Culinary World Tour: Iceland (Lamb Pie With Rye Crust)

After a few months focusing on grilling and trying out new pastas, it's time to get back into our culinary world tour as we continue to expand our recipe horizons and try out foods from other cultures. If you missed our previous entries you can check out our stops at:

Mexico: Posole
Canada: Poutine
Greenland: Suaasat

The next stop was Iceland, and to get some inspiration I contacted the members of Solstafir, a personal favorite band of mine hailing from that country. I should have known a metal band was going to point me in the direction of a meal called "Satan's Face on a Plate," which along with quite a few other traditional Icelandic meals we ended up deciding against both because the ingredients would be difficult to obtain and because we didn't particularly want to eat a cold sheep's face.

We noticed quite a few of the recipes found online used lamb and rye bread, so we decided to make a meal inspired by Icelandic cuisine but not perhaps a direct recipe taken from their traditional foods: a lamb pie made with a rye dough crust.

Before seeing the step-by-step breakdown of our lamb pie, get into a cold Icelandic feel with a music video from Solstafir:




Here we are starting to put together our rye dough ahead of time, which is made from a mixture of rye and white flour, along with butter and water.

The dough is divided into two separate parts, since the pie will have a top and bottom layer, and then refrigerated until it gets to this consistency:

While the dough is being prepared we also start putting together the pie filling, which is based around onions, carrots, mushrooms, and garlic.

The vegetables are cooked in a skillet along with ground lamb, which we found at Smith's on clearance for $3.49. As bargain shoppers, it was a little pricier than we'd normally spend for only a pound of meat, but it was worth trying out something new.

We didn't want the filling to be dry, but at the same time the end product needed to slice like a pie and not be goopy, so we used a small amount of Greek yogurt to keep the filling moist.

The filling is then seasoned with the standards like salt and pepper, along with some dill.

To start constructing the pie, Megan is rolling out one of the rye dough balls.

The dough is pushed into the bottom of a spring form pan to form the bottom layer.

Next we pour the filling of veggies, lamb, and yogurt onto the bottom crust layer.

Everything is spread out evenly so each bite will be full of delicious filling.

The second piece of dough is then also rolled out and placed over top the filling, creating a filled pie.

The top layer is brushed with an egg wash and then has a star shape cut in the center to allow the pie to vent during cooking.

The pie here has just come out of the oven and is baked to golden perfection.

When the spring form pan comes off you can see the pie has retained its shape, and the smell was fantastic!

Here you can see the filling from the side, which hit the perfect balance and wasn't dry or overly moist.

We're serving our pie with a big dinner salad for a complete meal. The lamb is a bit lighter and more delicate than beef, but tastes amazing and goes very well with the other ingredients. We're excited to try this recipe again by changing around some elements, such as adding in potatoes and bell peppers or using the different Philadelphia Cooking Creme flavors in place of the yogurt.

This trek into the flavors of Iceland was a rousing success, and one of our favorites so far. For the next stop of our culinary in-kitchen world tour we'll be skipping over the Faroe Islands, as they are technically part of Denmark and we'll be covering that country later on, and instead head straight to Ireland.

Check back soon for more from Six-Seven-Eight, and in the mean time, check out another killer Solstafir video!