NORWAY 🇳🇴
One rule of thumb for coming to the Dotty's Norwegian Kitchen booth at the Queens International Night Market is to wait until the skies get dark enough for their colored light bulbs to get into full effect. Any earlier it seems, will usually be met by a polite "We're not quite ready." But Norwegian cuisine, here limited to three items, is worth waiting for in New York City since so rarely is it seen offered in traditional forms.
Sure, there are vaguely-Scandinavian tastes available at the Essex Street Market and an annual picnic held on Staten Island by folks that might have had Norwegian great grandparents, but Dotty's seems to offer something replicating the here and now and is a pleasant surprise.
Their most popular dish seems to be the fårikål ($5, above), a lamb and cabbage stew made with ale that sometimes gets called the national dish of Norway. Generous chunks of lamb and a potato or two are found underneath Dotty's concoction of pickled vegetables that they use for other dishes as well.
Fårikål has its roots as a Danish stew made with goose and/or duck, but when it traveled northward in the 1840's was adapted with the more common land animal. Nowadays the country celebrates this occurrence at the end of every September with Fårikål Feast Day.
The unfortunate translation to "fish pudding" should not put you off from an order of their wonderful fiskegrot ($5, above), served hot with very soft pieces of Icelandic cod. Another good portion of the pickled vegetables is joined by a dill cream sauce and capers added to the top of the pudding, creating wild extremes of texture and tastes. Somewhere within comes a slight sweetness, but salt and sour mostly rule the day.
The fish is very fresh and brought back memories of the wonderful Icelandic fish monger in Closter, New Jersey. Is this where they get their cod from?
Despite not ordering it, Dotty's had prepared too much lefse (not shown) for what turned out to be a slow night on the hottest day of the year. This resulted in a free half piece of the potato flatbread that could not be turned down. Cloudberries are not in season, so it was slathered with lingonberry jam instead and just as delicious I am sure.
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