Moose roast

The meat section of the Swedish supermarkets are dominated by beef, pork and chicken - which in itself is neither particularly unusual nor surprising, but it is a bit more extreme than I expected. Add to that the selection of cuts available is also narrower than I have been used to, and it becomes quite intriguing that apparently there are practically no butcher shops here.

Nevertheless, a few exotic specialities native to the region are available - particularly frozen: moose and reindeer roasts, f.ex. Having heard much praise thereof (and having already tried a variety of preparations of reindeer) I decided that to try a moose roast and since they are in season now I went for using some chanterelles as well.

Ingredients:
- 900 g (2 lbs) moose roast
- oil
- salt & pepper
- potatoes
- 2 brown onions, cut in rings
- 300 g (²/₃ lb) yellow chanterelles
- 1 dL (²/₅ cup) cream
salad:
- fresh spinach
- red lettuce
- caper berries

The roast came in a net. It was rubbed with salt and pepper and seared on all sides in a pan using a little oil. When nicely browned on all sides, the roast was transferred to an oven-proof tray with a little water (ca. ¹/₂ cm (¹/₄ inch)) and roasted in the oven at 150 C (300 F) for 2 hours.

While the roast was in the oven potatoes were rinsed and boiled in lightly salted water.

A salad was prepared from fresh spinach, red lettuce, and caper berries.

After removing the roast from the oven and transferring to a board, the onion rings were sautéed for a few minutes in a large pan, then added the rinsed and coarsely chopped chanterelles. After an additional couple of minutes the cream was added together with the liquid from the roast.

After resting while preparing the sauce, the roast was sliced and served immediately.


So, how was it? Weee-eeell, it was definitely good. It just wasn't as much better than beef as I expected. Perhaps not enough to justify the price difference.

Finnish Beer I / Bear Beer I

I first saw Kahru (Finnish for bear) in Arlanda airport (outside Stockholm), and the label appealed to the mood I was in.

It was also my first encounter of Finnish beer, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Turns out it's a decent, strong lager.

Later I learned that Kahru tries to set itself apart from the competition on the home market by being sold in pint sized cans (rather than the half litre cans the other ones are sold in).

Kötbullar (Swedish Meatballs)

Kötbullar is Swedish for meat balls, and Swedish meat balls are quite similar to Danish meat balls, but there some subtle differences.

Ingredients:
- 2 dL (0.8 cup) grated bread
- 4 dL (1.6 cup) cream
- 2 large onions, finely diced
- oil
- 840 g (1.8 lbs) finely ground 70/30 beef/pork
- 2 eggs
- salt
- pepper

The bread was grated and soaked in the cream.

The onions were finely diced and fried in oil till translucent.

The cream-soaked bread crumbs (and the cream) was stirred into the ground meat. Then was added salt, pepper, the lightly fried onion and the eggs. The mixture was worked till homogeneous (hard to stir as it was rather thick, so using the hands was better). Then it was shaped into little balls and fried in a pan.

Served with boiled potatoes and cucumber salad.

These kötbullar were quite good - but not quite like the ones you get at Ikea. Now I wonder which is more traditional...

Cucumber salad

Cucumber salad is a side dish that's fairly simple, but is best prepared at least a few hours in advance. I guess maybe you can even buy it, but I never looked for it.

Ingredients:
- 1 cucumber, thinly sliced
- 1 dL (ca. 0.4 cup) water, boiled
- 1/2 dL (ca. 0.2 cup) sugar
- 1 dL (ca. 0.4 cup) white wine vinegar
- salt and pepper

First the water was boiled and the sugar was dissolved in the warm water.


While the sugar water was cooling, the cucumber was sliced thinly (conveniently done on the tool shown). Juice was allowed to drip from the cucumber slices while stirring vinegar, salt and pepper into the sugar water.

Finally, the cucumber slices were placed in the liquid, the bowl was covered and left in the fridge for a couple of hours (keeps good for at least a couple of days).

