, every year, we have maybe around 1,200 people

write their names in our guestbook...

-1,200? Come through here?

-Yeah.

-That's a lot of waffles.

-Yeah, kind of a natural queue that forms.

Does anybody talk politics to you?

I guess that if I would have an open house to talk politics

I wouldn't get 1,200 people!

No, I doubt if you would!

So I stay with the waffles.

Oh, I think that's great.

Which do you prefer - waffles, politics?

Waffles, waffles, politics!

'And, yes, I did ask.

'He does use more than one waffle iron for 1,200 guests.

'Seven, if you're taking notes.'

This is by no means a complex thing.

But this is rhubarb jam.

It's good, because you have some sour with the sweet, cream.

Yeah.

Then something crunchy, and you don't need more.

You can live off these.

-There you go.

-Thanks.

Oh, exemplary waffles.

I like your rhubarb jam. Delish!

So, does each of your 1,200 people get one of these?

-Yeah.

-They're very lucky.

-Mm!

THEY LAUGH

The Mayor told me about a remarkable sculpture right on the waterfront.

It's called the Sun Voyager and it's supposed to symbolise the journey

of the first settlers to Iceland,

maybe even before the Vikings came.

It's deliciously cold out here next to the water.

Looking at that cold sea and this monument to the Vikings,

I just remember I was lucky enough at university

to study Anglo-Saxon and there was a poem called The Seafarer.

And it was about such people that put to sea in these

very, very open... open boats.

I wrote down a couple of lines from it just to give you some idea

on this cold day what it must have felt like to this lonely seafarer.

How I, wretched and sorrowful

On the ice-cold sea

Dwelt for a winter in the paths of exile

Bereft of friendly kinship

Hung about with icicles

Hail flew in showers

There, I heard nothing

But the roaring sea.

MUSIC: Peter Grimes, Prologue V, Interlude I: On The Beach

Reykjavik is pretty famous for its murals.

I like these.

Apparently they're scenes from a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.

It's called No Exit.

It was performed here in 1961.

Lots of angst.

You know, everyday life,

where three people are locked into a room for all eternity.

The murals, however, were only meant to last few years, but who knows?

Very existentialist. Very blanc et noir.

Just round the corner is a restaurant I've been told

is unmissable.

Matur Og Drykkur, which means "food and drink",

is Icelandic to the core.

Old recipes with a new twist.

It used to be a salt cod warehouse where prime fillets of cod

were cured and sent to countries as far away as Spain and Italy.

And that's why cod's head and cod's cheek in particular

are so revered here.

It's run by Gisli Aukunsson.

He felt honour-bound to use some of his granny's recipes which he

said are in danger of disappearing.

I say to that, lose your recipes at your peril.

Gisli's cooking his granny's soup,

and he starts by frying shallots, bay leaves and thyme in butter.

So, Gisli, what's so special about this halibut soup, then?

When I told my family that we were going to open this restaurant

with this kind of concept, my grandmother told me

I had to have this soup on the menu

instead of the Icelandic lamb soup which is everywhere.

Because this is a recipe that is almost forgotten about.

It hasn't been on any menu for at least 30, 40 years,

so it's really important for us not to...

people don't forget the recipes.

And keeping the traditions really alive.

That's the most important thing why we do this soup here.

I think it's incredibly important because you've got tourism coming,

burgeoning now,

you've even got tourists coming in the winter, like me!

And when you come here as a tourist, you don't want

to eat international food, you want to eat local food.

Exactly.

This is the interesting bit, that he's just added the whey,

which is very Icelandic

and is actually the by-product of making skyr,

which is the yoghurt-type cheese, I suppose?

But the whey is, the whey they add...

The whey is the way that they add astringency

to something like this soup

and Gisli's actually said, if you can't get this whey,

use white wine, but you won't get that authentic Icelandic taste.

'So now, red peppercorns and apple.

'They use lots of green apples for extra astringency in their cooking.

'And then cream, lemon juice and more butter.'

It's starting to smell really lovely

and I very much applaud Gisli's use of lots of butter.

In my cookery school once, an American came up to me

and said, "We like your recipes,

"but why don't you use olive oil instead of butter?"

