Search
Brazil
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Guyana
French Guiana
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela
Germany
Austria
Belgium
CroatiaDenmark
Spain
Finland
France
Greece
the Netherlands
Hungary
Ireland
Iceland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
Poland
Portugal
the United Kingdom
the Czech Republic
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Canada
the United States
Mexico
the Dominican RepublicTurkey
South Africa
Australia
Fiji
New Zealand
Papua New GuineaFlavors · Denmark
Flattened meat patties made from ground meat, typically half pork and half veal, fried in butter until a crust forms. They are homestyle food across Denmark, served with potatoes, a dark gravy and pickles or cabbage.
Traditional dish from Denmark
Also known as: frikadelle, danske frikadeller
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
Click a photo to enlarge it.
Frikadeller — Denmark
Frikadeller are meat patties made from ground meat beaten with onion, egg, flour or bread and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper. The classic mix is half pork and half veal. Using a spoon, oval flattened patties are formed and fried in butter until a golden crust develops on the outside while the interior stays tender.
Frikadeller are often regarded as a national dish, though similar patties exist in many countries. The word came via German or Dutch, but the name for the fried patty exists only in Danish and in German. In Denmark it appears in the early 18th century, first as an accompaniment to more elaborate dishes.
It was the pork slaughter cooperatives and butcher shops of the early 20th century that made fresh meat an everyday food. Since then, ground pork and veal for frikadeller have been a common presence in Danish kitchens.
The traditional accompaniment is boiled potatoes with dark gravy and pickles, or white cabbage cooked in cream. Cold, frikadeller are placed on rye bread in smørrebrød with red cabbage, and they also appear at picnics with potato salad.
Each family has its own recipe, and the patties are served both at home and in Danish restaurants.
Denmark
Homestyle food throughout the country.
Ground pork and veal, onion, egg, wheat flour or bread, milk, salt and pepper; butter for frying.
Hot, as a main course; cold, on smørrebrød or at picnics.
Everyday dinners, family lunches and picnics.
Your questions
Flattened patties of ground pork and veal fried in butter until a crust forms.
The classic is boiled potatoes with meat gravy and pickles, or white cabbage in cream. Cold, they become a topping for smørrebrød.
Not exactly: similar patties exist in several countries. But in Denmark the pork-and-veal version fried in butter is seen as a national dish.
Flavors of Denmark
Soft little dough balls fried in a cast-iron pan with round cavities and served with powdered sugar and jam. Despite the name, which means apple slices, they generally do not contain apple: they are the Danish Advent and Christmas sweet.
Nordic spirit flavored with caraway and, sometimes, dill, served chilled in small glasses at Danish celebratory lunches, alongside herring and beer. In Denmark, the drink’s industrial history is linked to Aalborg.
Hot sausages served in a bun from the pølsevogne, the hot‑dog carts that have operated in Danish cities since 1921, with mustard, ketchup, remoulade, fried onion and pickled cucumber slices. The first carts appeared in Copenhagen.
Cold rice pudding with whipped cream, chopped almonds and vanilla, served with warm cherry sauce at the end of the Christmas dinner. A whole almond is hidden in the serving dish, and whoever finds it receives a gift.
Thickened compote of red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, currant and cherry, served cold with cream or milk. It’s the classic Danish summer dessert, and the name is famously hard to pronounce.
A slice of rye bread with butter and a generous, carefully arranged topping, eaten with fork and knife. It’s Denmark’s traditional lunch, and the tall, decorated version became famous in Copenhagen restaurants in the late 19th century.
Slices of pork belly fried until crispy, served with boiled potatoes and a white parsley sauce. It was chosen as Denmark’s national dish in a vote held by the Ministry of Food in 2014.
Honey and spice cakes made from a dough that rests for months before baking, often coated in chocolate. They have been produced in Christiansfeld, the Moravian Church town, since 1783, with recipes kept secret.
Sweet yeast pastries with layers of butter, shaped as a snail, bow, braid or envelope, filled with custard, remonce or fruit. The first Viennese bakery in Denmark opened in Copenhagen in the 1840s, and the city became associated with the pastry the world calls Danish pastry.
Rye bread with smoked herring, raw egg yolk, radish, chives and onion: the smokehouses’ dish from Bornholm. The name means sun over Gudhjem, and the yolk plays the role of the sun over the village where the island’s first smokehouse opened.
Soft yeast cake topped with a layer of melted butter and brown sugar that forms syrupy pools on the surface. It is regarded as the cake of Fyn, and the earliest records are from Odense, in 1830.
