Elastic modulus measurements of cooked Lutefisk

Abstract

Lutefisk is a traditional Norwegian Christmas dish, made of dry cod soaked in a lye solution before re-hydrated. We report measurements of tissue rheological properties of cooked Lutefisk. Surprisingly, we find that the elastic modulus does not seem to depend heavily on cooking time, cooking temperature, or the amount of salt, but depends instead mainly on the size of the fish fillets and can be affected by when the cod is fished during the season. Although salting and cooking of the Lutefisk strongly affect the visual aspect of fish fillets, these changes are not found to be correlated with the elastic modulus of the lutefisk when measured with a rheometer.