And I said, because we come from a northern country,

where we have cows.

And now the halibut. I love halibut.

White, clean, steaky halibut,

often called the Queen of the Sea.

So in a soup bowl, chopped, mixed raisins and dates.

Then diced green apples soaked in dill oil - very popular here.

Then the fish, and now the soup.

I think Gisli's granny knew what she was talking about!

Well, Gisli, I must say, that looks wonderful.

I love the way that the dill oil sort of split as it hit the soup.

Oh, that's wonderful. It's succulent, it's sweet, it's sour,

it's comforting.

The dried fruits add a lot of sweetness to this.

Mm, and it's a lovely piece of fish.

-And, at the end of the day, it's all about the fish.

-All about.

RICK CHUCKLES

It would be impossible to overstate the importance of fish here.

So much so, there's a tribute to cod bang in the middle of the harbour.

SEAGULL CAWS

It's actually a monument to the salting and drying of cod,

and up there is a traditional cod drying shed, and I think it

just sort of fits into the landscape, so I'm actually very fond

of it, but not fond of the prospect of having to come down now

because it's very icy and I don't want to slip,

and I suffer from vertigo a little.

Do I look high up, by the way?

Oh, OK.

It's all about the fish. Nothing but the fish.

So I'm cooking a simple cod gratin with Bearnaise sauce,

based on the Icelandic "plokkfiskur" - Icelandic fish stew.

A bit of butter in the pan, quite a lot, actually.

And then in go the veg.

So many of my fish dishes start like this. Funny, really.

Just softening veg like carrot, leek and onion.

Always makes a lovely base to many a fish dish and many a fish pie.

The thing I like about this fish stew is it's very simple.

The only tricky thing is the Bearnaise at the end.

Actually making the stew itself couldn't be easier.

In Iceland, they tend to use whey at this stage,

which gives the fish pie a nice sort of tartness.

Frankly, I sort of prefer white wine, for cooking AND for drinking!

Lovely piece of cod, pearly white.

Firm, steaky, that's what I like about it.

I was in a fish and chip shop the other day

and there was a notice that said, "Our cod is so fresh,

"it's like kissing the sea on the lips."

Yeah, that's exactly what this is like.

So, I'm just going to cut this into chunks.

In goes my cod.

Just add a bit of flour. It'll tighten everything up.

Into the dish.

Look at that.

So wholesome.

To make the Bearnaise sauce, first of all,

some white wine vinegar,

and then a chopped shallot.

What I'm doing here is creating what we call a reduction.

I don't know who "we" are, but that's what it is.

Now peppercorns. A bay leaf

and some stalks of tarragon.

Just bring that to the boil

and leave that to simmer for about ten minutes,

which I'm then going to stir into my beaten eggs and butter

for my Bearnaise sauce.

I'm using the hot water to actually cook the egg yolks and put air

into the egg so it'll start to get more and more voluminous.

And I'm going to have to be careful,

because if you carry it on too far, it'll split

and you'll lose all your volume and you'll lose your Bearnaise.

Now for the reduction.

The vinegar's simmered to a trickle and I want every dreg.

Push that down a little bit.

Next, butter, of course, to help the sauce thicken,

and finally, tarragon.

The distinctive flavour of Bearnaise.

Smells fantastic. Love the smell of hot tarragon.

And then in Iceland, they bake it.

It's an unusual thing to do with Bearnaise

but it works.

OK, just pop that in the oven

at about 180 degrees, gas four.

Not too long, about 20, 25 minutes.

And that's it. One Icelandic-inspired cod gratin.

On a long weekend, if you've got the cash,

splash out on one of these four-by-fours.

You feel on top of the world,

as if you're flying over the snow.

It's a glorious drive on a winter's morning.

Just over an hour away, I'm going to meet Ymir again,

for a gourmet picnic lunch, which he's organised.

Just driving through all this snow in the mountains,

thinking about Icelandic cuisine historically.

And I've been reading a really good book by an Icelandic cookery writer,

Nanna Rognvaldardottir, and basically she said,

for the first 1,000 years, Icelandic cuisine was one of wants -

want of grain, want of fresh produce,

want of salt, want of fuel, even want of cooking utensils.

