Sublime Smørrebrød at Aamanns in Copenhagen

Copenhagen is now officially one of my favourite cities. Not because of the snazzy design shops. Not because of the Wild West feel of Christiana. Not because it is home to Noma. Not because of the unforgettable meal we had at Geranium. Not because of the architecture. Not because of the crazy café culture that makes you want to while away the hours with an IV drip of latté and a good book. Or even their amazing hot dogs. But because of a sandwich shop called Aamanns.

Aamanns serves some of the world’s finest open sandwiches. They are mini works of art, like tiny installations at the Chelsea Flower show. They aren’t just tasty and well made, but are architectural flourishes of breathtaking beauty.

The Danes are well know for their open sandwiches which are locally known as smørrebrød which translates as butter and bread. They are a relic of the Medieval “trencher” which saw stale bread used as an edible plate and can be found in various forms across Scandinavia. But it’s commonly accepted that Denmark is their spiritual home. The team at Aamanns have mastered the art of balancing flavour, texture, appearance and whimsy to create a spread of sandwiches that makes you want to kneel down and do a Wayne’s World.



A venison tartar with crisps, watercress, capers, crème fraîche and gherkins was truly magnificent. The rye bread added a sweet and sour note that brought out the richness of the silky meat whilst the crisp crunch of the precarious toppings elevated this to “favourite sandwich ever” levels.



An egg and cress sandwich with prawns and a rich mayonnaise was a classy riff on the classic M&S sandwich. Whilst a bit bland, it was beautiful to behold and was still in a different league to normal sandwiches.



A smoked haddock number with caviar, shallots, chives, dill, game chips and crème fraîche was magnificent. It looked like a latticed Viking sailing boat being sent out to ravage a northern European rival. Again, the textures were as important as the flavours as the crisp game chips, crunchy shallots, soft fish and poppy caviar playfully charmed their way to greatness.



Rare roast beef with piccalilli, shaved horseradish, deep fried shallot shards and parsley wasn’t half bad either. It makes a standard roast beef sandwich look incredibly average by comparison.



And a cod sandwich with a poached leeks, crisped onion sprinkles and a pea puree was an unexpectedly delicious delight. The soft, pure textural experience of the fish contrasted with the sweet jaggedness of the crisped onions and mellowed with the cool leeks. And all dialed up to the next level by a smidgen of mint and tarragon

This quality of sandwich experience doesn’t come cheap. But, at about £7-8 a sandwich, you can nip into Aamanns for one of Denmark’s most iconic culinary experiences and walk out feeling like you’ve won. Aamanns is a high class bargain in a city that's far from cheap. For there can’t be anywhere in the world that serves sandwiches as majestic as these.

Aamanns captures the spirit of Copenhagen that I’ve fallen in love with. It is down to earth. It marries form with function without making a big deal about it. It’s considered. It’s international. It’s the best it could possibly be. But above all Aamanns excels at what Copenhagen excels at: elevating the humble to the glorious.

Swedish Salmon Stroganoff

Swedish food culture is hard to articulate – for it doesn’t follow an easily digestible narrative. At first glance it seems healthy and fishy, but the more you dig into it, the more intriguing it becomes. So far I’ve detected three strands that compete and overlap.

The first area is that of the Nordic Diet which I have written about a fair bit, which sees meat and heavy carbs replaced by root vegetables, fish and slow release grains. Whilst it might seem like all Swedes eat this way, that isn’t very close to the truth. The reality is a bit more stodgy.

The second is Sweden’s native food culture, which isn’t that far off the hearty fare we know and love in Britain. Rich stews, lashings of potatoes, creamy sauces and overcooked vegetables are part and parcel of the Swedish cuisine that is called Husmanskost, or in other words, rustic homecooking from yesteryear. Like in Britain, this traditional and heavy approach to cooking has taken a back seat as daughters failed to pick up skills they would have otherwise learnt at their mother’s apron strings. But it is now making a comeback with Leif Mannerström at the helm.

