Hangikjöt: Icelandic Smoked Lamb with Creamed Potatoes and Red Cabbage

Hangikjöt: Cold Smoked Lamb, Warm White Sauce

A roll of smoked lamb is cooked, cooled in its own broth, and thinly sliced. Warm potatoes in a white sauce go beside it, along with glossy red cabbage simmered in wine, vinegar and sugar. The cold meat, the warm sauce and the sour cabbage come together in each bite. Visit Iceland describes boiled hangikjöt served cold with a béchamel-like sauce, peas and potatoes as a traditional dish on Christmas Eve.

Hangikjöt (written hangikjöt in Icelandic) is lamb that has already been cured and smoked. The Slow Food Foundation describes it as leg or shoulder of lamb that is dry-salted or brined and then cold-smoked. This article does not cover curing or smoking raw lamb at home. You start from a finished, ready-made product and do the cooking, cooling and side dishes yourself.

This recipe follows the six-serving version published by Icelandic Lamb (íslenskt lambakjöt). It uses a boneless roll of about 1.5 kg, cooked by weight. The sauce and red cabbage amounts come from the same recipe. A separate method for a bone-in smoked leg exists, but its cut and times are different, so it is not mixed in here.

For more dishes from the same country, see Icelandic recipes.

Why Smoked Meat at Christmas: Stored Meat Becomes a Holiday Dish

The cultural historian Árni Björnsson explains the custom on the University of Iceland's Vísindavefurinn site. In the past, some households could not get fresh meat for Christmas. For them, meat smoked in autumn and stored was the option. Over time, cold hangikjöt became established as a Christmas dish. He describes how the household table changed up to the 20th century. Read this way, the dish did not stay the same from ancient times. It grew out of the conditions households faced in winter.

How the meat is made also varies. According to the Slow Food Foundation's Ark of Taste, leg or shoulder is used, either dry-salted or brined, and then cold-smoked. Dried sheep dung or birch can be the fuel, and production differs from region to region. Visit Iceland also mentions smoking over sheep dung. Slow Food notes that hangikjöt is eaten with bread at lunch as well. The Christmas table is one important setting, not the only one.

The sides change from home to home too. An English-language booklet on Icelandic Christmas food, hosted on a school website, describes potatoes in white sauce eaten with smoked meat. It notes that some households add sugar to that sauce, and that red cabbage is made in different ways. The recipe here keeps to one set of sides: uppstúfur with potatoes and red cabbage.

Ingredients: Serves 6, Built Around a 1.5 kg Smoked Lamb Roll

Equipment

• A large pot the meat roll fits in without bending
• A larger basin, or a clean sink, for ice water
• Clean shallow containers for cooling and refrigerating the meat and broth
• A pot for boiling the potatoes
• A saucepan for the red cabbage
• A saucepan for the white sauce
• A whisk and a wooden spoon or spatula
• A bamboo skewer or small knife for testing the potatoes
• A kitchen scale
• A cutting board and a sharp knife for slicing the meat

Choosing the Meat and Substitutes

What you need is lamb that has already been salt-cured and smoked, not ordinary lamb. The amounts and cooking time in this recipe are for a boneless rolled product of about 1.5 kg. Products differ in cut, saltiness and how strongly they are smoked, so read the label before you buy. A bone-in smoked leg is cooked by a different method, and the times here do not apply to it.

Search for the meat by its name, hangikjöt or Icelandic smoked lamb. Ask at import grocers or shops that carry Nordic foods. Availability differs from place to place.

Ordinary lamb, smoked ham or other smoked pork are not substitutes. The salt and smoke of cured lamb are what make the dish. With another meat, you are making a different dish. If you cannot get hangikjöt, this recipe cannot be reproduced as written.

Everything else is everyday shopping: butter, flour, milk, potatoes, red cabbage, red wine, red wine vinegar, sugar and a bay leaf. Any waxy or all-purpose potato you can boil whole will work. What matters is the 600g weight after boiling and peeling.

Method: Cook by Weight, Cool in the Broth, Slice Cold

Salty, Crumbly, Lumpy: Fixing Problems

Storage and Reheating

Do not leave the cooked meat or the sauce at room temperature for long. Cool cooked food quickly, either by setting the pot in ice water or by dividing it into clean, shallow containers. Refrigerate it promptly. Keep the meat in its broth while it is stored. Take out only what you will eat. If you reheat anything, heat it thoroughly. Check the meat product's label for its own storage guidance.

Variations and Ways to Serve

• Cold, for the holiday table: The base version in this article. Cool the meat in its broth, then serve it thinly sliced.
• Warm meat: Some households serve the meat warm. That method uses a different cut and different cooking times, so it is not covered in this recipe.
• Green peas on the side: Boiled green peas are a common side. Serve as many as you like.
• Laufabrauð: Thin, fried "leaf bread" with cut patterns, set out at Christmas. It is a separate recipe, not part of this one.
• Season the sauce to suit the meat: Adjust the sugar, salt and nutmeg in the sauce to the saltiness and smoke of your particular product.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I smoke lamb at home to make hangikjöt?

This recipe does not cover that. Curing and cold-smoking raw meat is specialized food processing, where salt, curing agents and temperature all have to be controlled. This recipe starts from a finished, commercially made product.

Can I use smoked ham or ordinary lamb instead?

No. The salt and smoke of cured lamb are central to the dish, so ham or fresh lamb gives you a different dish rather than hangikjöt.

Why is the meat cooled before slicing?

The Icelandic Lamb recipe cools the meat in its cooking broth before serving it cold. The school-hosted Christmas food booklet also warns that a smoked leg dries out easily when cut into large pieces. Fully chilled meat is also easier to slice thinly.

Do I need the peas and leaf bread?

No. Icelandic Lamb lists green peas and laufabrauð as other sides, and Visit Iceland mentions peas, but no amounts are given. The meat, the sauce with potatoes and the red cabbage make the meal.

How long does it take overall?

The Icelandic Lamb page lists a total time of about two hours. The separate times on the same page are for the meat cooked by weight, about 20 minutes for the sauce and about an hour for the cabbage. These do not clearly add up to that total, and boiling the potatoes and chilling the meat take extra time. Plan by the individual steps, and cook the meat the day before.

Is there a version without red wine?

This recipe uses red wine in the cabbage. No wine-free version is covered here.

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