Danish Beer - Part V (Ærø)

On a trip to Copenhagen earlier this year, I picked up a selection of Ærø beers - that is: beers from Rise Brewery on the Danish island Ærø. For reasons that I can't very well explain I had high expectations - very high.

The stout was the most memorable of them - quite sweet, and very much to my liking. The pale ale and the dark ale didn't quite live up to my expectations (which, as stated, were very high), but the true shocker was the walnut bock - I found it anything but the harmonious that their homepage boasts. On the contrary, the taste had odd elements that would have been much more welcome if I was drinking a herbal bitter of some kind. Proceed with caution.

Quinoa Tricolore

I guess I didn't think about it before I moved, but if anyone had asked me if I expected to be able to buy quinoa in Sweden, I might have expressed doubts. As it turns I would have been wrong: not only can I get quinoa here, but unlike other places I have lived so far, both ordinary quinoa as well as red and black quinoa is readily available. Such an abundance begged me to mix them up and get a colourful result...

Ingredients:
- 4 red bell peppers
- 3 fillets of chicken breast
- oil
- salt & pepper
- smoked paprika
- fennel seeds
- the juice of 1 + 1 limes
- 9 dL (3.8 cups) mixed white, red, and black quinoa
- 1.8 L (7.6) water
- bunch of scallion

The bell peppers were rinsed and quartered, and the seeds were removed. The bell peppers were broiled until most of the skin was blackened. After removing them from the oven, they were allowed to cool before the skin was peeled of. The remaining pieces were chopped coarsely.

The chicken fillets were seasoned on both sides with salt, pepper, smoked paprika and fennel seeds before searing in a pan with a little oil. When they were nicely browned on both sides, they juice of 1 lime was poured over, the pan was covered and the heat was reduced to medium. Left like this while cooking the quinoa.

The water was salted and brought to a boil, then the quinoa was added, the pot covered and the heat reduced to low. They were deemed done when all the water was absorbed.

The scallions were rinsed and sliced thinly.

The finished chicken fillets were sliced.

Everything was mixed in a large bowl and added the juice of the last lime. Can be eaten at once, but is also delicious cold.

On this occasion it was served with freshly boiled cauliflower.

Systembolaget - Part III / Swedish Beer - Part II

After having noticed several beers available with different alcohol contents, I decided to see if I could taste the difference. For starters, I chose Mariestads - a typical Swedish lager - thinking that if anyone should know how to make decent low alcohol content beer, it should be the Swedes. At a local supermarket I picked up a few cans of the 3.5% ABV, and later - in Systembolaget - I picked up a few cans of the 'export' variety holding 5.2% ABV.


As you can see they appear very similar - but how do they taste?

When I first tasted the 3.5% version, I thought it wasn't so bad - but it paled by comparison to the 5.2% version once I tasted that. Yes, it true: you can taste the difference, and the higher alcohol content version simply tastes better - it's more flavourful, a more full-bodied, quite simply: a better beer...

Pizza dough

A certain kind of laziness has come to an end: in California, I always bought the pizza dough at Trader Joe's because it was good (and cheap too) and so never bothered to make the dough myself. This option was gone after leaving the US. In the stores in Switzerland, I could only get pizza doughs that weren't as good as those sold by Trader Joe's (and more expensive too) - but at least they were fairly convenient as they came pre-rolled and I didn't have to roll the dough.

Here in Sweden, I bought what looked to be a similar product exactly once - that dough was such a disappointment, that I decided to finally start making my own pizza dough. Thus, dug out my copy of Tyler Florence's Eat This Book and found his recipe. Below follows my description of how I converted the recipe to the use of fresh yeast (which I prefer, although here in Sweden one can buy both fresh and dry yeast).

Ingredients:
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) lukewarm water ^[1]
- 25 g (ca. 1 oz) fresh yeast
- 500 g (ca. 1 lb) flour
- 2 + 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp salt
- durum flour (for rolling)

UPDATE:
Scaling everything up by a factor of 2 is more convenient - that way I use one pack of fresh yeast and get dough for 4 pizzas.


