(Skidne æg = Dirty eggs)
Good Friday is traditionally a day of sorrow, and in Danish homes it was customary to eat the dullest food possible - in some regions, porridge made of rye-flour. In other places, however, this rather more imaginative - and tasty - dish was preferred. For that very reason hard-boiled eggs in mustard sauce has survived as a dish eaten not solely at Easter.
The egg, as symbol, has been handed down from the old pagan fertility rites, celebrated at roughly the same time as Easter.
8-12 eggs
2 oz (50 g) butter
2 tablesp. (50 g) flour
About 1 pint (1 l) milk
5-6 tablesp. (1-1 ½ dl cream)
Ground white pepper and salt
Fish mustard (a coarselll ground mustard - see below)
Boil the eggs 6-7 minutes - the whites should then be firm, the yolks still a little soft.
Make a white sauce in a thick-bottomed saucepan from the butter, flour and milk, cooking well through.
Gradually add the cream until a suitable consistency is obtained, seasoning with salt, pepper and fishmustard.
Pour the sauce over the shelled, hard-boiled eggs and serve with home-made rye-bread.
Fish-mustard is also known as water-ground mustard, because the mustard seed once used to be ground with a cannon ball in a clay bowl containing just enough water to hold the mustard together.
Nowadays a pestle and mortar may be used instead.
The dish may also be prepared with ordinary German or French Dijon mustard, although the result is not quite the same.
Chef's Tip: Hard-boiled eggs in mustard sauce with ale and raspberrysnaps