The third strand is the way that Sweden has imported and bastardised many dishes from elsewhere such as Kåldolmar, much in the same way that we have done so with Indian food in the UK and the Americans do with Mexican food. They also love to slap doner kebab on pizzas and cover them, cravenly in burger sauce. Interestignly, one of Sweden’s most popular dishes is Korv Stroganoff, which sees beef fillet replaced by sausage. I made the mistake of mocking someone’s sausage stroganoff at work, only to find out it’s a cultural classic – up there with pickled herring and meatballs. So I wondered, could I bastardise the bastard to create the most illegitimate lovechild Sweden has ever seen. What if I replaced the sausage, which replaced the beef, with fish?

And lo, Swedish Salmon Stroganoff was born. I switched the shallots for fennel; the mushroom soup for lobster bisque; the parsley for tarragon; and kept everything else the same.

Serves 6

Ingredients

6 salmon fillets with the skin on
500g of button mushrooms
500ml of shrimp stock (or if desperate a can of lobster bisque)
300g of crème fraiche
Tarragon
Parsley
3 fennel bulbs
1 can of mushroom soup
Fennel seeds
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Lemon
Serve with roast courgettes and rice

Method

Slice the fennel up into slithers, season and sauté with the fennel seeds until soft. Then do the same with the mushrooms until cooked. Combine the two and then add the shrimp stock which you want to reduce by half. Once this has reduced, add the mushroom soup, tarragon, parsley and the crème fraiche.





Meanwhile, season the salmon fillets and sear the skin until crisp.



Then pour the fennel and mushroom sauce into a baking tray and position the salmon so that the skin sits clear of the liquid and bake in a medium-hot preheated oven for 10 minutes until the salmon is only just cooked.





Serve with rice, roast courgettes, a grating of lemon zest and a segment of lemon. Then garnish with parsley and tarragon and let everyone tuck in. It’s great with a glass of fresh white wine such as a Sauvignon Blanc or a dry German Riesling.

Thank you to Christian for the atmospheric action shots from a recent dinner party where this dish made its debut. And thanks you to Sofia, Magnus, Nina, Anna and Leah for being such fantastic guinea pigs. But most importantly thanks for persuading me not to call this dish “Laxanoff”!

Generational Cooking Article for Fire & Knives

Many of you I am sure have either heard of, or indeed already subscribe to Tim Hayward's excellent Fire & Knives journal that's dedicated to off-beat food writing. For those of you who haven't, I am sure you'd love it and I implore you to sign up for a subscription.

I recently wrote an article for the 6th edition, which rather geekily uses Strauss and Howe's Generation Theory to explain our relationships with the food writers Britain has cyclically cherished during the 20th century and looking forward to predict how things will evolve in the future.

It argues that Elizabeth David was a product of the GI Generation; how Delia Smith was the embodiment of the Silent Generation's traits; how Keith Floyd was Boomer to the core; how Jamie Oliver couldn't be more Generation X if he tried; and offers some thoughts on who might emerge as the Millennial Generation's foodie darling.

If you read it in Fire & Knives I'd love to know what you thought and if you haven't, jump onto the website and order yourself a spanking fresh copy.

A Superior Swedish Shrimp Sandwich

Piercingly clear air. Baskingly warm sunshine. An almost un-Scandinavian feeling of camaraderie. Smiling faces sipping coffee. Children let loose from their reins. Beseandled feet. The most enchanting day so far of 2011.

I rarely get a weekend to myself in Gothenburg. So when they pop up I tend to try to indulge in all the things I love about this city. After a stimulating swim and sauna I tend to head to the fish church to stock up on seafood for the week ahead.

I always have my eye out for something a bit different and today an array of corral red shrimps caught my eye. They made the standard prawns look beige by comparison. The fishmonger explained that they were Scandinavia’s version of the King Prawn (Kungsräkor), from the deep chilly waters off the West Coast of Sweden and Norway. He said that they aren’t much known about and have a more lobstery taste than standard prawns. Interestingly, they very proudly display their provenance – indicating that these were from the waters around Styrsö and were caught at a depth of 280 metres. For those of you who thought that prawns were prawns, think again. They take their shellfish so seriously over here that they don’t just tell you where they were from, but also how deep they were caught.

