Finnbiff

Name: Finnbiff
Total time: 45 min
Cuisine: Norwegian
Ingredients: 400 g frozen shaved reindeer (reinsdyrskav); 150 g wild mushrooms, ideally chanterelles; 1 onion, sliced; 2 tbsp butter; 200 g sour cream (seterrømme); 100 ml milk; 4 juniper berries, crushed; 2 slices brown goat's cheese (gjetost); Salt and pepper; lingonberries and fresh parsley, to serve

Thinly shaved reindeer sautéed with mushrooms, finished with brown cheese and a splash of cream.

45 minEasy

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Cultural Context & History

Sautéed reindeer — finnbiff — is the everyday face of northern cooking, traditionally sliced from a frozen block and seared fast in a hot pan. A knob of brown cheese melted into the sauce gives it the caramel depth that defines the north.

Ingredients

400 g frozen shaved reindeer (reinsdyrskav)
150 g wild mushrooms, ideally chanterelles222 kcal · 4.6 g protein · 12.9 g fat · 21.9 g carbs per 100 g
1 onion, sliced289 kcal · 10.9 g protein · 0.8 g fat · 59.4 g carbs per 100 g
2 tbsp butter714 kcal · 0 g protein · 78.6 g fat · 0 g carbs per 100 g
200 g sour cream (seterrømme)
100 ml milk55 kcal · 3.4 g protein · 2.1 g fat · 5.1 g carbs per 100 g
4 juniper berries, crushed62 kcal · 0 g protein · 0 g fat · 12.5 g carbs per 100 g
2 slices brown goat's cheese (gjetost)
Salt and pepper; lingonberries and fresh parsley, to serve

Per-100 g values shown for ingredients verified against Nutrition data: USDA FoodData Central (snapshot 2026-09-11). Ingredients not yet verified show no nutrition line.

Recommended Tools

Heavy frying panHolds the fierce heat that sears the shaved reindeer fast.
Wooden spoonCoaxes the brown cheese into a smooth, even sauce.
Mortar and pestleCrushes the juniper to release its resinous scent.

Product suggestions are editorial references only; no purchase or affiliate links are currently configured.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1
Sauté the mushrooms and onion in butter until softened and golden, then lift them out and set aside.
2
Working in small batches over high heat, fry the frozen shaved reindeer in butter until well browned, keeping the pieces in a single layer so they sear rather than steam.
3
Return the meat, mushrooms and onion to the pan and stir in the sour cream, milk, crushed juniper and brown cheese until the cheese melts into the sauce.
4
Cover and simmer gently for 15–20 minutes, until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened.
5
Season with salt and pepper, scatter with parsley and serve with a spoonful of lingonberries.

Chef's Tip

Fry the reindeer straight from the freezer — shaved this thin it sears in seconds, and letting it thaw first only makes it weep and turn grey in the pan.

Chef's Tip

Melt the brown cheese over the gentlest heat; pushed too hard it loses its caramel smoothness and turns grainy.

How this page was made

Written by: The Norcook editorial archive. No individual author is named yet — see the editorial and food-safety policy for what that means and what has to happen before a byline appears.
Content last checked: 2026-07-21 — “checked” records an editorial check, not a qualified review. Where one exists, the recipe-specific review record appears in the food-safety callout.
Regional context: Sápmi — the hub carries the wider background, the ingredient glossary and its own sources.
Sources: No page-level sources are recorded for this recipe yet. The cultural background above is written as general context, not as a sourced historical claim.

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