The fresh yeast was crumbled in the lukewarm water and stirred before adding 2 tbsp olive oil, and then the flour in portions. The first half of the flour was simply stirred in using a spoon, then 1 tbsp salt was added and the rest of the flour was kneaded in by hand - when all the flour was added the dough was kneaded some more. The resulting dough should be smooth and elastic, and when pinched neither crumbly nor sticky. The ball of dough was transferred to another bowl with 1 tbsp olive oil, coated with the oil, covered with film and left standing in a warm place for about 1 hour to rise.

The dough rose to about the double volume (or perhaps a little more) and was parted in two equally large portions, which were rolled using durum flour and placed on baking paper on baking sheets. This portion made nicely for two 25 cm x 35 cm (10" x 14") pizzas. Today I topped them with tomato-garlic sauce, dried ham, artichoke hearts, fresh basil, and mozzarella. After some 15-20 minuted in the oven at 200 C (400 F) they were delicious - I'm never going back to other doughs after this...


^[1] made from 1 dL boiling water and 1.5 dL cold tap water

Swedish 'Danish' beer

At a social gathering with my work I noticed this gem of dubious labelling: "Dansk Fadøl" (Danish draught beer).

Regarding it's Danishness, I will just say that I have NEVER seen this beer outside of Sweden. And as for a can of 'draught beer'.. well, I guess I don't really need to comment on that.

To be avoided.

Beans - Re-revisited

Before moving to Sweden, I was worried bout the availability of black beans here (having been really disappointed with options last time I looked around for beans in Danish supermarkets).

As it turns out, I needn't have worried at all. The Swedes apparently are much more up on exotic foods than the Danes.

After buying my first bag of black beans in Sweden, I saw just how different beans can be - unlike the black beans I bought in Geneva, these black beans needed only a little over one hour of boiling (after overnight soaking).

Ironically, I might not have to boil dried beans here, as it appears canned beans are again available at a more reasonable price relative to the dried ones...

Milk lids

A majority of dairy products here in Sweden are sold in TetraBrik-containers from TetraPak (not surprising given that TetraPak is indeed a Swedish invention).

Initially we were a little disappointed with the most commonly used carton here: it is not possible to close it again after opening it. While this annoyed me on a practical level because it meant I couldn't shake my favourite breakfast fermented dairy products before pouring them without spray-painting the kitchen, it was more a question of principle for my significant other: more specifically a question of germ control.


As it turns out, there exists a small, cheaply available unitasker to solve the problem. As the picture indicates, the makers (or sellers, anyway) of the product seem to be thinking more in line with Mrs. Throat-Erator.

(Asian) Fish soup

For my birthday this year, Mrs. Throat-Erator gave me dried curry and kaffir lime leaves - and then things got a little hectic, so I didn't have a lot of time to think about ways to use them for a couple of months...

But I thought they might add a nice touch to a fish soup - more specifically, I was thinking of some of the nice Asian fish soups I've tried, which I would like to emulate, so I tried it out.

Ingredients:
- oil
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 2 hot chillies, finely cut
- 2 fillets of pangasius, cut in chunks
- 2 fillets of tilapia, cut in chunks
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 leeks, cut in rings, white and green parts separated.
- 2 L (¹/₂ gallon) fish stock
- 0.5 g^[1] dried curry leaves
- 0.5 g^[2] dried kaffir lime leaves
- 250 g (¹/₂ lb) sunchokes, diced
- 3 tomatoes, diced coarsely
- 24 prawns

A little oil was heated in a large pot, and crushed garlic and finely cut chillies were sautéed for half a minute before adding chunks of fish.

After a couple of minutes, the diced onion and the white leek rings (white rings only) were added and after an additional couple of minutes, the fish stock and the dried leaves were added.