Feeling more than a little bit giddy about the thought of eating my Kungsräkor (King Prawns) I quickly decided that they would make the perfect jewels in a regal shrimp sandwich. I picked up some glasört (samphire) and then headed off to my favourite café and baker (Da Matteo) where I found an exquisite loaf of rye sourdough that seemed to weigh as much as an ingot of gold. A slurp of their amazing cappuccino and a naughty chocolate croissant restored my energy levels and sent me speeding back on my bike to my apartment.

I inspected my Swedish Shellfish bible by Leif Mannerström and found a recipe for Shrimp Sandwiches. I loosely followed his advice but broke two of his golden rules – I switched the homemade mayonnaise for crème fraiche and tossed aside his dictat to only ever consider using soft white bread. I also added samphire and avocado to make it more indulgent. But the rest of the recipe isn’t far off. And it Is in line with his simple, rustic and honest approach so I am sure he wouldn’t shot at me too much. And to appease him further I kept the shells as he implores and made them into an incredibly rich stock.

Ingredients:

500g of Kungsräkor with roe
3 slices of rye bread
3 tablespoons of crème fraiche
3 radishes
½ avocado
Wedge of lemon
Salad leaves
Handful of blanched samphire
Salt and pepper
Method

Method:

Peel the prawns and chuck the shells into the pan you’ll make your stock in later. Plop the roe into a separate bowl. It’s a bit fiddly because the shells are thinner and more clingy than normal prawns, but it’s quite therapeutic.









Slice the rye bread and smear with crème fraiche. Lay the samphire on top and then create a layer of prawns that look as though they are spooning each other. Arrange some salad leaves around the outside, lob on a few slices of avocado and radish. Then finish it off with a smattering of lemon and a gung ho scattering of salt and pepper. Then anoint with the crimson roe.





In Sweden you can barely move for shrimp sandwiches. But it's hard to find a really good one. Too often there's too much mayonnaise and the prawns are tasteless. But not so here. The rye sourdough added texture, sweetness and acidity which helped to make the special shrimps taste even more of themselves. And the radishes and samphire, inspired by our trip to Aamanns in Copenhagen, turned this from being a standard shrimp sandwich into a superior shrimp sandwich.

Smoked Mackerel and Beetroot Speltotto

As regular readers know I am partial to a risotto. But with my loose adoption of the Nordic Diet, which spurns simple carbohydrates, I’ve not been able to enjoy them as freely as I’d like to. Trina Hahnemann instead suggests using whole grain risotto rice, but I’ve struggled to find it in Sweden – and even struggled to lay my hands on any on a recent trip to Florence. So instead, like a heroin addict trying to find a cure, I found solace, not in cough medicine, but in spelt. Sure, it doesn’t give you quite the same smack as a true risotto, but it packs twice as much protein and less sugars, so is better for you, without being too worthy.

In Sweden spelt is called dinkel, which is a name I rather like. Partly because it reminds me of Claudia Winkleman, but also because it just sounds so innocent. I bought a packet of dinkel grains from a brand called Saltå which I can’t recommend highly enough. Now, when I look on my shelves, I see a line of beautifully designed packages, replete with an iconic, lino cut image of an old fashioned mill, stamped onto reassuringly thick brown paper. I’ve got their whole grain spaghetti, their spelt flour, their red rice, their quinoa, their amazing porridge oats and now their spelt. Many of their products are bio-dynamic, most are organic, all are superbly made and none have ever let me down. They’ve managed to make the terribly dull world of goody two-shoes carbs, just a little bit sexy.

Not knowing quite what to do with my spelt I consulted Twitter and was sent in the direction of the Sharpham Park website which suggested using pearled spelt as a risotto rice substitute. I’ve shamelessly stolen the term “speltotto” from the chaps at Sharpham, although maybe Dinkelotto would be more fitting. As ever, my beetroot fetish continues unabated and it always goes well with smoked mackerel, a splodge of goat’s curd and a sprinkling of chives. Previous experience of making beetroot risottos has meant that I’ve given their recipe a sharp tweak to get the maximum beet-impact.