It just seems extraordinary, but for the first 500-odd years,

they didn't eat fish here, so they made their life doubly difficult.

But out of that has come a tradition which is upheld even today,

of quite unusual methods of curing...

particularly fish and meat.

Simply because they didn't have salt.

Why didn't they have salt? Well, there were no salt deposits and,

after cutting down all the trees for firewood,

there was no way of boiling up seawater to produce salt.

So they did have enough salt to salt and dry the fish,

but largely, things were preserved in whey.

This gives all the food that they still eat

a very, very acid taste, and quite hard to get used to.

But for 1,000 years, they lived on that sort of thing.

Plus a little seaweed and a little moss.

Ymir had kept the location of our picnic under wraps,

only letting on that it was a secret, hidden gem

and that I had to bring my swimmers.

-Nice day for a swim.

-Yeah.

Little bit chilly.

Bit apprehensive I must say, Ymir, but we'll see, we'll see.

It looks and sounds like the dawn of time.

Might be a bit hot for me,

and there's no way of turning it down, of course.

-Wow!

-Welcome to my humble little kitchen in the nature.

-Gosh!

So this is the Secret Lagoon.

-And this is the oldest swimming pool in Iceland.

-Wow!

And it's not man-made.

This is the real, real deal.

By now, I was getting a bit peckish and was glad to see that,

as he'd promised, he'd brought lunch. Lots of eggs.

I'm going to boil them eggs in the hot spring.

-They taste better, much better.

-Do they?

-Yeah.

-Promise?

-I promise you that. Well, you be the judge.

-OK.

If I'm going to swim in there, and you're boiling your eggs in there...

No, no, no, not in the same place. That would be nasty.

Because you wouldn't want to come out of that, no, no.

I thought you were going to put 'em in here.

No, no, no, Bathing is here, boiling is there.

-Do not mix those two together.

-OK, I promise.

So I'm going to put them in here, time them,

takes about eight minutes from they're in.

Eight minutes? That's... Well... it's boiling water.

-And they'll be beautiful, they'll be beautiful.

-I'm sure, I'm sure.

-No jumping!

-No, no, I promise,

-I don't want to end up like a boiled egg.

-Yeah.

-It's so clear.

-I know.

Just to think, that's coming up from the centre of the earth.

It's amazing.

And that applies also to the pool that you'll be bathing in

because this is, technically, you are bathing in mother Earth,

you're eating the bread, your eating the eggs,

all coming from the ground. So this is kind of, it's spiritual.

It's what Iceland's all about.

It seems to me. Why people love coming here.

Yeah, and it's also with the roots.

I mean, for, I belong to Asatru, and that's the Norse mythology.

And I wouldn't say it's religion, it's just that we believe in nature.

We worship nature. We respect nature.

And of course the stories are great, with Thor and Odin and all that.

But it's more going back to the roots.

I just think it's beautiful.

Oh, I totally agree.

This is kind of, I mean, this is where we came from.

This is where we eventually will go to.

It's Mother Earth. We are just guests here, just visitors.

And I just want to enjoy it.

I want you to enjoy it.

-Oh, yeah, well, let's go for a swim.

-Yeah!

There are hundreds of these volcanic pools dotted across Iceland.

This one was discovered on some discarded farmland,

and not many people know about it yet.

That's why it's called the Secret Lagoon.

I just thought it would be quite good to get your first thoughts

about Iceland, being here in Iceland.

What? Are you mad?!

I'm so cold. You just want me to talk now?

You're joking, aren't you?

Well, not really, no.

Well, it's...it's icy!

Ah, bliss!

Oh!

I'll talk to you about Iceland now!

HE CHUCKLES

-What's it like?

-It's wonderful. Wonderful.

Can't believe it!

To me, this is the icing on the cake of my long weekend,

to feel really warm among this snow and ice,

and I've been promised a true taste of Iceland, too,

gathered from the landscape. Such luxury!

CORK POPS

That's a little happy sound.

So, where do I start?

We start with the chicken liver terrine, with dandelion syrup.

Oh, yes, I've seen about this dandelion syrup.

