Cook Book Club: a short trip to Sweden

Thistles and Kiwis

Holiday memories, the theme of this month’s cookbook challenge, was a tough one. The holidays in Paris as a child…but next month the theme is France. The week in Ohrid, Macedonia? My first trip to the US, aged 17 (I had my 18th birthday there)? Trips to Poland, Singapore, Italy or beach holidays in Mallorca or New Caledonia? Long weekends in Sydney and Melbourne? In the end though I decided to head to Sweden, and the wonderful few days we had in Karl’s home town, Kalmar, a couple of years ago. The summer weather was perfect, as you can see below in the picture of the windmills on Öland (and you can read more here).

The same day we went over to Öland we went to Blomlöfs for dinner, where I had a simple but perfect meal of hot smoked salmon, new potatoes and asparagus with romsås, basically a sauce made of creme frâiche and red lumpfish roe. No recipe needed for this, but I did I make this one evening for dinner last week, with some good salmon and the first of this season’s asparagus. and while excellent, was not really a recipe, or from a book.

Anyway, I have quite a few books on Scandinavian and Nordic cooking, including a few in Swedish. I may not speak the language, but following recipes or listening to podcasts about food is fine! In the end I decided to make köttfarslimpa or meatloaf with all the traditional trimmings. I took my inspiration from Simon Bajda’s book Modern Nordic, but to be honest, found his recipe slightly odd in that he fried slices of the meatloaf after it comes out of the oven. Plus he suggests veal which is impossible to find here.

So I made a traditional meatloaf, beginning with soaking breadcrumbs in milk, adding a grated onion, seasoning, an egg and beef mince. I cooked it at 200C for about 40 minutes, but really you need to adjust this to your own oven, quantity and the size of your loaf tin.

I served it with pressgurka, a type of pickled cucumber. You need to slice the cucumber thinly using a cheese slicer (see picture above – this one is actually Norwegian!) or mandolin. Spread on a plate then cover with something heavy e.g. a plate with a couple of jars on top for about 30 minutes. Put 2 tablespoons of a white vinegar (I used white wine vinegar), 1dl water and 2 tablespoons of sugar in a pan. Gently heat to dissolve the sugar, pour over the cucumber, add a little white pepper and finely chopped parsley or dill. Let it sit for at least an hour, keeps well for a few days. Also served with meatballs and anything else you like really.

There was also steamed and buttered cabbage (because I insisted on a green vegetable), creamy mashed potatoes (Karl’s speciality), gräddsås, which is a creamy gravy (2 tablespoons butter made into a roux with 2 tablespoons of flour, then add 1 cup of beef stock, 1/2 cup cream, and seasoning to your taste – if you can get blackcurrant jelly, then add that too) and lingonberries.

What with the retro tablecloth and dreadful lighting, the finished plate looks very 1970s rather than modern Nordic! But the meal proved very popular with my very own Swede.

Make again? Well yes…it has been ages since I made this.

The book? Nice to read and to look at and will definitely try some other things or get inspiration from it.

Entered in the cook book club hosted by Jo of Brookford Kitchen Diaries. Next month we are off to France!

Thistles and Kiwis is a Wellington, New Zealand based blog written by Barbara, who likes cats, summer, good food and pretends to garden.

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Published by Thistles and Kiwis

Loves summer, sunshine and cats. Beginner gardener, likes eating, cooking and reading about food

29 Comments

  15. You’ve certainly made the cookbooks come alive. The joys of living near so many interesting places to live while growing up. My step-grandmother used to sprinkle sugar on her cucumber we thought she was quite mad. In fact she was on trend.

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  16. Pingback: If we were having coffee…or even a cup of tea… – Thistles and Kiwis

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