Ingredients

100g Dinkel / Spelt per person
1 smoked mackerel
1 finely chopped shallot
1 glass of white wine
Goat’s curd or goat’s cheese
4 beetroot
Chives
1 litre of stock
Olive oil
Butter
Salt
Pepper

Method

Peel the beetroot and dice them very finely. Then add them to a pan, cover with the stock and simmer until the beetroot is tender. Reserve the liquid, for this will be your ruby red stock. Sharpham Park suggest grating, but if you do this, I think you miss out on texture and colour.

Fry the shallot until tender. Add the spelt as you would do with risotto rice. Then after it has crackled for a minute add the wine. Let it huff and puff like a thirsty dragon and then add the crimson beetroot stock and reserve the beetroot solids. Continue until the spelt has absorbed the liquid and has softened which could take anywhere from 20 minutes to 50! (You can reduce the cooking time by soaking the spelt overnight). Add the beetroot pieces towards the end.

Then when the spelt is cooked beat in some butter and season with gusto. Integrate the smoked mackerel and goat’s cheese. And finally, sprinkle over some chopped chives.



It’s an earthy, toothsome, beast, so works well with something piercing to offset the deep flavours – a decent glass or two of dry German Riesling would hit the spot. My final piece of advice, aside from not wearing white, is to make a big batch and enjoy it for lunch the next day and also as alarmingly coloured arancini.

Triathlon Training at The Greyhound, Stockbridge, Hampshire

Food tastes so much more vivid when you feel like you deserve it. We discovered this on our epic cycle trips for lunch which took us to Wild Garlic in Dorset, Bills in Lewes, The Horse Guards Inn in Sussex, The Hole in the Wall in Cambridgeshire and the awful Albany in Thames Ditton. It was a great way of making Cowie’s triathlon training fun for both of us. Circumstances have changed since then, with Cowie’s bike being pinched and now it’s me that’s in training whilst living in Sweden. So in light of this we decided to preface our dinner at The Greyhound in Stockbridge with a cheeky half marathon through the Hampshire countryside.

We arrived in Stockbridge on a glorious late winter’s lunchtime, donned on our running kit and spent the next 110 minutes marvelling at the stunning countryside, whilst gasping for breath. Our time would have been considerably quicker had I not kept on darting into the bushes to look at mushrooms! It’s fair to say that our run acquainted us with the pub’s “terroir”, or whatever the less poncy English equivalent would be. And more importantly left us famished. I was hoping that on our return to the pub that we’d be treated like London Marathon runners – but with the free Lucozade and power gels being switched for pints of ale and pork pies.

The Greyhound is one of the feature pubs in Diana Henry’s Gastropub Cookbook, which from past experience is normally a cast iron recommendation. The menu is pleasingly short and full of hearty options with the odd hint of flair, whilst the wine list offers a far more interesting range of wines than you’d expect. The cosy dining room with soft lighting and nude wooden tables is the perfect balance of rusti-city.



After bingeing on not terribly impressive bread, Cowie’s plump Scottish scallops with Jerusalem artichoke puree, chorizo and sweet potato crisps were very welcome. The superb cooking and beautiful presentation ensured this archetypal modern British starter didn’t slip into cliché territory. Cleverly, the crunch of the sweet potato crisps made the scallops taste even more of themselves. It was a cracking multi-sensory plate of food that drew you in to its warm embrace. The only thing it lacked was a sharp element, but in fairness a glass of Sauvignon Blanc picked up where the food left off.



My soft boiled duck egg croquette with smoked salmon and herb aioli was exactly what my aching muscles were yearning for. I adore duck eggs but unfortunately they have a rather gassy effect on me, which meant that Cowie almost disowned me for ordering them. In fact, this petty act of rebellion made it taste even better. The thin, crisp batter around the soft egg was perfectly executed. The smoked salmon was very good too, without being phenomenal, but the real highlight was the way that these rich elements combined with the peppery salad leaves to elevate this to a higher plane.