It is beautiful to go with the chicken liver terrine.

-That's lovely. It's got a nice bitterness from the dandelion.

-Yeah.

And that's the egg we boiled right in the hot spring.

I know it's going to be delicious.

And it's got birch-smoked salt and crushed pepper.

Mm!

Beautiful egg. Full of flavour.

And smoked trout pate with fennel and beetroot on the side,

and basil pesto with, like, pine nut chunks and some garlic as well.

There you go.

Smorgasbord.

YMIR LAUGHS

Yeah.

Well, how do you pronounce it?

Smorrebrod.

Smorrebrod?

Yeah! "Smorgasbord"?! Who's that? Who's that?!

-No, it's "smorrebrod!"

-Smorrebrod!

Well, do you know, I was just thinking.

You can stick all those little tropical places where you sit at

a bar, you know... YMIR LAUGHS

sit at the bar and have your cocktails.

This beats it hands-down.

I'd just come for a long weekend here, I love swimming that much.

Then Ymir took me 30 minutes along the road

to another volcanic spring to meet his friend, Viktor.

Every day, he bakes fresh rye bread in the hot, sandy earth.

Welcome to my bakery!

Beautiful.

Now, as you probably know, we have a lot of hot springs here in Iceland

and there are three of them in this town.

Since the hot springs create an enormous amount of heat,

all around them, we are able to bake all sorts of goods

in the sand, so yesterday, I dug down Icelandic rye bread

which has been baking now for 24 hours.

I think my problem is I'm a bit of a doubting Thomas.

When I read about all this, about burying the bread and cooking it

in the sand, I just thought,

"Oh, yeah, that's just for the tourists."

Fabulous! Look at that.

I made this, actually, at home.

I just thought, yeah, it's all right, but the smell of the sulphur,

the sting in the air, the volcano at the back,

it's one of those occasions when to be there,

to taste the food where it came from, makes all the difference.

-Plenty of butter.

-Yep.

-Beautiful.

Oh, really good contrast, this really salty butter

and sweet rye bread.

By the lake. Fabulous.

Now it's just a thought, but if you ever wanted

to look the world in the eye, this would be the place.

This is Strokkur, one of the most active geysers in Iceland.

GEYSER ERUPTS

It's an astonishing sight.

Every ten minutes or so,

it shoots about 30 feet of boiling water into the air.

You can tell, looking at the water there, when it's about to go,

because it just gets more and more agitated.

And it's getting like that now.

Actually, the water's more interesting

because a great big hole appears after the steam,

like it's going right down to the centre of the earth.

I've seen this on the telly before but I didn't know that this

massive sapphire ball of hot water surging from the heart of the Earth

would have such an effect on me.

It's quite magical.

(Fabulous!)

You can't come to Iceland and not visit the geysers. Honestly.

It really is worth taking a few trips

out of the city on a long weekend.

Now, it's perfect time of year, in winter, to see the Northern Lights.

They keep saying, "Any day now."

But no. Reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.

"Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but Northern lights?

"Not today!"

Back in town, it's suppertime.

Ragi Eiriksson is the chef at Dill,

named after one of Iceland's favourite flavours.

Ragi is a pioneer of a new style of Icelandic cuisine

using only local ingredients.

It's a restaurant with attitude,

and beards too!

I really wanted to come to this restaurant.

What I love about it is it's so down to earth

and sort of, you know, there's nothing enormously showy about it.

But it's really apparently the centre of what they call

the new Nordic cuisine in Iceland.

Ragi's already charred these chunks of cauliflower

and now he fries them in butter.

This is to go with my goose.

It's a lovely bird and you don't often see it on a menu.

He's serving the breast meat, barely seared,

sitting on cauliflower puree, with a confit of leg meat too.

There's a sauce made with goose stock and crowberries

which grow plentifully here.

They're sweet and very mild.

Finally, of course a few freckles of dill oil.

Thanks, Ragi.

Just remind me what these berries are called again.

They're called crowberries.

They grow quite abundantly all over Iceland.

You can see they're very tart and sour

so you got to use them in a balance.

How would you sum up the food of Iceland then?

I think if you have to describe the flavours you use,

they are quite earthy, they're quite rugged and dark sometimes.

