Cook Like a Swede

Swedish Cooking  

All right, I know this has nothing to do with model railroading, but it is a passion, and this whole thing is about my passions.  Cooking is certainly one of them.  I learned to cook from my parents, have cooked all my life, and have carried on the great Swedish (and other)  recipes that came down to me through my father’s family. One of my modeling projects is a recreation of the Elm Lawn Inn on Newfound Lake in New Hampshire.  My family owned and operated it when I was young, and my grandmother Hedwig was the head cook.

There are some wonderful Swedish dishes.  Sometimes it feels like everything is either pickled or fish or both, but the reality is very different.  Some of the unfamiliar tastes are the best.  Swedish meatballs with lingonberries. Cloudberry jam on anything.  Swedish pancakes.  Pickled cucumbers.  Glurg.  Spritz. Not to mention shrimp with Rhode Island sauce!  This section contains some of my favorite recipes, many only slight modifications from very old family recipes.

The Recipes

Swedish Bread

Swedish Molasses Anise Bread (Erickson family version of Limpa bread)

This bread is a family tradition, apparently brought over from Sweden by my grandparents. I have never seen a bread recipe quite like it in terms of taste and texture. Both my father and my aunt made this bread, each was slightly different. I never learned to make it from my father. After he died in 1984, I couldn’t find a recipe in his kitchen, so I called my aunt in New Hampshire. She didn’t have a recipe either, so I went north and learned it directly from her, writing it down as we went along. Although I often improvise in my cooking, I need to write down the results as a guideline for the future. This recipe is about halfway between my father’s dense, dark bread and my aunt’s slightly lighter version. After explaining how to make it by hand, I have also included a version for bread machine that makes one loaf.
Traditional baking method

1 ½ cup milk
½ cup molasses (dark, unsulphered)
4 tbsp butter
½ tsp salt
2 tsp crushed anise seed
2 pkg dry yeast
1 cup water
2 tsp sugar
5 cups flour

Combine milk and molasses in bowl. Place butter, salt, and anise seed in saucepan large enough to hold them, as well as the milk/molasses mixture. Heat the butter, salt and anise until the butter is melted, and the anise has absorbed some of the butter. Add the milk/molasses mixture and reheat to approximately 115̊. Remove from heat.

Heat one cup water to 115̊. (In glass two cup measure this should take about 45 seconds in a microwave). Add yeast, along with 2 tsp sugar. Stir well. Allow yeast to ferment for a few minutes.

Place milk mixture in a large bowl. Add 2 cups flour. Mix. Check temperature to ensure relative equality with the yeast, then add yeast mixture. Mix in additional flour, approximately three cups, until the mixture separates from the bowl.

Turn out the mix onto a floured surface and knead for approximately three minutes. Add additional flour if necessary. Turn the mixture into a large greased bowl. Sprinkle with flour. Cover, and let rise in a warm place until double in bulk, approximately two hours. Punch down the dough and knead for twelve minutes.

Separate and shape the dough into two loaves. Place each in a greased loaf pan, and let rise a second time for thirty minutes, covered. Cook in a 400̊ over for forty five minutes.
Bread machine method

Much less traditional, but very efficient. This produces one loaf, which will rise higher than the traditional recipe, but is very tasty.
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup molasses (dark, unsulphered)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp crushed anise
2 tsp yeast
2 ½ cups flour

Add all ingredients to bread machine in order specified by the manufacturer. Use bread dough cycle only. After the dough cycle has finished, remove dough. Knead lightly, adding a small amount of additional flour to bring the mixture to the consistency of bread dough. Shape into a loaf and place in loaf pan. Immediately cook for 45 minutes in 400̊ oven.

Pickled Herring (Ingald Sill)

This was a favorite of my father’s. He probably enjoyed watching people figure out what to eat in it as much as eating it himself. It is a very traditional Swedish dish, a mainstay of any Christmas smorgasbord. It was always served in the same dish. He would prepare it from scratch, which is somewhat harder these days because of the fish being less available. It is also easier to purchase most of what you need pre-done.
1 cup white vinegar
½ cup sugar
½ cup chopped onions
1 sliced onion
8 bay leaves
20 whole allspice
1 jar picked herring (the plainer the better) (or one pound herring, gutted)

Wash the herring and pat dry. Slice herring into ½ pieces.

Mix vinegar, chopped onions and sugar in sauce pan. Bring to boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add bay leaves and allspice. Allow to cool.

Layer the herring and sliced onions in a small (preferably clear sided) serving dish, adding bay leaves and allspice along the way. Cover and let stand in refrigerator at least 24 hours.

Glogg

Glogg: The simple recipe

This recipe is not the real thing, but it gives the flavor of the real thing. Remember to serve warm in small quantities.
1 quart dry red wine (does not have to be quality wine)
2 cups sherry
1 cup vodka
½ cup raisins
1/8 cup whole almonds
1 orange, peel only
2 tsp bitters
5 cardamom pods
5 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp sugar

Place all ingredients except vodka and sugar in a saucepan and simmer for thirty minutes. Do not boil. Add vodka and sugar and serve warm.

Glogg: The “take your chances” recipe

I don’t have my father’s recipe. I wish I did. It would still knock people’s socks off, but then it would also probably make them unable to drive after one shot. He used what he called “straight alcohol” which is not, strictly speaking, 200 proof (or one hundred percent alcohol). He probably got a product called “Everclear” to start with, which is 190 proof. (Not a typo). Aside from making other drinks from it, here are some suggested uses from Wikipedia:

“ 190-proof Everclear is in regular use among fine woodworkers and luthiers as the preferred shellac solvent in French polish finishing. Everclear can be used as an antiseptic, as a fuel in camping stoves, and as a cleaner for the restoration of smoking pipes. Everclear 190 is considered an excellent, odor-free grade of ethanol for use in fine perfumery or tincturing. Manufactured to be of beverage grade, it is not denatured, i.e. it contains no chemical additives to render it undrinkable.”

He made it every year. Full of fruit and spices, served warm, he was always careful to keep the portions small. He told the story of some guests who turned down the drink and pretty much got drunk sampling the raisins. It was so strong it etched a line on a crystal decanter one year when it sat too long. So, good luck to you if you try it this way, assuming you can find the alcohol (there are online retailers). I found this recipe online, and adapted it to make it more like what my father did.

½ cup raisins
1 peel of one orange
5 sticks cinnamon
10 whole cloves
1/3 pint Everclear or other 180 proof alcohol
1 tbsp slightly burned sugar
1/4 cup sugar

Put first four ingredients in a saucepan and bring to boil in one quart of water. Simmer for ten minutesraw or steep till warm. Add about 1/3 pint
of “Everclear”, 180 proof alcohol. Using an old foil pie pan, or aluminum
foil folded up several times, burn sugar by heating it until it starts to burn or turn amber. Rinse into the saucepan. Use small amount of water
and rinse it off into mix. Add in the 1/4 cup sugar and mix, simmering until sugar is dissolved.

Swedish Cookbooks

There are some good cookbooks around that will give you a real sense of Swedish cooking.  My favorite is The Best of Swedish Cooking and Baking by Marianne GroÌnwall Van der Tuuk