Countdown to midsummer Part II – Poached cold salmon

Believe it or not, not all Swedes like herring. When we were kids the children always had hot dogs for midsummer and the grown-ups that didn’t like herring got cold roast beef and potato salad. Nowadays the guests who don’t like herring get treated better. Here is one really tasty dish to serve at midsummer.

Poached cold salmon

• 800 g Salmon, without skin
• 3 Shallots
• 4 dl Tomato juice
• 2 tbsp Honey
• 2 tbsp Salt
• 4 dl White wine
• 1 Lemon, the juice
• 1 dl Olive oil
• fresh Dill

Cut the salmon in cubes 2×2 cm. Peel and slice the onions, put them in a sauté pan together with the tomato juice, the honey, the salt, the wine and the lemon juice. Let it come to a boil for a few minutes. Add the olive oil and the salmon cubes. immediately remove the sauté pan from the stove and leave the salmon to cool off.

Serve the salmon on a platter in its sauce and add fresh dill. We mostly eat our salmon with a really tasty bread.

Music: Listening to a traditional summer song by Evert Taube – Sjösala vals

3 from 1 – Swedish tapas

These smörrebröd are perfect for lunch or as a starter. These pieces are part of what we serve when celebrating Midsummer or Xmas. The difference is that we at Midsummer and Xmas don’t settle with one snaps.

From left to right: Terrine of salmon with horseradish and apple, creme of smoked herring, Gubbröra

Terrine of salmon

• 100 g smoked salmon
• 1 green apple, chopped into small squares
• 1 dl creme fraiche
• 1 dl creme cheese
• 1 tbsp mustard
• 1/2 grated fresh horseradish
• 1 spring onion chopped into slices
• salt and pepper

Mix all ingredients with a spoon. Spread it on a plastic wrap and roll it to a cylinder. Put in the freezer for half an hour. It is then easier to cut into nice pieces. Serve with cucumber, dill and some lemon.

Creme of smoked herring

• 2 smoked herrings
• 1 pickled gherkin, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 dl creme fraiche
• 2 tbsp chopped dill
• salt, pepper

Mix all ingredients in a blender. Serve with some pumpernickel or  crisp bread.

Gubbröra

• 6 fillets of anchovy (Swedish style)
• 3 boiled egg
• 1 onion
• 1 tbsp Kalles Kaviar (typical Swedish caviar that is not necessary)
• 1 dl creme fraiche
• chives
• dill

Chop everything into fine pieces and mix with a spoon. Serve with pumpernickel or crisp bread.

To the tapas you should drink a cold beer and a nice Aquavit. Don’t forget to sing a snaps song!

A Swedish crayfish party #2

In the autumn it is time for crayfish parties all over Sweden. We had excellent timing this year and had already planned an autumn journey to Sweden to attend a wedding and visit friends and family. If you don’t get a hold of fresh crayfish you can always but frozen at IKEA all over the world.

This is a crayfish party according to the Schmidts!

Crayfish liquor (enough for 4 kg crayfish)

• 2 Onions, cut in large pieces
• 4 l Water
• 1 l Beer, lager
• 1 dl Salt
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 10-15 heads of Dill

Blend all the ingredients together, except for the heads of dill. Make sure that the salt and the sugar dissolve. Then put the crayfish and the heads of dill in layers and pour the fluid over. Let draw for at least an hour.

Homemade Västerbotten cheese pie with chanterelle

You need to eat a lot of crayfish to get full. All snaps make it hard to survive the evening without having something satisfying. This delicious pie help you overcome the evening.

Pie pastry

• 3,5 dl Wheat flour
• 150 g Butter
• 2 tbsp Water
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt

Pie filling

• 4 Egg yolks
• 2 dl Milk
• 2 dl Cream
• 300 g Västerbotten cheese, grated
• 200 g Chanterelle
• 1 small Onion, chopped
• Butter
• Salt
• Pepper
• Nutmeg

Start with the pastry, mix butter and flour together. Use an electric mixer if you have one. Add water and salt. Press out the pastry in a pie dish and let it rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, fry the chanterelle and the onion in butter. Whisk the egg yolks, milk, cream and the spices together, grate the cheese. Fill your pie dish with the chanterelle and onion, pour over the milk mixture and finally sprinkle the cheese on top.

Bake in oven at 200 degrees Celsius, for 35-40 minutes.