After adding diced sunchokes and large chunks of tomato, the pot was brought to a boil. The heat was reduced, the pot was covered and allowed to simmer for 10 minutes. The prawns and the green leek rings were added, and the pot was brought back to a boil and simmered for a final 5 minutes.

I was very happy with the result - the combination of of chillies, curry leaves and kaffir lime leaves resulted in exactly the fresh kind of taste I was going for, and although perhaps not traditional in Asian cuisine (although I admit I don't know) I thought the sunchokes added a really nice nuance to the flavour.

^[1] As much as you see in the picture..
^[2] ..more than you see in the picture!

Systembolaget - Part II / Swedish Beer - Part I

On my first trip to Systembolaget, I decided to start with the basics and got what I reckoned to be fairly standard, perhaps even classical, Swedish beers.

To be fair, I had only heard of Pripps Blue (a big Swedish brand - infamous amongst some Danes) and Spendrups Old Gold (because I'd seen it sold at Ikea in Switzerland). The rest was based on intuition.

But I like to think I wasn't far off the mark. Most of these were fairly similar pilsners.

Starting on the left, Three Towns (TT) was actually the biggest disappointment to me: very drinkable, but lacking in taste and character and ultimately - to my taste at least - boring. Perhaps a good place to start for those favouring cheap American beer.

Spendrups Old Gold on the other hand was the most extreme in the other direction - although perhaps not as extreme, the first beer it brought to mind was the German king of bitterness: Jever.

The rest of them are much more alike. I got a very favourable first impression of Wisby, bot not so much that I'm sure it really is significantly better than the others. Åbro Sigill is branded as an organic beer, but apart from that I couldn't tell any difference between that and Åbro Original.

If you look closely at the picture, you might notice that Anderssons says "starköl" on the label - although this translates as strong beer, this does not mean it is in a league of its own here (all beers pictured are 4.5-5.2% ABV). Rather it's a curious consequence of the 3.5% ABV limit for supermarket sales: all beers above this limit appear, by definition, to be "starköl" (which is ood to me, having grown up in Denmark where a standard pilsner is 4.6% ABV).

Minty beef wok

Last year when we had a lot of mint on the balcony we talked about trying this recipe from figs, lavender, and cheese. Before we got round to that we went away on vacation and effectively killed our herbs with negligence and then the summer was running out. As we have recently gotten started on growing mint again we decided it was about time we try the idea.

Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp fish sauce
- 2 tbsp oyster sauce
- 1 head broccoli (separated into smaller bouquets)
- 250 g (~ ¹/₂ lb) rice noodles
- oil
- 1 red onion (cut in thin boats)
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 red chilli, finely diced
- 200 g (~ ²/₅ lb) beef, thin strips
- fresh mint
- fresh basil

At first the sugar was dissolved in the soy, fish, and oyster sauce - this combined sauce was set aside for later use.

The broccoli bouquets were boiled in lightly salted water, then drained, and set aside. Likewise for the rice noodles.

A wok was placed on high heat, coated with a thin layer of oil and the onion was added - after stir frying for about a minute, the crushed garlic and the chilli was added. After an additional 30 seconds or so the strips of beef were added and stir fried till browned on all sides. Finally the combined sauce (see above) was added together with whole leaves of fresh mint and basil. I used more mint than basil - mainly because I had more mint, but I quite liked the result.

After a final 1-2 minutes the wok was removed from the heat and the minty beef was served on the noodles with broccoli on the side - and a beer.

New herbs

Having decided to make the most of our kitchen window sill during the period of long days we were considering ways to maximise our herb collection.

Mrs. Throat-Erator read up on the subject and learned that both basil, mint, and thyme should be able to sprout new roots if freshly cut stems are placed in a glass of water. We decided to try it out.

In the course of a couple of weeks all did as predicted, and they were planted in their own pots and are doing well several weeks later.

