Almond Stars

When the mum-in-law was 13 years old, she got this book as a gift from the Rumford company. As you can see, it is in shreads. I guess the paper was cheap, and handling it makes my air pipes itch, so this is not an heirloom I will volunteer to be in charge of. However, the recipes are still great, and simple, as I don´t suppose there was a multitude of ingredients in the 1930´s, not in the interior of Swedish Lapland anyway. The recipe for almond cookies is the one that has been most popular over the years, and the mum-in-law will make it/have it made for as long as she lives. And as long as I live, it will continue to be made for Christmas, that´s for sure.

It´s easy enough.

Take 6 bitter almonds and 30 sweet almonds, blanched and peeled, and grind them through an almond grinder. Stir 100 g of butter with 100 g of caster sugar in a bowl. Pass 300 g wheat flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder through a sieve, add 2 tablespoons of cream and 1 egg, mix all the ingredients.

The dough is then rolled out thinly and the cookies are cut out with a pastry-cutter. If you don´t like stars, I´m sure hearts taste just as good! Or, if you don´t have a designated cutter, use a drinking glass. Put them on a non-stick oven paper (you´ll need about four for this batch, which will give you two full jars of cookies), brush the cookies with a beaten egg and sprinkle pearl sugar and minced almonds on top. Bake in a medium hot oven, 200 - 225 degrees Celsius, for about five minutes, or until they are turning slightly golden.

The mum-in-law proudly quotes my sister about these: "not only are they delicious, they are addictive". So beware, I guess.

Update. for anyone wondering what an almond grinder looks like (photographed with a matchbox for size reference):

Palt

There is probably no dish more representative for the northernest parts of Sweden than palt. It is sometimes called Pitepalt, as the townspeople of Piteå has laid claim to the origin of the palt; I think it´s their business culture, they are very industrious. Piteå folk have also been great travellers, and have spread the palt as their gospel. The only palt restaurant I know of is located there, the Palzeria in Öjebyn. They have such novel dishes as salmon palt with white wine sauce and fried curry shrimp. Their palt recipe is a bit more elaborate than mine (they use part boiled potatoes and even egg), but as they say on their website, every household has their own recipe - and everyone swears their palt is the "correct" one.

I have a cousin-in-law who can´t make palt without the lightly salted, rimmat, pork, but is shameless about using a "palt-mix" from the store, with dried potatoe flakes rather than proper raw potatoes. Personally, being grown up within the cultural influence of the Central European knödel/dumpling belt, I feel free to use whatever I have by way of filling (the mum-in-law and I have even made vegetarian ones with an onion-mushroom mix, which was very good), but I am more particular about the dough. If I´m going to call it palt, it´s got to have raw potatoes.

This is my mother-in-law´s recipe, with no deviations. Just like she taught me. According to family tradition, one member (of the lumberjack profession, long gone now) once ate 13 of these. When he had set down his knife and fork, they asked him if he was indeed full now? "No," he said, "but I´m bored."

Start with the pork, about half a kilo, or a pound. Dice it...

...and fry it.

Peel the potatoes, 1½-2 kg. They should be old potatoes, not new.
The starchier the better.

Grate them medium fine. I use the second smallest grater on my machine.

Salt a little and start adding wheat flour. I like to use my hands for this.

For 2 kg potatoes, I use somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1 liter flour. But it all depends on how watery the potatoes are and how firm you want your palt. The husband likes it firm, and as he was in the kitchen (taking the photographs) I let him have his way. 

Done. It should be a bit sticky.

Take a handful of dough (imagine making a snow ball), flatten it slightly. I like to rinse my hands in cold-ish water between every two palts, to keep them from sticking. You can use flour as well, whatever you prefer.

Put a pinch of pork in there. 

Fold the pork into the dough. 

It takes a little practice, but you´ll soon get the hang of it.

Lower the palt into the boiling water. 

Ease it gently off the ladle. 

Stir gently around the bottom of the pan, so they don´t get stuck.

When the last palt has been put in the pan, get out the accompaniments: butter, lingonberry jam (or any slightly acidic jam you have, cranberries or rowanberries perhaps?), golden syrup, and milk to drink. It´s okay to drink beer with it, I think, if you are not into milk.

When the palt has boiled for half an hour, they are ready. 

The husband like to eat his traditionally, with a dollop of butter sliced into the palt, and lingonberry jam. 

Me, I prefer syrup. Tastewise, it´s a bit related to American pancakes
with bacon and maple syrup, actually.

The palt water is good for baking, so I saved one liter in the fridge.
Boiling half of it and mixing with the fridge cool other half
gives the exact right temperature for a bread loaf.

