The Swedish dinner

Hey there!

Third stop: Sweden

For this month's international dinner we decided to take a look at the Swedish cuisine.

Swedish food is simple but very healthy. A lot of their meals include fish, deer and also native berries, mushrooms and herbs that can be found in the wide woods of Sweden.

Speaking of woods, there is a fact, I really like about Sweden (which doesn't have to do much with Swedish cuisine).

It's called the Right of Public Access (Swedish: allemansrätten) and it means if you go hiking you're basically allowed to set up your tent anywhere you like for a night.

National parks and areas like sanctuaries for plants and animals or culture reserves may be more restrictive, but in general you can stay wherever there is no farmland.

All you have to keep in mind is that you don't disturb local residents and that you don't leave any rubbish behind. If you do go hiking you will find noticeboards everywhere, that explain the specific regulations.

However that was just a little detour on our Culinary World Tour, now back to Swedish food. 

For our dinner we decided on the following dishes:

The courses

Starter – Potato and celeriac soup with smoked salmon and fresh herbs

Main – Pyttipanna, a mix of chopped meat, onions, potatoes and carrots

Dessert – Kanelbulle, cinnamon buns with sugar crystals on top

Firstly we made the dough for the cinnamon buns, since it had to rise for an hour.

After it had risen, we put the dough on the table and kneaded it until we were able to roll it out.
Then we made the filling for the buns and spread it on the rolled out dough.

To make the buns you have to roll the dough back in and cut off small pieces which will eventually become the delicious kanelbulle.

These rolls again had to sit and rise for a while. So we started chopping celeriac, potatoes, carrots, onions, the meat and the salmon, which we needed for the soup and the pyttipanna.

For the pyttipanna you can use any veggies you like, in Sweden it is often made as a leftover dish, so it's perfect for randomly throwing in anything you like.
The pyttipanna in Sweden also often includes meat from elks, but of course we couldn't find that sort of meat anywhere in Münster, so we simply used usual beef.

It's typical to have fried eggs with this dish, but as we were frying the eggs, they fell apart, so we improvised and made scrambled eggs instead.

For the soup we boiled potatoes, carrots and celeriac in a pot with water and vegetable stock and mashed it all together. We sprinkled some herbs on top and served it with smoked salmon and fresh pepper on the side.

And finally we had dessert:

If you like to cook one of these dishes, just search up kanelbulle, pyttipanna and swedish potato and celeriac soup and you'll find many different recipes to try.