We eat a lot of sheep

and we don't have a lot of flowers or trees in Iceland.

So it's more of these earthy... Earthy dark tastes.

Tell me about the idea of charring vegetables

and actually burning them.

Vegetables, to char like this, it brings out the carbohydrates

and the bitterness of it.

It is really like a bitter carbohydrate that is going to

highlight the food, the taste itself.

You have, for example, the creaminess of the puree,

the tartness and the sourness of the crowberries

and then you have this to balance it all out.

It's funny because I'm from a generation that thinks

burning vegetables is a bad thing, but as long as you do

it in a controlled way, it's actually very nice.

-No wonder you're doing so well.

-Thank you very much.

RAGI LAUGHS

That goose really was fab.

I'm going on another trip out of town.

Sometimes it's best to let an expert drive,

because although I'm only going an hour away, the weather has taken

a turn for the worse, and over here, that could be pretty serious.

Well I'm in the west of Iceland on my way to a sheep farm

with Gunnar, our driver.

He's just said that we may not make it back

because there's been a severe weather warning.

-They may close the road, isn't that right, Gunnar?

-Yes, for sure.

It's going to be very windy this afternoon.

We're OK now, but you can feel that the car is moving a little

-with the wind.

-I'll say.

-Yeah.

You can see these hills and mountains here to our left.

What happens is the wind will come over the mountain, down the hill

and it hits this road here like an avalanche, and it will literally

pick cars up and toss them off the road,

and that happens quite frequently.

-Will we get through, do you think?

-I hope so.

I'll do our best my best to keep us safe and on the road.

Well, he did. We got there in one piece despite the wind

and we didn't get blown off the road.

Now, if an Icelander isn't eating fish, you can be sure

she's eating lamb, and that's what I'm looking for here.

I've been invited to lunch at the home of Atter

and her family, who farm sheep high in the hills above a nearby fjord.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Nice to meet you too.

Welcome to my farm.

I'm looking forward to going into your farmhouse.

Into the warm, into the warm. Please.

'We've come during the month long festival of Thorrablot,

'when families celebrate stories of the Norse gods

'and the Viking sagas.'

Mmm, baked sheep's head. Yummo!

Thorrablot is a part of our old culture when we had different months

and January, February and March....

Thorri is the month now according to the old timetable.

-The pagan timetable?

-Yes. Exactly.

So we're having a midwinter festival with all the best that

we can offer with food.

Atter's making a marinade for this lamb

and I must say when I saw the recipe back in the UK, I really,

really wanted to try this because the lamb is essentially

marinated in wild blueberries.

The blueberries grow wild all around here in the fjords

so we like to use them. They are nice. They are sweet, tasteful.

When I was looking through notes about Iceland,

you've got a famous poet called Hallgrimsson?

-Jonas Hallgrimsson, yes.

-He writes about Iceland in the summer

-and the hills outside there blue with blueberries.

-Yes.

It's beautiful. It's blue with blueberries, black with crowberries.

Gosh. I've got to come back in the summer. Anyway, back to...

So you're squeezing those to get the juice out, I guess.

Yes, and it goes perfect with dried herbs.

So now we put the liquid on the lamb.

How long would you marinate that for now then?

I would say we would have to marinate it like this

-for at least four days.

-Four days?

-We're not going to be here for four days.

-Well, we will find a way. OK.

We will find a way. We always have solutions.

'And sure enough, here's one she made earlier.'

How long does that go in the oven for then?

-We'll keep it in the oven for two hours now.

-At 175?

-Yes.

-All right. Good.

Atter's sheep are very precious.

This breed is descended directly from animals brought

to Iceland by the Vikings.

But even they've come in for refuge from the storm.

The weather is that bad.

I don't think I've ever been in a storm like it back in the UK,

but in here, it's so comfortable.

They are all enjoying this hay, which smells absolutely lovely.

Look at their satisfied faces.

Because of the storm, it just makes what is happening in here

so much more lovely.

I think this one is called Hildegard.

Jolly good name for a Viking sheep.

Atter's husband, Gumi, a fine man,

has a little smokery on the hill where he cures his lamb.