What we didn´t eat (this batch made 20 palts and 2 or 3 is enough to make you quite full!) we cooled and froze. If you want to re-boil them, wrap each palt in tin foil: a 15-20 minute cooking will make them like new. Or, slice them up and fry them in butter - that´s my thing! 

Yellow Pea Soup Delight

So, the mum-in-law had a stroke, and I have had to re-think my 3-week plan. She got off fairly lightly, considering her advanced age (she is a nonagenarian) and generally frail health, but her balance is worse than ever and her right leg is lagging behind a bit. She needs more help, and since she believes that the ready-cooked food provided by the social services is not fit for humans, I have volunteered to make sure she has food in her freezer for the home-help to heat for her during the week.

It is a good thing she approves of my cooking (a lot of it has been taught to me by her, after all), and that we have the same tastes in traditional fare. So this week, I am making yellow pea soup, a dish that has  been around since the Iron Age at least, likely longer. It´s very easy to make, but it requires that you have some time on your hands. Once you get it started, it pretty much takes care of itself, and the rewards are great. There is one good reason this dish has stood the test of time: it is - if properly made - enormously delicious.

You need yellow dried peas, about 500 grams (1 pound), 500 grams or so of salted pork (or any pork: ham is fine, just adjust the added salt or stock to how salty the meat is), 1½ liters of water, a few onions cut into wedges (I used three), a couple of vegetable stock cubes, thyme, marjoram, some salt if necessary and tabasco (which the Vikings probably didn´t have, but I´m sure they were no strangers to adding whatever else they might have come across on their travels). You could probably use whole-grain pepper, but I have yet to try that.

After three hours.

 Just put it all in a pot, bring it to boil and let it simmer for about three hours. You could soak the peas for 12 hours before if you like, but I don´t find it makes much difference to how long it takes. Most recipes I have seen claims the soup is ready in 1½ hours but I think that´s ridiculous. You need at least four or five, if you want the proper creaminess, which, of course, you do. After three hours, take the meat out and cut it up. Leave it for another hour, spice it up and serve with a sweet mustard, cripsbread, hard cheese, lager or hot Swedish Arrak punch, if you can get it. 

Traditionally, you have pancakes for dessert. Or not exactly dessert, it´s more like a second main course in this case. With lingonberry or raspberry jam. 

It freezes well, but usually you need to add some more water and herb spices when you re-heat it. Pea soup tends to turn into a porridge if you don´t watch it, and that takes some of the joy out of it. You can make it vegetarian, and if I do, I like to serve it with black olives instead of mustard, inspired by the Greek. Actually, if we have vegetarian guests and there are black olives on the table, the husband will add those to his soup with the rest of it, so the one thing doesn´t have to exclude the other, apparently. 

After four and a half hours. Ready for seasoning.

Thyme and marjoram, or one or the other. As Garbo said: "Don´t be stingy, baby."

 

Personally, I will have bread with the soup or pancakes after, not both. 

The mustard goes on the side of the plate. Anything else is barbaric.

The punch is easily heated in the microwave.
I was having beer, so brought it out just to show you.
Nothing says you can´t have both.

Spagetti & Minced Meat Sauce, Swedish style

The Swedish word husmanskost means something like simple home-cooking. Only last week I saw an article in the paper  about how popular husmanskost is with the Swedes, but also how the definition of what is typically, traditional Swedish fare has changed over the years. Now, apparently, dishes like pizza, pasta, and tacos are considered husmanskost by the coming generation. Well, I grew up with pasta, certainly, the first dish I ever learned to cook properly was spagetti and mincemeat sauce, but I do remember a time when a pizza restaurant was rather exotic, actually. Tacos were introduced in the late 80´s. When we were in San Francisco in 1994, we had fajitas, which was unheard of here then, but it was introduced not long after.

For me husmanskost is, for example, kalops, a meatstew with alspice and bay leaf, served with beetroots and cucumber. It is also kåldolmar, stuffed cabbage rolls - which is another import, it came to Sweden with the armies of Karl XII, returning from Turkey in the early 18th Century. It is probable that the most classic of Swedish dishes, the meatball, also originates from the Turkish köfte. If you go far enough back in time, there is no such thing as typically Swedish anything. There isn´t even a Sweden - as we know it - in the 15th Century!

Anyway, spagetti and mincemeat sauce: chopped onion fried with mince meat (any kind, local produce is good) in olive oil, add a can of crushed tomatoes, a can of sliced mushrooms; spice it with salt, pepper, something sweet to add punch to the tomatoes (anything from a teaspoon of marmelade to Heinz chili sauce, depending on your mood), some drops of tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Fresh basil and garlic, if you have it, will turn this from husmanskost to gourmet food. This is also fast food; never takes longer than half an hour to make. Well, unless you make your own pasta, that is...

