Millionbøf and How to Speak Danish with Just Two Words

Danish Entree

MILLIONBØF

INGREDIENTS

1 pound potatoes
1 large onion
2 teaspoons butter
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 pound ground beef (85% lean is best)
2 tablespoons flour
1¾ cups beef stock
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons gravy browning or dark gravy

Makes 4 bowls. Takes 50 minutes.

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel potatoes. Cut potatoes into fourths. Put potato fourths in large pot. Boil on high heat for 20 minutes.

While potatoes are boiling, dice onion. Add onion, butter, and vegetable oil to pan. Sauté at medium heat for 5 minutes or until it starts to brown or BEGINS TO SOFTEN. Stir frequently. Add ground beef. Reduce heat to medium. Cook for 3-to-5 minutes or until beef starts to brown. Stir occasionally.

After potatoes have been boiled for 20 minutes, remove them from pot. Put potatoes in large mixing bowl. Mash them. Add flour to pan with ground beef. Stir until well blended. Add beef stock, pepper, and salt.. Bring to boil using high heat. Stir frequently. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 20 minutes or until less than half of the liquid is left. Stir occasionally. Add gravy browning. Stir until well blended. Serve over mashed potatoes.

TIDBITS

1) Bøf is Danish for beef. Bøf is also a palindrome for føb. Føb isn’t Danish for anything, although the Danes do have a word for everything that exists. Føb is just a reserve word the Danes have just in case something really new is discovered, such as a carnivorous, ambulatory fig looking tree on Mars. (CAMFLTOM)

2) The Danish Official Word Naming Association (DOWNA) would then look down their list of approved new words. If føb were at the top of the list, then the CAMFTOM would be called “føb.”

3) There’s more. Take the first letter away from føb and you get øf, the Danish word for oink. Now you know both of Denmark’s really necessary words. Remember the song, “If I could talk to the Danes?” Well, now you can. Go visit Denmark. Visit today, before you lose your vocabulary.

Chef Paul