Celebrating our Heritage: the Art of Lefse Making.

We were very fortunate to have Eric's mom, June, fly for a visit last week.  We had a great time going for soup & sandwich lunches, a little shopping, tour of Eric's building, the college bookstore, exercise class at the retirement home, the movie The Help at a restored theatre, church, and made lefse!!  Eric & had made lefse with his mom and aunts, Jan & Jean, many years ago, but this time we were more involved.  We used a recipe that June had obtained from an excellent lefse maker in Ridgeland, WI.  I would like to see what recipe my Grandma Moen would have used, since I heard she made the best!

Lefse

4 cups riced potatoes

1 Tbsp. sugar

1  tsp. salt

1 cup flour

1/4 cup veg. oil

1/4 cup evaporated milk

• Boil the potatoes & rice them while hot. (we also mashed them prior to ease ricing).  Scoop a total of 4 cups riced potatoes into a paper towel-lined bowl, 1 cup at a time.  Cover with more paper towel & seal container.  Refrigerate overnight or several hours. 

• Empty each set of 4 cups into a large bowl (separately, 4 cups at a time), work out lumps with your hand, and add 1 cup flour.  Mix. Then add rest of the ingredients: sugar, salt, veg. oil, & evaporated milk.  Mix.  Knead well on a floured surface and roll into about a 12" roll.  Refrigerate at least an hour.  

• Slice into about 1" chunks and roll with ribbed and fabric covered pin.  Using lefse turner, roll it off pastry board, roll onto griddle & grill.  We found that 385 was the ideal temp, but every griddle is different.

• Using lefse turner, lift onto towel & cover until cooled.  Store in sealed bag.

Peeling the potatoes the night before.  We then cut & boiled them.

Potato ricing.  This is an old ricer from Eric's family.  This is one of a few styles.

Four sealed containers with 4 cups of riced potatoes in each one, surrounded by paper towel.

Working out the lumps prior to adding the flour & other ingredients.

Post kneading, rolling it out into a 12" roll.

If they are too soft and sticky, add more flour.  If too dry, add more evaporated milk.  Cover and refrigerator for at least one hour.  We started the first part in the morning, put this in the refrigerator and went for lunch.

The dough cut into 1" sections.

We received this awesome lefse set for our wedding from my cousins Lisa, Brad, Tina, Tracey and families.  The Heritage griddle is on the right. The kit included the pasty cloth and board, lefse turner, and ribbed rolling pin with 2 cloth covers.  I believe they found it all on Target.com

On the left is the 1" balls of dough in flour.  The rolling station---Eric perfected this, figuring out how much flour to add and roll a nice circle without holes.

Using the lefse turner to carefully remove the dough to transfer to the griddle.

Grilling the lefse.  Our first 3 were quite hard, as we had the heat too high & it kept bubbling up.  We found 385 or so to work well.  During this process, the lefse needs to be attended & pat down any bubbles with the turner.  I also use a paper towel to clear off the flour in-between, brushing it off the side of the griddle onto that paper towel on the left.

Grilling was my job.  The afternoon process (minus all the steps prior the past refrigeration) took many hours.  I think we were grilling lefse from about 2:30-7:30.  If you had two griddles, it could go a lot faster.  It was nice to have 3 people, but you could do it with 2.  Actually you could do it alone, but it would take even longer.

June's job was cooling, bagging, and making sure Eric had enough dough ready to be rolled.  Here she is covering the hot lefse in a towel.

Our finished project!!  It was so delicious.  I said it was the best lefse I had ever had, but it is possible that I have never had it so fresh.  My favorite way to eat it is with butter & sugar, but I saw a cookbook that has 91 ways to eat lefse, so there other options.  I wish I could say we will be eating this for a long time, but we are actually almost out already.  I think we have about 5 slices left on the counter & one package of 8 in the freezer.  We may have to make some more again soon!!!  Overall, we didn't think it was as difficult as we thought it would be, just time consuming.  We really got the hang of it.  Makes for a fun, family event!!