The 3-Week Plan: All of the last week

It has been a bad week for plans, with lots of unexpected changes this way and that, and the husband, who is entering a period of extensive travelling (he will be away more than he will be at home for the next couple of months) has been in a restaurant mood, eager to spoil me a bit before he goes, which is nice of him.

He took me to a very fancy place, Hemmagastronomi (= home gastronomy), which is a combination restaurant-delicatessen store. We shared three medium size dishes: vendace roe with blini, smoked shrimp with aioli, and a plate with dried hams, salami, cheese, pickles, and tapenade. They served a delicious sour dough bread with that. Beer for me and a lemonade for him. I wouldn´t mind going back there!

One evening, the sister-in-law (who has been visiting the mum-in-law) treated us to her home-graved salmon, spiced with elderflower saft and gin. I have the recipe, and here it is:

Take a 900 g (2 pounds) salmon filet, with the skin still on, take out any remaining bones and cut it in half. Mix 4 tablespoons of sugar, 4 teaspoons of salt, 1 tablespoon freshly ground white pepper, and zest from one lemon; rub this into the salmon. Put one filet on top of the other, skinside out and one thick end against one thin end. Put a double layer of plastic bags around it and add 4 tablespoons of concentrated elderflower saft and 3 tablespoons of gin. Put this on a plate in the fridge for 2-3 days, turn the bag over a couple of times during that time. Then scrape off the spices, cut the fish into thin slices (discard the skin!) and serve with lemon, ground black pepper, boiled potatoes, and mustard-dill sauce. 

I didn´t take a photo of it, but it had the nicest pink colour ever. There is a blogger who has a good recipe for the entire dish, sauce and all, here.

One of the days I made some more cornbread and let the husband taste Dave´s black eye peas, which he liked a lot. "I imagine this is what the cowboys ate," he said and he might be right, I guess. I intend to bring some to the mum-in-law eventually, as I have much left in the freezer.

Mash, fried salmon, tunnbröd, mango chutney. 

One day this week I fried some salmon and mashed some potatoes. That is a favourite dish of ours, fast food (half an hour plus however long it takes to peel the potatoes - I favour buying large ones!), but properly cooked. It´s so easy it isn´t even a recipe.

Our personal quirk is perhaps that we accompany fried salmon with creme fraiche and mango chutney, which makes for a very good blend of tastes. The idea came from a friend who said that mixing creme fraiche and cloudberry jam makes a very good salmon sauce. We prefer blending it on the plate - if nothing else, it´s frugal.

Today, we had leftover köttsoppa (= meat soup) built on bits and pieces from a kalops (meat stew), Dave´s black eye peas, and green peas from the freezer. I baked a fresh loaf on rye and whole wheat flour. Nothing fancy, but good all the same.

Next week, I will be alone and do a pantry cleaning menu. It´s a personal sport of mine which I do when the husband is away for a whole week - the challenge being not going to the store at all, but making due with what´s available. The eating equivalent of "shopping one´s closet", I suppose. But first, the husband is taking me out for Italian!

The 3-Week Plan: Day 12 and 13

There isn´t much to say about day 12. I was eating alone and made French Toast for myself, or something resembling French Toast. In England they call it "Eggy Bread" and eat it with ketchup, which doesn´t sound particularly tasty to me (perhaps because I detest ketchup). I am firmly Americanized in regard to French Toast, which is called Fattiga Riddare in Swedish, (= poor knights) and eaten with jam or sugar and cinnamon; I insist on syrup. It doesn´t have to be maple syrup to please me, ordinary Ljus sirap (light syrup, which is actually more golden) is fine. A cousin of French Toast is Bread Pudding, which I also enjoy, but the husband not so much, so I rarely make it. It´s basically jam sandwiches soaked in egg and milk and cooked in the oven. Yum! You may call this dessert, I call it dinner when I feel like it.

And very pretty-looking beans they are!

Day 13 is Saturday and improv day and I decided to have some proper food, even though I was eating alone again. I haven´t been able to get the cornbread out of my mind since Divers&Sundry shared her recipe (which you find in the comments) with me the other day, and I decided to make it and have something suitable to match. I can´t quite get my mind around what catfish is, so I went with black eye peas, or beans, as they are called here. I googled for a nice-looking recipe and found Dave´s Georgia-style soup, stew, or pot or what you want to call it. It is not unlike Swedish yellow pea soup, but that is a lot more creamy than Dave´s seem to be according to his photos.