Cowie’s venison was beautifully crimson and sauced with a slurry of savoury, rural flavours. The earthy spinach, beetroot and venison tasted like an artist’s impression of the run we had just been on. Good solid stuff.



My tower of pork, crackling, fondant potato, fennel rillette and cider velouté, looked and read a bit like a Gordon Ramsay dish from 2003. Whilst it looked a bit Esher, it tasted of Exmoor. Aside from the name and look, my only criticism was the slightly dry meat and overly salted crackling which felt like it had been hanging around a bit too long. Is it just me being a snob, or are stacks of food a bit naff these days?

Puddings were from the comforting end of the spectrum as you’d hope from a pub. Illicitly creamy rice pudding with rhubarb compote was one of the best I’ve had and Cowie’s pear tatin was decent without being anything to get too excited about.

We dragged our weary bodies up to our sloping, but very comfortable bed and reflected on our well deserved evening of indulgence. Over an excellent breakfast we picked apart our meal from the previous night. We agreed that the food had been very well cooked. But we wondered whether it would have been more interesting had the food reflected the surroundings more. What if Mr. Smidgens from Longstock had smoked the salmon? What if Farmer Geoffrey from Stockbridge had provided the duck eggs? What if the venison had come from the New Forrest? What if the menu had been written in plain English rather than borrowing the occasional fancy expression from French? What if the menu had been studded with a few Hampshire classics? And does any of this even matter?

When we re-read the menu it could have been from any fancy pub in the UK – whereas our favourite country pub experiences have had a more obvious and attractive connection with their location; all the meat at Y Polyn was from local farmers and the sea trout was caught by a coracle fisherman; at the Wellington Arms the game is provided by a local huntsman; and at the Kings Arms in Strete all the fish is from the local harbour. The fact that Scotland featured three times on the menu in the form of mussels, scallops and beef and the local area only twice with cheese from the Isle of White and pork from Greenfield farm, isn’t a big deal, but it would have been great to feel like you are eating the best food that the local countryside has to offer. Likewise, there’s something reassuring about seeing offal and slow cooked dishes that turn pigs ears into silken purses, but “loin”, “breast”, “fillet” and “rib-eye” occupied the expensive shallow end of the taste spectrum rather than the powerful deep end of ox-tail, belly, cheeks and trotters that make me want to dive in off the top board.

In short, whilst the food was delicious and we’d recommend it warmly, we didn’t think it quite lived up to the top billing it gets in The Gastropub Cookbook. The food is safer and more restauranty than we were hoping for and lacking that thrilling punch of offal, slow cooked meat, imagination and local soul that are part of the best gastropubs’ DNA.

As we drove back to London we wondered whether Diana Henry’s books, which we’ve loved, are beginning to show their age. The first version is now seven years old and I imagine many of the chefs have moved on – as is the case with The Greyhound – and pubs will have changed hands. And the gastropub movement has evolved dramatically since then. Maybe it’s time for a new edition? If Diana Henry wants a sidekick to help with this arduous task, Cowie and I would love to help!

Chilli con Oxtail

With Gothenburg’s drawn-out winter coming to a welcome end and the sun melting away the iced over canals I find myself looking forward to BBQs, grilled fish and summery salads. But whilst the sun is warm when it’s out the thermometer struggles to get above zero in the shade. Such chilly evenings mean that Stewie Griffin – my slow cooker – has still got a role to play. Although I suspect this Mexican oxtail stew is probably his last outing for many months. And fittingly, he’s gone out with a bang.

Stewie has dealt with many a chilli. As I go to sleep he takes over and nurses his tough, sinewy contents into soft, savoury, spicy, unctuousness. I love waking up to the smell of slow cooked stews. There’s something very reassuring about knowing that you’ve got a delicious week ahead.

I guess you could call this chilli con carne. But I’d like to think it’s a bit more interesting and layered than that. I never use mince and normally use shin, flank, blade or brisket. But this time I managed to get my hands on some Swedish oxtail which turned out to be quite a sensation. I've no idea how authentically Mexican this is, but I do know that I like eating it.

