Stegt Flæsk med Persillesovs (Danish Crisp Pork with Parsley Sauce)
Denmark's national dish, chosen by public vote in 2014: pork belly sliced 5 mm thick and roasted on a rack until glassy and crisp, served with boiled potatoes and a white sauce loaded with parsley. The thickness, the amount of parsley, and the pickled beetroot on the side are the whole thing.
Ingredients
- Pork belly · unsmoked, sliced 5 mm thick800 g
- Salt · lightly, before cooking
- Potatoes · small and even-sized, skin on800 g
- Persillesovs (parsley sauce)
- Butter50 g
- Flour50 g
- Milk · add it in stages600 ml
- Flat-leaf parsley · finely chopped — enough that the sauce reads green1 large handful
- Salt and white pepper · to taste
- Nutmeg · a scrape
- Lemon juice · a few drops, optional
- To serve
- Pickled beetroot · Danish rødbeder — it cuts the fat
Steps
- ⏲ 10 min
Heat the oven to 225°C. Slice the pork belly 5 mm thick, lay it in a single layer on a rack over a tray and salt it lightly. Thicker and it won't crisp through; thinner and it burns.
- ⏲ 30 min
Roast 15 minutes, turn, and roast another 10–15 until the edges have curled deep brown and the surface looks glassy. (On the hob: medium-high, in batches, 4–5 minutes a side.)
- ⏲ 20 min
Meanwhile boil the potatoes in salted water for 15–20 minutes, until a skewer slides through. Keep them warm.
- ⏲ 3 min
Make the sauce: melt the butter, stir in the flour and cook it 2 minutes **without letting it colour**. Browning the roux is wrong here — this is a white sauce.
- ⏲ 8 min
Add the milk in stages, whisking constantly, until smooth and thick enough to coat a spoon. Simmer 5 more minutes to cook out the flour.
- ⏲ 2 min
Off the heat, stir in the chopped parsley — generously. Season with salt, white pepper and a scrape of nutmeg. It should read as a **green sauce**, not a white one with green flecks.
Plate the potatoes, spoon the sauce over them, and pile the crisp pork alongside. Serve with pickled beetroot.
Tips & Variations
Variations
- With smoked belly (bacon): That's the version in the photo above. Easier to buy and stronger in flavour, though the traditional cut is unsmoked. Skip the extra salt if you use bacon.
- Skin on: Belly with the rind left on puffs and turns exceptionally crisp. Add 5–10 minutes to the roasting time.
- Air fryer: 200°C for 12–15 minutes with one turn gets you essentially the oven result. A splash of water in the drawer keeps the smoke down.
- Chives in the sauce: Parsley is canonical, but some households fold in a little chive.
- Other starches: Danish kitchens serve new potatoes in summer and mashed in winter.
Tips
- Use the oven and a rack. A frying pan spits and cooks the slices unevenly. On a rack the fat drips away and both sides crisp evenly.
- Stick to 5 mm. Thickness is the whole dish. Thicker leaves chewy fat behind; thinner burns and turns bitter.
- Don't brown the roux. Persillesovs is a white sauce — go to the milk before the butter-flour mix takes any colour.
- Parsley off the heat, and a lot of it. Boiled, it goes drab. The Danish quantity is two or three times what most people would reach for.
- Serve the pickled beetroot. It isn't decoration. Rich pork and cream sauce alone gets cloying halfway through the plate.
- Voted Denmark's national dish in 2014, in an online poll run by the Ministry of Food. It looks plain, and Danes are genuinely attached to it.
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