I halved the recipe; the beans come in 900 g bags, which is almost exactly 2 pounds, so I took half that. I let it soak over night, then added 1,5 liters of water, four cubes of vegetable boullion, 2 fried regular size onions, 240 g of fried bacon (they come in 120 g packets), and skipped the ham. I added whole grain white pepper, since it is a slow-cooking thing. No salt, and as it turned out, with the saltiness of the bacon and the boullion, it doesn´t need any.

Dave says to keep this on the stove for 8 hours (!) after soaking, but the reviewers seem to think four was enough. I tried my beans after 3 hours and they were thoroughly cooked, but I wasn´t quite hungry yet then, so I let it sit for another hour, while doing my excercises for the drawing course I am attending. After that, I was both frustrated and hungry!



Now, this is important: when Americans speak of corn, they don´t mean korn, which is tempting for a Swede to think. They mean maize (Sw. majs), also called Indian corn, as of corn-on-the-cob (Sw. majskolv). Corn in Britain can mean oats (Sw. havre) or even wheat (Sw. vete). Swedish korn is barley in English, and it´s the stuff they make malt whisky of, while the American bourbon whiskey is at least partly made from corn - I mean maize. Confusing, eh?

The corn (maize) flour I bought comes from Italy and is called farina di mais per polenta. Polenta is a maize porridge, mostly known to Swedes from fancy restaurants where it is left to cool and congeal, cut up, grilled and served with meat. Don´t get the wrong kind, or you will end up with a very boring and sad sponge cake.

I made the cornbread pretty much like I make sponge cake. The trick is to mix the dry ingredients and the wet separately, and then stir just enough to mix it. The mum-in-law taught me to use one of the whisks, it´s a really good trick. It came out very nicely, I think. Perhaps Divers&Sundry will please grade my attempt?

I understand black eye peas are traditional on New Year´s Eve in the southern States, and is considered to bring luck for the new year. Well, I am certainly impressed enough to make this one of my standard recipes and make it for guests as well. We´ll see how it does in the freezer, but I don´t think it matters much if the beans fall apart some.

After having done the dishes, I poured myself a well-deserved G&T and knit some on my scarf while watching Guy Ritchie´s "Sherlock Holmes - A Game of Shadows".

PS. If you are Swedish and reluctant to try American/English (ok, the Brits are officially on the liter scale, but so often prefer "old money") recipes because you can´t get your head around "cups", check out your local ICA or Coop for quarter liter (2,5 dl) measuring cups. They now also come with cup- and half cup measuring lines, as you can see in the picture below. Liters on the right, cups on the left. Thank the good ol´ internet & multiculturalism for that one. DS.

Baking in a Baking-House and The 3-Week Plan: Day 11

The small house on the far right is the baking house. 

All this talk of and drinking boiled coffee made me remember when a friend of mine bought a house and moved out in the country. On the property was a bagarstuga, a baking house. Way back, building a baking oven was quite an expensive investment, and in many villages here in the north, they would build a joint one, where the women would bake together, sometimes for days at a time. Mostly, they would bake tunnbröd (thin bread), which was dry - much like a biscuit - and could be stored for a long time, and mjukkaka (soft cake) which was a flat, soft bread.

Today mjukkaka is commerically baked by Polarbröd bakery in Älvsbyn, and their brandname, polarkaka (= polar cake, or bread), has to a large extent replaced the old name mjukkaka (I have seen recipes for "how to bake your own polarkaka"). This bread is exported all over and we once had a very expensive sandwich in Paris, salmon on polarkaka!

Anyway, my friend invited a group of us to bake in her bagarstuga, and I think I had a cold or something (it is more than 15 years ago, and hard to remember exactly), because instead of baking, I was taking photos. My friend´s husband was heating the oven with birchwood, and when it was hot enough, the embers were raked to the far side and the bread was placed on the hot brick surface. On the side of the oven was an open fireplace where he boiled our coffee. Of course, we had some fresh bread with it!

It was a great experience and when the mum-in-law tells her stories of baking the old way, I know exactly what she means. My friend and her husband have since given up this house and moved back to a flat in town, but they had some great years in the country, doing all the things they had dreamed of: raising sheep and ducks (I have some photos of myself picking feathers from dead birds, but for some reason they tend to gross people out...), had a garden (she even wrote a chapter in a garden book, about gardening in the severe northern climate), and what not. But I suppose everything runs its course eventually - they seem very happy back in town.

About my 3-week plan: I am eating alone tonight and since I can´t bother cooking for myself alone, I am having tea and sandwiches for dinner. It´s a bit lazy, but that´s ok, too.