Ingredients

1 whole oxtail – cut into portions by the butcher
4 onions
4 cloves of garlic
2 tins of pinto or black beans
4 cartons of chopped tomatoes
2 dessert spoons of fennel seeds
1 stick of cinnamon
4 dried Chipotle chillies
4 dried New Mexico Red chillies
300ml water
1 beef stock cube
Dark chocolate
2 dessert spoons of smoked paprika
2 tablespoons of sunflower oil
Pepper
Salt

To serve

Avocado
Smoked salt
1 Fresh red chilli
Natural yoghurt or sour cream


Method

Soften the onion in the sunflower oil. Then add the garlic. And then add the paprika. Allow to sweat and then add to the slow cooker. Add some water to the pan to get out all the lovely flavours and add it to the pot.

If you can be arsed, colour the oxtail in a frying pan having dunked the pieces in seasoned flour. If you haven’t got time, don’t worry, and add the oxtail pieces to the slow cooker. Then tip in the chopped tomatoes. Then rinse the beans and add them too. Lob in the dried chillies, fennel seeds, stock cube, water and cinnamon. Turn the slow cooker on and cook on low for 6-7 hours until the meat is soft.

Leave to cool. Then skim off the layer of fat and pick out the oxtail. Remove the meat from the bones. It’s a messy job, but essential. Boil up the bones in some water in order to extract the awesome gelatin from the bones. And then add this back to the mixture along with the meat. Give the bones to a deserving dog and take the cinnamon stick out too.

Leave to mature and then spoon some of the, now very solid, mixture into a pan and heat it up. Squirt in some tomato sauce (secret ingredient), add a square of dark chocolate, ample seasoning and add some finely chopped fresh red chilli. Heat it through and if it is a bit too liquid reduce it over a high heat stirring regularly. Serve with some brown rice, a sliced avocado and either some sour cream or some natural yoghurt. Sprinkle with smoked salt and tuck in.





It's a rich, smoky, spicy dish with layers of heat from the 3 types of chilli. The chipotles give it a smoky tang whilst the Mexico Reds add some fruitiness and the fresh chillies give it an abrupt kick. Brown rice, yoghurt and avocado make it pretty healthy.

One of the great things about making vats of delicious slow cooked food is the fun of transforming it into different meals over the days that follow. The mixture is also great in tortillas alongside avocado and sour cream, would make a sensationally rich filling for a pie, would be knockout as a filling for a Mexican sandwich called a torta and with the sun starting to emerge would make a mind blowing topping for a burger.

Plaice stuffed with smoked salmon, horseradish and dill

I was dead set on buying some artic char from the fishmonger for dinner. But when I saw that plaice (or rödspätta in Swedish) was a quarter of the price the decision to spend £2.50 rather than a tenner was an easy one to make.

So out went my idea of gorging on artic char with a horseradish crust and instead I was left with a large flatfish and a desire to do something more interesting than just smother it in butter and bake it with white wine and dill. My search for interesting Swedish plaice recipes yielded a handful of recipes couldn’t have been more dull, so I turned instead to an idea that I spotted on Jamie Oliver’s website. He suggests stuffing flat fish with prawns, parsley, lemon and onions. I didn’t fancy the recipe, but I loved the technique. So I switched things around and stuffed my plaice with a Swedish combination of smoked salmon, freshly grated horseradish and dill – all mixed together with plenty of butter, pepper and lemon zest. It’s cheap, super tasty and looks rather fancy for plain old plaice.

Serves 1

Ingredients

1 good sized plaice
100g of chopped up smoked salmon (trimmings are fine)
An inch of horseradish, grated
40g butter
1 lemon
2 sprigs of dill
Glass of white wine
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Method

With a very sharp knife slice the plaice along the central bone from just below the head to the tail on the upper side. Carefully slice along the bone so that the fillets flab backwards to reveal a cavity. If this seems complicated watch this.