Lysholms Linie Aquavit

Besides beer we also have a snaps or two to our crayfish. A very popular snaps is the Norwegian Linie Aquavit. 1805 the Norwegians sent a ship with snaps, stored in barrels, to Australia. Unfortunately the company that were receiving the snaps faced bankruptcy and the snaps were sent back to Norway. When it returned the Norwegians thought that the snaps tasted even better than before and from 1842 the Lysholms Linie Aquavit always passes the equator (the line) in a ships before it is filled into bottles and sold.

Music: The crayfish party were accompanied by our own horse and raucous voices, singing Swedish snappsvisor (snaps songs).

The north sea burger

After eating a whole lot of Asian food, which we love, we decided to go crazy with the Scandinavian food this week.

Burger

• 100 g smoked Norwegian Salmon
• 500 g Saithe (or other fish)
• 1 Egg
• Chives
• Salt
• White Pepper

Use a food processor and mix the fish together with the egg until the mixture has a good consistency. Add salt, pepper and chopped chives and stir everything together. Make four burgers out of the mixture. Fry the burgers in butter.

Shrimp sauce

• Dill
• 2-3 decilitre Sour cream
• 1 tbsp Mustard
• 100-200 g Shrimps

Pour the sour cream in a small bowl, add the chopped dill and the peeled and chopped shrimps. Flavor the sauce with mustard.

Serve the burgers with a tasty bread, for example Ciabatta or baguette, and add a slice of lemon for the burger. We also made a salad with cucumber, avocado and Romain lettuce with a nice mustard salad dressing.

Music: the cooking was accompanied by the Swedish band Kent and their record – Röd

Fishing for compliments?

Many friends of mine do not understand the greatness of cod. The reason is that we Swedes have grown up with over cooked cod served for lunch in school. If you can get hold of a thick cod loin I promise you, you’ll change your mind about this culinary treasure.

This is an easy recipe that will get you many compliments – Cod fillets with lemon flavoured vegetables and foam from heads of dill.

• 600 g thick fillet of Cod
• 5 decilitre water
• 30 g Salt
• 6 Carrots
• 6 Parsnips
• 2 Spring onions
• 1 Lemon, the juice
• 4 tbsp double Cream
• 3 heads of Dill
• 4 decilitre Milk
• 2 Tomatoes
• Chives

Cod

Make four pieces out of the cod and put it in salted water for 15 min. Wipe the cod dry with a piece of kitchen paper, put the pieces on oven paper and bake it in the oven at 100⁰C until the fish temperature reaches 45⁰C. It takes about 10-15 min depending on the thickness of the fish.

Vegetables

Slice the parsnips and carrots in to roundels (3 mm thick). Braise the vegetables in lemon juice, a pinch of salt and sugar, water (just enough to cover the veggies) and the cream. When the veggies are al dente, add chopped spring onions and pour out the fluid. Use a strain, that is the easiest way.

Foam

Pour the milk, heads of dill, salt and pepper in a saucepan, heat it until it simmer. Take the saucepan off the stove and mix the fluid to a foam with a hand blender.

Garnish

Peel the tomatoes, remove the core and cut the tomato flesh into small pieces. Mix it with chopped chives and a pinch of salt.

Music: the cooking was accompanied by the great last album from Robyn – Body talk pt. 1

Pickled gherkins

We haven’t been able to find pickled gherkins in Berlin. Salt pickled gherkins that is. What is a hamburger without pickled gherkin or your liver paste sandwich for breakfast for that matter?

We have to make our own and now it is the season for tiny cucumbers that we bought from the Farmers Market on Kollwitz Platz in Prenzlauer Berg.

• 1 kilo tiny Cucumbers
• 1 liter Water
• 4 tbsp Salt
• 2 teaspoons Sugar
• 2 1/2 tbsp Vinegar essence
• 2-3 heads of Dill
• 4 centimetres of Horseradish
• 2-3 centimetres of fresh Ginger
• 4-5 Black peppercorns

Scrub the cucumbers clean and prick tiny holes in them, so that they better absorb the flavours. Stir water, salt, sugar and vinegar essence together so that the salt and the sugar dissolves. Let it rest for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime slice the horseradish and the ginger in 0,5 centimetre slices.

Use a big jar, preferably a glass jar, or whatever you prefer. Put cucumbers, slices of ginger, slices of horseradish, the dill heads and the black peppercorns in layers. Pour the liquid carefully.

Let your pickled gherkins draw for a few days before you eat them.