He's won awards for it too, so it must be good,

although at first sight...

-Can I try it?

-You can try. I have to try also.

Oh, that's really nice. What do you use to smoke it with then?

-I used dry sheep shit.

-Dry sheep shit?

Yes, dry it and use wood a little bit with it.

-A little bit of wood and dry sheep shit.

-Then we get a strong smoke.

-Very strong smoke.

-Yeah.

-I guess it is all herbal, isn't it?

-Doesn't sound great.

-No, it is not sounding so great.

-But it is tasting really, really nice.

-People like it,

if they are brave enough to try it.

SINGING IN ICELANDIC

The feast begins.

The table is covered with traditional treats like

lamb's testicles and the sheep's head I saw earlier.

Not all of them, I have to say, to my taste,

but completely understandable coming out of this icy landscape.

You would let nothing go to waste.

Among them, the succulent, blueberry-covered lamb

which I've been waiting for.

It tasted very gamey, as it should.

After all, these lambs come from a wild landscape,

but after two hours in the oven, it was perfectly cooked.

Good meat.

I just wanted to say how very grateful I am for you

to invite me into your family today and it has been just so interesting.

-What do you say?

-Skal.

-Skal. Of course.

'That farm was so special.'

Freezing cold, but memorable it was,

and I've come up with a recipe which brings back those fond memories.

It's breaded lamb cutlets with spiced red cabbage and blueberries.

First, fry some sliced onions in butter.

The red cabbage is best cut into thin strips,

added once the onions are starting to soften.

Then some large chunks of apple.

Peeled and cored, of course.

About a cup of blueberries, along with a cinnamon stick,

a few cloves and some dark brown sugar.

I actually look forward to winter just for red cabbage,

and as the Icelandic winter lasts so long and is so cold

and so snowy, red cabbage is such a big part of what they eat.

I just love that combination of sweet and sour,

the red cabbage, the vinegar, the apple and some bramble jelly

just to add to the illustrious sweetness and bring out the colour.

Now, season and add a splash of water

and leave to simmer for about an hour.

So, this is called paneing.

Basically you pass whatever you've got, in this case the best end chop

first in flour, like that.

And then in egg, beaten egg, like that.

Make sure you've got every bit coated and finally...

..into breadcrumbs.

Always better to do the whole lot in each rather than

one after another, otherwise you end up

with batter all over your fingers.

So, I'm using best end chops which are the tenderest chops

in a lamb, and really that's what

I choose for egging and breadcrumbing

because it tastes so good, so juicy.

I'm also frying in butter so I have to be very careful.

Cook at a low temperature because I don't want to burn the butter.

The flavour of just using butter is incomparable.

The fruity spiced red cabbage is soft and sweet

and almost jam-like, and it goes beautifully with this tender lamb.

I'm sure they would have given a hearty thumbs up

to my chops at the Thorrablot.

I've made this dish three times now and it just seems to work

so well with the red cabbage.

It is absolutely delicious.

Now this is an interesting story, I think.

This is Elisabet Skuladottir, who owns the Sea Baron,

one of the most popular tourist cafes in the city.

They specialise in fish barbecued on skewers.

Simple, fresh, delicious.

But on Saturdays,

she makes one particular Icelandic dish which I really ought to try.

Story has it that this cafe once belonged to a man

we might call the Icelandic Hugh Hefner.

He liked to be surrounded by attractive woman. No shortage here.

When he died, he handed over to Elisabet,

promising to go on enjoying the atmosphere even though

he is now a model of his former self.

RICK LAUGHS

So Elisabet, can you explain what you are cooking here then?

-This is our fermented skate.

-It is a speciality for you then, is it?

-Yes, it's a tradition for many years.

-I have to say,

I am not really liking the smells coming off here.

-Are you not?

-This doesn't smell too good either.

No, the taste is different. This is the fat from the inside

-of a sheep's stomach and we put that over the fish.

-Really?

-Without this, it is not so good.

-Really?

Yeah, you have to keep it all together.

-It is not good without this very sheep-y smelling fat.

-Yes.

-And does everybody love it?

-Not everybody but this is my favourite.