Mix the butter, horseradish, smoked salmon, dill, pepper, salt and lemon zest. Form it into a ball and stuff it into the cavity. Lay the fish in an oiled baking dish and pour in a slug of white wine. Season with salt and pepper and scatter in a few cloves of garlic and wedges of lemon. Cook in a very hot oven for 4 minutes and then baste the fish with the juices. Cook for a further 4 minutes and then, if done, serve as it is or with some plain boiled potatoes and guzzle a nice glass of Grüner or Sauvignon Blanc.

The horseradish, smoked salmon and dill proved to be a punch stuffing which really livened the plaice up. Having tried it once, it’s a technique I’m keen to repeat with some other innovative stuffings. I imagine chipotle butter might be fun.

Chicken Livers on Toast with Lingonberry Jelly

Good food needn’t be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. And a quickie can be as satisfying as a three hour gastronomic romp. Chicken livers are one of the cheapest morsels of protein available and are every bit as tasty as the rest of the chicken so long as you’re not eating them on a daily basis. At roughly a tenth of the cost of a chicken breast they’re amazing value that I am keen to take advantage of more often.

Apart from chicken liver pate, the only other recipe that has caught my attention has been Mark Hix’s chicken livers on toast – which only just qualifies as a recipe rather than a composition. But it’s bloody tasty. Especially if you go a bit off piste add a dollop of still warm super-rapido-lingonberry-jelly.

Ingredients

Handful of chicken livers, cleaned and roughly chopped
50g butter
1 big shallot or half an onion
1 small clove of garlic
Salt and pepper
Sourdough for toasting (I used a couple of slices of a great walnut sourdough)
Cress
Handful of frozen or fresh lingonberries
100ml water
Dollop of honey

Method

Bring the water to the boil and add the berries. When they have simmered and softened pass them through a sieve to remove the skins and pips. Then return to the pan and reduce to a syrup and add the honey as necessary to temper the tartness. It’s best to do this stage before you start with the livers. It doesn’t take long but it gives the syrup time to cool and jelly-ify.

Fry the shallot and garlic until soft. Then season the chopped and cleaned livers with plenty of salt and pepper and then fry in the butter for around 4–5 minutes until they are still pink but cooked.

Remove from the pan and then attack with your best cook’s knife until the mixture is finely chopped. Then taste for seasoning and adjust as necessary. Keep the livers warm whilst you make your toast.

Butter the toast and dollop the mixture on top. Sprinkle over some cress and dress with the lingonberry syrup which will probably have turned to a runny jelly by now. Grind over some pepper and sprinkle over some smoked salt and tuck in.





This recipe came from Mark Hix’s Oyster and Chop House book, which I will be taking inspiration from for a few posts in the near future. The lovely people at Quadrille sent it to me a while ago.

I’m keen to experiment with chicken livers and move beyond smearing them on toast, so if you’ve got any great ideas which don’t involve making it into a pate please let me know! If they are Scandinavian recipes you get a special mystery prize.

De-vine Kåldolmar

Since moving to Gothenburg I’ve tried to learn about Swedish culture and language through the medium of food. It seems to be the best way to uncover the truths about what makes this country tick. The more you read and eat the more you encounter the paradoxes and culinary riddles that slice through Swedish culture. My latest lesson involves 18th century battles, a town named Bender, a king called Karl and the Swedification of the classic Turkish dish of stuffed vine leaves into cabbagey kåldolmar.

The story of kåldolmar dates back to the early 1700s and offers a glimpse of Sweden’s once mighty past and tetchy relationship with its bellicose northern European neighbours. Apparently, King Karl XII, after losing the decisive Battle of Poltava in 1709 to Russia and their Polish and Norwegian allies, went into exile in a Turkish town called Bender. Whilst he was there, living off the generosity of his Ottoman allies, he spied on their warships and returned home to Sweden several years later with blueprints for a rejuvenated navy and more importantly a taste for dolmas.



Battle of Poltava (1709) painted by Denis Martens the Younger in 1726

The linguists amongst you will know that “dolma” means “stuffed thing” in Turkish which highlights the versatility of this dish. You’ll find different varieties of dolma across the old Ottoman Empire with fillings ranging from ground meat, to aubergine, courgette, peppers and rice, but typically the shell is a vine leaf. It’s hard to know which particularly style of dolma was Karl’s favourite, but from my experience of Swedes I’d guess that it was at the meatier end of the spectrum.



