Fermented Beef Glaze Is the Secret to the Best Danishes

It's not a croissant, not a traditional Danish swirl. And the sweet, umami-pungent smell that hits your nostrils is nothing like anything you've come across before. That's probably because your average morning run to the local bakery doesn't involve a pastry painted with fermented beef glaze.

"In a world where everybody is trying to make the perfect croissant," says Kristian Baumann, "we thought it would be fun to do something different."

Kristian is the head chef at 108, noma's recently opened second spot in Copenhagen, and the braided and glistening beef-glazed Danishes sit on the counter of the restaurant's adjoining cafe, The Corner, which opens every morning at 7 AM.

The beef glaze on top of the sweet, buttery pastry—also known as beef garum, as it is related to the fermented fish sauce that Romans made in ancient times—is the result of a painstaking process conjured up in the fermentation lab which 108 shares with its famous sibling. Beef, salt, and water are mixed with barley, which has been inoculated with koji. The mixture is left in a fermentation room for up to three months at 140 degrees fahrenheit and 60 percent humidity. The result is a sediment which is then combined with elderflower to make an emulsion that is brushed onto the pastry.

My initial skepticism is quickly wiped away. The Danish tastes exactly like it's supposed to—although I've never tried it before. The salty and crunchy exterior is not a contrast to the sweet dough; the two go together perfectly. This is not a strained gimmick created for shock effect. This is clever stuff.

"It's a matter of taste," says Kristian. "It works for me because I like when the sweet dough—which takes forever to make— is balanced by salty notes. I think that is quite interesting.

"In this kitchen we spent a good part of the year picking ingredients in nature—elderflower, roses, blueberries and lots of other stuff which we preserve. We found tons of ceps (wild mushrooms) last year and we've been using that to make oil. We also fermented some of the ceps which we used to make a syrup with birch sap. Another one of our pastries is glazed with ceps and birch sap. That was a sweeter version."

Kristian, who has previously worked at noma and Relæ, had for some time wanted to run his own place, and René Redzepi liked the idea of catering to a bigger audience. So the two joined forces to create 108, which opened in July. It's located around the corner from noma, but 108 is a more affordable and casual destination where the prices don't trigger an automatic alert from your credit card company.

"108 is its own thing," says Kristian. "Of course we are related to noma. It is in our DNA. René is my business partner, and it's great that he can offer advice and support, but we are still our own restaurant."

We take a closer look at the pastries on the cafe counter. There are three versions: the dark one with fermented beef garum, one with wild blueberries from Sweden, and one brushed with rosehip oil. Kristian, who has spent the last year pickling, fermenting and developing dishes for the restaurant, wants to cook what he and the staff like to eat. But most of all they want to create an experience where the guests can take home a small bite of 108.

"Obviously, a good dining experience is important to me, but I also want to inspire people to cook differently at home. If you eat a dessert with roses, then next time you're walking along the beach and spot some rosehip bushes, you might recall how we used roses at 108. Perhaps you will pick a couple of flowers to bring home and blend in a raspberry smoothie. That sort of stuff is fun."

The 108 menu features ingredients that would seem alien to most home kitchens: "last season's gooseberries," pine shoots, cream with seaweed, and beer. But Kristian promises that everything comes together. He actually suggests the dishes are simple.

"I'm really proud of our dish with grilled monkfish tail. We take a medium-sized monkfish and brush it with smoked, clarified butter. Then we grill it for 35-40 minutes, while constantly basting it with a sauce. The sauce consists of caramelised stock from the monkfish, mushroom reduction, seaweed reduction and a miso reduction."

The monkfish is served as a sharing dish—it arrives on the table with a hunting knife so you can carve off the meat from the bone—and on the side you get grilled cabbage with clam broth and fresh herbs. The greens come from a small farm in the countryside north of Copenhagen which 108 is part-owner of.

"The four different types of sauce for the monkfish are mixed together, and there is a great deal of labor in that. But the dish seems simple when it is put in front of you."

This is Kristian's first time as head chef and co-owner of a restaurant, and you don't get a much bigger stage and spotlight than 108.

"There's obviously a lot of pressure," says Kristian. "I've had many days with [only] one or two hours of sleep. It's the same for some of the sous chefs, but that's how you achieve your goals. Nowadays, we sleep a bit more—around five to six hours every night.

"I just live life on the edge. Let's put it that way. It takes a lot of work to open a restaurant. It's not all singing and dancing. We have very long days, and there are things that just have to be done. Parsley has to be picked, lamb has to be prepared. You have to sacrifice quite a lot, but it's all worth it."

And pastries have to be painted with beef garum.

This story was originally published in Danish on MUNCHIES DA.

Lars Hinnerskov Eriksen contributed to this article.