If I was going to a restaurant, I would choose this over

-everything else.

-Really?

-Yes.

I am not actually enjoying the smell coming from there either.

No, the taste is different.

-Do you promise?

-Yeah, don't judge by the smell.

You have to take small pieces because you can burn your mouth.

-You can burn your mouth?

-Yes.

-What?

-Not with the heat but with the actual...

-No, with the ammonia.

-You can burn your mouth with ammonia?

-Yes.

If it is very strong, but this is a bit mild,

so just take a small piece and don't breathe very hard because it will...

-You get the ammonia in the back of your...

-The ammonia will go...

..in your throat. But it is good, I promise.

Well, I've had some bad experiences in my life.

I once ate some very, very putrid fish beloved by the Thais,

and the woman that was cooking it for me said,

"No, no, it's not for you." I said, "No, I'll try it, I'll try it."

And it came to the table in a swarm of flies.

I'm used to it, but I'm nervous. I am nervous.

At least you can say that you did try.

That's more than more people can do.

I think what I'm going to do, actually, I have this little plan,

and whatever I eat, I expect the film crew to eat too.

Yes, you should do that.

-When I've tried it, I'm going to make them eat it.

-I like that idea.

FISH SIZZLES

Oh, my God!

This needs to be hot, otherwise it will be like eating candle wax.

-The more you say, the worse it gets. I'm a bit nervous.

-Are you ready?

Because I have this reputation as being capable of

tasting anything but, you know...

-Anyway, let's get on with it.

-It's OK.

I've had grown men gagging over the bin eating rotten shark.

It's OK. I've seen everything.

I've just got to summon up a bit of courage now

because the smell coming off of it is actually revolting.

Here we go.

-Crikey!

-You've tasted before.

-No, I haven't.

-Yes, you have.

Just relax your face and enjoy it. Breathe in.

I can't breathe in, it's coming out of my nose!

It is the most disgusting thing I have ever tasted.

Right, come on, come on, come on, come on. Come on!

Actually, Rick...

Come on! ELISABET LAUGHS

Pete! Pete!

Actually, it's not that bad.

I love this church. It's the biggest in Iceland.

Something about its clean no-nonsense lines

that I find really attractive.

It's supposed to represent molten lava and it gives me

the satisfying feeling that someone has got it totally right.

In the front, a statue stands of Leif Erikson -

an unsung hero of the sea,

whose navigation skills have never been fully recognised.

Leif "the Lucky" Erikson was reputed to have discovered America

600 years before Christopher Columbus.

I think that's why he was called "Lucky."

Leif's statue was a gift from the United States in 1930,

presumably as a thanks for discovering them -

which is nice.

As it's my last day, I'm taking a trip out of town

to one of Iceland's most glorious and unmissable sights.

A stunning force of nature.

Gullfoss waterfall.

It's the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls rolled into one

and fed by a huge glacier.

I really like it here.

It stretches the mind. It gives the eyes a holiday.

There's nothing like the cold for the sharpening of appetite.

Time for lunch at a restaurant called Fjorubordid,

in a village just outside Reykjavik.

It started out as a sort of beach cafe,

but every summer they did really well with their cooked langoustines.

So well that in the end they came up with just two special dishes -

fried langoustine tails and langoustine soup.

Tourists came in shedloads to try it, and after every season,

they added yet another dining room.

The fried langoustine tails are very simple and, of course, delicious.

But it's the soup everyone talks about.

I'd hoped they'd give me a clue about how they make it

and the secret of their success, but they didn't.

It's so busy, they're going to have well over 100 people

in here for lunch.

If it's only one dish they come for, it's bound to be a good one.

And indeed it is.

But now I'm trying to work out what's in it,

as they won't give me the recipe.

Pepper? Yes.

Cream? Yes.

Curry powder? Yes.

Probably a stock made from fish and langoustine tails. Yes.

Delicious.

Langoustine soup, it's a secret recipe,

but chefs are also sleuths, and I'm going to come up with a soup

which I think will be better.

It's quite easy to do langoustines.

They need to be in good nick.

Let me just show you what I mean by good nick.

Whenever you get a lobster or a langoustine, flick the tail.

