SWEDEN: THE FOOD

Spring is truly here now. We’re heading into the last real month of the school year and things are winding down. Thoughts of summer break and moving into the house that we’ve been working on are ahead of us now. There’s just so much to do and not enough time to do it in.

Breakfast bread!

But it’s always a good time for Swedish food. Today I started out with making Swedish Limpu Bread. I started out with boiling my sugar, oil, salt, caraway seeds, orange rinds in water for a few minutes (I left out the fennel seeds since my husband hates fennel with a passion). While that was cooling down a bit, I mixed my flour and yeast together in a separate bowl before pouring in the orange rind mixture. I used a hand mixer for this since I thought it would make it easier when in fact it made it more difficult. Then I added in my eggs and a cup of flour and blended it again. Again, the hand mixer gummed it all up. After that, I added a little bit of rye flour and a bit more all-purpose flour to make it a stiff dough. I kneaded it for several minutes until it was somewhat smooth, forming it into a ball and placing it in a greased bowl. I  think I had too much oil in the bowl. I covered it with a piece of damp cheesecloth and let it sit for about an hour and a half. After I punched it down and divided it into two balls, I let it rest for another 10 minutes. Then I shaped into into two bread loaf pans and let them rest for another hour. I didn’t need to brush the tops with olive oil since they were pretty oily from the bowl still. After that, I baked them in a 400ºF oven for about 30-35 minutes. I thought the hint of orange was really good. Not overpowering at all. And it had the consistency of a banana bread or something like that. I really enjoyed this.

I think we're set on salt consumption for the week.

The main dish for today is Rimmad Lax, or Swedish Salted Salmon with Dill Sauce. (And you thought I was going to make Swedish Meatballs, didn’t you? Bwahaha.) I was supposed to let this set up the night before, but I forgot. So, I mixed some salt and sugar and sprinkled it on my salmon filets and placed them in the fridge for about 6 hours. When it was time to cook, I melted some butter and added in some flour, stirring it together before I added in the milk. It still clumped up. After stirring for a bit, I added in the heavy cream and stirred again. Then I added in the salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped dill and stirred until it was smooth and consistent. My salmon was already boneless and skinless, but if yours isn’t, you should take the skin off the salmon. I took my salmon out of my bag with the salt mix and put it in a skillet with some water. I cooked the salmon for a few minutes before realizing it was too much water and drained some of it. Just as soon as it’s almost done (should just flake easily), I poured over the sauce and cooked until the salmon is done. I sprinkled a little bit more dill as a garnish. Here’s the family’s consensus, more or less: the salmon and dill combination is excellent, but the salmon definitely needed to be rinsed off more. It was just too salty for our tastes. And this is coming from a family who ate sardines and crackers for dinner last night.

Who doesn't like cheese-encrusted potatoes?

To go with this, I made Hasselback Potatoes. I bought a bag of baking potatoes and peeled them (you can place the peeled potatoes in cold water to keep them from turning brown). Then take each potato and cut thin slices about halfway down, leaving the bottom half of the potato intact. I placed all the peeled and cut potatoes in a baking dish and poured half the melted butter on top of them before sprinkling salt and pepper on top. I baked these at 425ºF for about 35-40 minutes. When they were done, I took them out and drizzled the remaining melted butter and then sprinkled a bit of Parmesan-Romano cheese and bread crumbs, along with a bit more salt and pepper. Then I put them back in the oven for another 20 minutes until it was a golden brown color. I really liked this, even though I thought that some of the potatoes were still a little hard in the center. Maybe I should try parboiling them for a few minutes before cutting them and baking them. But it was easy enough and tasty.

Personally, this one was my favorite. And the red wine vinegar made it quite tasty!

As a contrast to the saltiness, I also made Swedish Pickled Cucumbers. Although fairly ubiquitous among many European countries and other areas of the world, this is a slight variation. I sliced up a cucumber and put them in a bowl. Then I mixed some vinegar (I didn’t realize I only had ½ oz of the white vinegar left, so I added in red wine vinegar instead, and I was not disappointed), sugar, water, and salt and poured it over the cucumbers. I sprinkled some parsley and paprika over the cucumbers and let it sit in the fridge for at least three hours (you can also make this the night before). I really liked this. It was an excellent contrasting pair with the saltiness of the potatoes and salmon.

Overall, with a few tweaks here and there, this was a pretty good meal.

Truth be told, I’ve never been to an IKEA. We used to have to travel out of state to get to the nearest one, but now we have one in the Indy area. And I still haven’t been. It seems like a place I should like, but yet, I’ve never been overly excited about going. I have friends who just absolutely love it. And yet, I remain in different. All those memes about how IKEA tears marriages apart? Yeah, that’s not us. But then again, I heard they serve Swedish meatballs, so I might just venture into one before long.

Up next: Switzerland