Danish Sandwich with Egg & Shrimp: Smørrebrød med æg og rejer

This open-faced sandwich uses Danish rye bread (rugbrød), which is dark, but unfortunately it is not available to many people outside of Denmark, unless you check online, or if you happen to have a local bakery that makes this as a specialty bread. So... you can substitute the much more easily found pumpernickel, and German or German-style pumpernickel is more like Danish rye, but any good pumpernickel should be fine. Extra small cooked shrimp of 61 to 70 per pound or small cooked shrimp of 51 to 60 per pound are best for this, but the day I went to the seafood shop, they were out of extra small shrimp, so the choice was made for me. In Sweden, they do a very similar shrimp sandwich, but they often use cucumber slices as one of the ingredients, but I don't believe they use watercress or arugula. In the U.S., depending upon where you live, watercress might be difficult to find, but arugula is a good substitute and easier to find. Watercress was once sold in many produce markets, but its availability has declined in the U.S. 

Ingredients (4 servings):

4 slices pumpernickel bread or Danish rye bread (rugbrød)
4 lettuce leaves (head lettuce or romaine lettuce)
4 hard boiled eggs
extra small or small cooked shrimp(s) * (see preparation below for amounts)
juice of one lemon
2 tomatoes, cut into quarters
some arugula or watercress, rinsed and drained on paper towels  
4 pats of butter (at room temperature, to spread easily)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
black pepper to taste
salt to taste

Boil the eggs for 7 minutes, pour off the hot water, rinse the eggs in cool water, and let them cool, then remove the shells. Slice the eggs (if you have an egg slicer, that's perfect). Butter each slice of bread with a pat of butter, then cover each bread slice with a leaf of lettuce. Put the egg slices of one egg onto each slice of lettuce. Put some mayonnaise on top of the egg slices, add some shrimps to each slice of bread,** then add 2 tomato quarters to each sandwich. Sprinkle a little lemon juice onto each open "sandwich," then add a little watercress to each and finish with salt and pepper to taste.

*  In the U.S., the plural "shrimps" is seldom heard, as "shrimp" is overwhelmingly used as both singular and plural.  

** If you get the extra small shrimps, with 61 to 70 shrimps per pound (often called "salad shrimp" in the U.S.), use about 8 or 10 per slice of bread, or the small shrimps, with 51 to 60 shrimps per pound, use about 6 or 7 per slice of bread.

 This is German-style pumpernickel bread...similar to Danish rye bread... 

WORD HISTORY:
Weir-While not all that commonly used today in American English (it might still be used more often in some parts of Britain), it is still around in place names, although sometimes spelled "war(r)," as in "Warwick" (meaning "settlement by a weir"), and also as a family name.^ It goes back to Indo European "wer," which meant "to cover, to shut off." The notion of "cover/shut off" gave Old Germanic "warjanan," which meant "protect;" thus also, "defend." This same meaning continued in the various Germanic dialects, including Old English, which had "awerian" (to defend against) and "bewerian" ("to guard, to protect"), but it also often took on the meaning in the West Germanic languages (English is West Germanic) of "dam up;" that is, "protect from water by shutting it in." In Old English this was represented in the verb form "werian,"^^ ("to dam up") and there was the noun "wer," which meant "a dam, an embankment, an enclosed area of water;" as well as the noun, "wering," meaning "the process of damming up water." Related forms in the other Germanic languages are numerous, but some are: German noun "Wehr," meaning, "military force, weapon, shield, enclosed water area for keeping fish, a dammed off area of water;"^^^ the noun "Abwehr," meaning "defense;" the verb "bewehren" meaning, "to arm with weapons, to reinforce;" the verb "wehren" meaning, "to defend, to offer resistance to"; Low German has the verb "wehren" meaning "to defend, to offer resistance to," the noun "Wehr" meaning, "dammed off area of water"; Dutch has the verb "weren" meaning, "to fend off, to repulse;" the noun "weer" meaning, "defense, a dammed off area of water"; West Frisian "ferwaarje" meaning, "to defend, to offer resistance to," the noun "ferwar" meaning "defense, dike"; the Danish noun "værge" meaning "guardian"; the Swedish noun "värja" meaning "sword," and the verb "värja" (same as the noun) meaning "to defend, to protect"; Icelandic verb "verja" meaning, "to guard, to defend."

^ The family name "Weir" isn't exclusively derived from the word "weir," as some families have the name from a different source.

^^ Old Saxon, the Saxon dialect/language that remained in northern Germany after part of the Saxons went to Britain, where they helped to found England, also had "werian."

^^^  For history buffs, "Wehr" is the same word in German "Wehrmacht," the term Hitler used for his armed forces; with the "macht" part being the close relative of the English noun "might" (strength, power, force).