If it goes back with the spring, you know you've got

a good, firm meat inside. All these are like that.

First of all, I just break the tail away from the head.

Squeeze the back shell until you hear it crack.

A satisfying crack, as you break the shell.

And pull off. There we go. I love doing things like this.

I'm sure when people have lobsters, langoustines, prawns,

they just throw the shells away.

Actually, there is more flavour in the shells

than there is in the meat.

I'm just crushing them now, to extract as much flavour as possible.

There we go, all done.

Onto the pan. Into the pan goes some butter.

First, the shells go in.

Then roughly chopped onions, carrots and celery.

A good glug of white wine and now for some fish stock.

Now, I'll bring that up to a rapid boil

and leave it simmering for about an hour.

So, in the other pan, first of all, melting some butter.

You will note, there's quite a lot of butter in this dish,

but Icelanders love their butter.

It's very much what they do, butter in everything.

So, first of all, some chopped onions in there.

And now I'm adding some curry powder.

It's just a little background flavour

and it works a treat in a shellfish soup like this one.

There was plenty of tomato puree, red peppers

and I think I detected a hint of Tabasco.

Anyway, it's going in. And lots of fresh tomatoes.

And now, in goes the stock.

This smells absolutely lovely.

Plenty of cream, too. And then blitz.

But it wasn't that hard to, sort of, deduce what else

was in the langoustine soup.

Mainly, because I've had so many similar soups all over the place

in my time.

So, I just sort of built up through my knowledge

and I think I've got pretty much what they did.

I might send it to them, the recipe, and say, "Well...?"

And finally, the langoustine tails go into the hot soup.

That's only enough to heat them through.

So, there we go. Ready to serve.

Yum.

Do you know, I think that's the best damn soup I've ever made.

It's my last night, I'm meeting up with my friend Ymir again.

He won't let me leave Iceland until I try one last dish.

I've been avoiding it like the plague, but tonight is the night.

I'm looking forward to having some of your fermented shark.

Shark.

-It smells horribly.

-OK.

And it tastes not as horribly as it smells.

-It smells way worse than it tastes.

-OK.

But the good news is, with the fermented shark,

-which is in this jar...

-Yeah?

-It's sealed,

because the smell is going to overtake the whole place.

-Oh, right.

-But the good news... This is the good news.

-So, that's your friend.

-OK.

-And that's your enemy.

So, your friend is the Brennivin, which is a potato-based vodka,

40% proof.

We also call it, "Black Death," cos beer was illegal

until 1989 in Iceland.

-We could drink that all the time, the moonshine.

-But not beer?

But not beer. They would smuggle in the beer.

You know, you could have it if you have a fisherman or a sailor...

That is so funny. So, in any other country,

you smuggled in the moonshine.

-Not in this country.

-In this country, you smuggled in the beer.

I know. So, before I open the jar,

please, take a toothpick and then pick a piece.

Oh, God!

Right, you've got to go too.

Yeah. Damn it, I thought I could get away with it.

-Do you like it?

-No, I don't. I like that, but I don't like this.

-OK.

-I would never have that, unless I can drink a shot afterwards.

OK.

Argh! All right.

-Skal!

-Skal!

Argh!

Oh!

-Is that fun?

-Actually, it is fun, you know.

It's sort of, in a curious way,

because you know you're not going to die...

Well, this is really healthy.

You know, you Vikings don't die when you eat it.

Now I've done it, I just think it's sort of like a celebration in a way,

because it's sort of exciting.

You've got this nervousness and it you try

and it is terrible, but you eat it.

-You chew it, not too much, so it doesn't stick in your teeth.

-No!

Then you whack back the Black Death and you think, "Yeah!"

-And then everybody is happy.

-Yeah.

-It's a good idea.

-Yeah.

-I might stick to my...

-Yeah!

-Skal!

-Skal!

So, my long weekend is over and no Aurora Borealis.

But on the way to the airport, suddenly,

there is a glow in the distance. Could it be?

No, it's a tomato farm, heated by geothermal power.

A fabulous sight, but not the Northern Lights.

Never mind, Reykjavik has been wonderful.

Definitely quirky, but most of all - loads of fun.