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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Denmark
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.
Traditional sweet from Denmark
Also known as: ris à l'amande, ris a la mande
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Risalamande — Denmark
Risalamande is made with rice pudding cooked in milk and then cooled, mixed with whipped cream, skinned chopped almonds and vanilla. It is served cold, with warm cherry sauce (kirsebærsauce) on top; other versions use orange or plum sauce.
The name comes from the French riz à l'amande, rice with almond, but the dessert is considered Danish. It appears in cookbooks in the last decades of the 19th century, served mainly among the upper middle class. Before that, households served rice porridge at the start of the Christmas dinner; with improving living standards, the porridge became a dessert. Risalamande spread after World War II and came to end the Christmas dinner.
The dinner is on the night of December 24 (juleaften). Before serving, a whole almond is placed in the dish. Whoever finds it wins the mandelgave, the almond gift, often a marzipan pig.
The rice porridge (risengrød), the base of the dessert, also has a Christmas tradition: it is usually served days earlier, and a bit of it is left out for the nisse, the house elf, in popular tradition.
Today ready-made rice porridge, cherry sauce and chopped almonds are sold, and there is even risalamande ice cream with a whole almond.
Denmark
A Christmas dinner dessert throughout the country.
Rice, milk, whipped cream, skinned chopped almonds, vanilla, sugar; warm cherry sauce to serve; one whole almond hidden.
Cold, in a bowl, with warm cherry sauce on top; everyone looks for the whole almond.
A Christmas dinner dessert, on the night of December 24.
Your questions
The dessert of the night of December 24: rice pudding with whipped cream and almonds, covered with warm cherry sauce.
The almond gift: whoever finds the whole almond hidden in the risalamande wins a present, often a marzipan pig.
Only the name comes from French. The dessert is Danish and appears in the country’s cookbooks in the late 19th century.
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.
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.
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.
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.