Garden cress

The new residence has east-bound windows and thus the herbs in the kitchen window sill can take full advantage of the 4 am sunrise we enjoy this time of year. Amongst other things we have been growing garden cress: A small tray was lined with cotton pads on top of which were placed seeds of garden cress. The cotton was watered daily and over the course of two weeks the seeds sprouted and grew to some 1-2 inches.


We generally use the cress for sandwiches, and a particularly classic combination is with boiled eggs on rye bread (and butter or a favourite substitute).

Bregott

Bregott (literally 'spread well' in Swedish) is very similar to a product which was introduced in Denmark when I was a child (the Danish one is called Kærgården which does not tell you anything about what the product is).

Bregott (like Kærgården) is a modern consumer product that maximises convenience and experience. You know the problem: butter is really hard straight out of the fridge and the altermnative products made from vegetable oils just do not taste the same. By mixing the two (as is done here) you get a material that is readily spreadable straight from the fridge and actually tastes good. I am not going to claim that it tastes exactly like butter, but it sure is a lot better than a product I tried in the US - let's call it I-can't-believe-it's-called-'I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter'...

Swedish 'Danish' rye bread

As regular readers here will now, I have been going on about whole grain dark rye bread repeatedly on this page.

For the first time in years, I am now living in a place where I can buy freshly baked rye bread (yes, so far I have been too lazy to try my own luck with it), which I've always considered a special treat.


Many things Swedish are much like things Danish... with a twist. So also for the rye bread which - despite being sold as 'Danish rye bread' - is actually a little sweeter than the original. The Swedes do like putting molasses in their breads. I have been buying one of these almost every week since moving to Sweden, and I am still enjoying them immensely.

Systembolaget - Part I

In the 19th century, having seen alcoholism as the scourge of mankind, the state of Sweden introduced to the world the concept of alcohol monopolies: the first was in Falun but other local monopolies soon followed. By 1955 all the local monopolies were united into a national alcohol monopoly: Systembolaget.

Systembolaget's monopoly isn't 100% - f.ex. rare wines and whiskies are sometimes sold at auctions, and supermarkets can sell anything with an alcohol content up to 3.5% ABV. I can't tell you why the limit was set at 3.5%, but I can tell you how I know the limit is at 3.5%: In supermarkets one sees all kinds of otherwise familiar beers (e.g. Carlsberg and Pilsner Urquel) that are suddenly only 3.5% ABV (or even less).

In times when the exchange rate was different many people in southern Sweden going to Denmark to buy alcoholic beverages, but currently the traffic is going in the opposite direction (as dictated by the current exchange rate). Supposedly Systembolaget used to be a very drab experience: more like going to the pharmacy and requesting specific items, but in recent years the stores have changed into much more customer friendly boutiques: one can walk the aisles and take a good look at everything. The goods are usually really well described and the staff is friendly.

Had I lived in Sweden 10 years ago I would have undoubtedly been frustrated with the lack of any cheap beers for mass consumption - but these days (being perhaps more mature) I appreciate the wide selection of quality products (and having moved on from student aid to something reminiscent of a real pay I can also much better abstract from the details of prices).

Hot dogs

No, there is nothing wrong with colours of your monitor: these sausages really are bright red.

I don't know why there's a tradition for bright red sausages in Denmark, but kids do seem to love them (I know I did). When I recently went to Denmark for a short trip one of my new Swedish colleagues - who is from Scania in south-western Sweden and therefore has been to Denmark several times - asked me to bring back some red sausages because he missed them so.^[1]

Since I was at it, nostalgia got the better of me and I decided to get a pack for myself and make some good old-fashioned hot dogs. I'm not sure what the colouring agent used is, but is has some water-solubility as the water I boiled them in was nicely red by the time they were done.

For the hot dogs I used ketchup, remoulade, roasted onions and cornichons - had I been in the mood for spending a little more time on it, I would have added finely diced raw onion and substituted the cornichons with home-made cucumber salad. Many next time

^[1] Since that I have discovered that a supermarket close to where I live actually does sell these, so hauling them back from Denmark seems silly...