Dolmas from Norwichnuts on Flickr

In the chillier climes of Sweden, vine leaves were hard to come by, but Karl and his followers still hankered after the exotic taste of dolmas. So being the creative and practical nation that they are, the Swedes adapted the dish to use cabbage instead of vine leaves as a sturdy casing for the minced pork. They also switched carbs away from the rice you’ll find inside dolmas and now serve these meaty parcels with boiled potatoes, gravy and lingonberry jelly. For a decent recipe for classic Swedish Kåldolmar look no further than Annes Food.

One of my frustrations since moving across the North Sea is that the trend for smuggling enchanting tastes back from the Middle East, started by King Karl, doesn’t seem to have continued, despite the large and vibrant Middle Eastern population in Sweden. Fine, you can get donner kebab on your pizza, and plenty of curious spies in your meatballs, but so far, I haven’t found anywhere that expertly grills spiced meat over charcoals like Antepliler in Manor Park or any of the middle eastern delights you’ll find on the Edgware Road or Yottam Ottolenghi’s delis and books. Where’s the Turkish, Iranian and Iraqi version of Tayyabs in Gothenburg?

One of the most interesting recipes in the Nordic Diet cookbook sees the classic, meaty, kåldolmar given a healthy, fishy update. Trina Hahnneman kicks out the pork and replaces it with plaice, mustard, leeks and courgettes.

I gave them a twist of my own and have found the process of wrapping fish in blanched cabbage to be a very therapeutic process. The technique is pretty simple and is the basis for a wide range of healthy and delicious variations.



Smoked Mackerel Kåldolmar with Pototto (Potato Risotto)

Inspired by Marcus Sameulsson's excellent Aquavit cookbook and Trina Hahnemann's Nordic Diet

Serves 2

4 cabbage leaves
4 smoked mackerel fillets
Dijon mustard
400 grams of waxy potatoes – diced into 8mm cubes
Vegetable stock
Horseradish
Dill
1 onion
Olive oil
Butter
2 glasses of white wine
Salt and pepper

Blanch four cabbage leaves in salted water and refresh in running cold water. Allow to cool and then remove the tough stem which acts as a structural spine. This will make the leaves more foldable.

Place a mackerel fillet in the centre of each leaf and smear with a dollop of mustard and anoint with lemon zest and ground black pepper. Then wrap them up like you would with a burrito. For guidance take a look at Cheryl Marie’s blog.

Finely dice the onion and sweat in olive oil. Then add in the 8mm cubes of potato. Add a glass of white wine and then ladle in stock and stir, as you would do with a risotto. It won’t take very long to cook so keep an eye on it. Add some thyme or tarragon as you go depending on what’s to hand and what you feel like. Beat in some butter at the end and keep warm.

Place the cabbage parcels in a baking dish and pour in a glass of white wine. Cook for 10 minutes. And then serve on top of a bed of posotto with plenty of seasoning, a sprinkling of grated horseradish and a scattering of dill.



Fish parcel wrapped in cabbage from Trina Hahnneman’s Nordic Diet

Serves 2

4 cabbage leaves
400g of white fish fillets
1 courgette
1 leek
1 red pepper
Olive oil
Lemon zest
Salt and pepper
1 glass of white wine

Blanch and refresh the cabbage leaves in the same manner as the first recipe. Place a 100g piece of fish in each parcel and then add a spoonful of diced courgette, red pepper and leek. Then add a dab of butter, a dusting of lemon zest and plenty of seasoning. Then wrap them up and place them in a baking dish with a glug of olive oil and a glass of white wine.



Bake for 12 minutes until the fish is just done and serve. I partnered it with fregola, roast peppers and tomatoes which gave a sweet, red counterpoint to the savoury greens.



It works just as well with minced fish and langoustine tails. When I next have a load of langoustine or crayfish, I’ll formalise it into a recipe. Roll on "Kåldolmens dag" which celebrates the Cabbage Roll on 30 November.