Mini crisp bread with fresh potato, herring, sour cream and chives.

We spent the whole Easter in Gothenburg with our families, eating a lot of wonderful food and playing games. On Easter Saturday, Fredrik’s father made these simple starters with a taste of Sweden, due to the herring and crisp bread. They were inspired by a commercial which he saw in the grocery store and I must say that it’s a great idea, especially for Midsummer’s Eve. I’m aware of that it can be hard finding mini crisp bread abroad, but maybe at IKEA? Both Wasa and Leksands bröd produce mini variants of their crisp bread, and it doesn’t really matter which you use. Swedish herring can definitely be found at the food market at IKEA. An idea that I’ll try to remember for next time is to add a slice of the strong Västerbotten cheese between the potato and herring, just to add more taste.

Mini crisp bread with herring and fresh potato

Mini crisp bread (either Leksands Mini or Wasa Knäckis)
a couple small fresh potatoes, boiled
Swedish herring
sour cream
chives
butter

Butter the mini crisp bread. Slice the potatoes and cut the herring into small pieces. Put a slice of potato on each crisp bread, add a piece of herring and decorate with sour cream and chives.

Jesper Kansten, winner of Västerbottensoststipendiet 2007

Västerbottensost is a Swedish hard cheese aged for at least 12 months and is one of my very favourite cheeses. It has a rich and heavy flavour and some people say that it reminds of young parmesan cheese. It’s quite salty and a bit fruity with a vague hint of toffee, but I have to admit that I never analyse the taste, I just eat it. But today on the seminar on Västerbotten cheese, which was given by the producer Norrmejerier due to the Västerbotten cheese scholarship, there were discussions on the characteristic taste while we tasted it. Apparently the cheese also has an element of umami, which you probably know is the 5th basic taste. After the seminar we had a nice buffet, and of course all dishes had Västerbotten cheese in them. Following the buffet, the winner of the Västerbotten cheese scholarship was announced. The scholarship is a competition between students from the restaurant high schools, where the purpose is to create and cook a modern dish with Västerbotten cheese. Furthermore the price per serving may not exceed 20 SEK.

Jesper’s winner dish: Warm terrine consisting of hand of pork, apple and mushrooms with a celery and Västerbotten cheese crème, Västerbotten cheese sticks and pearl onions in saurkraut.

This year’s winner was Jesper Kansten who won 3 weeks of internship at Erwin Lauterbach’s restaurant Saison in Copenhagen, Denmark. Jesper’s dish can be seen on the photo above. We weren’t able to taste the creation, but at least it was on display.

Food from the buffet: Asparagus tart, Chicken and Mango salad, Roasted pepper soup with grilled scampi, bread with Västerbotten cheese butter and Vegetarian Carpaccio with Västerbotten cheese.

I had a nice time at the event together with Anne from Anne’s Food. We got recipes for all of the dishes, both from the buffet and the three finalists creations, and also some other interesting recipes containing Västerbotten cheese. We also received a signed book (Lust, en bok om livets salt) written by the conferencier, Steffo Törnquist, a big piece of Västerbotten cheese and a bag of grated Västerbotten cheese. Thanks to Prime PR for the invitation!

Easter baskets with samples of Easter food, called Swienconka

I’ve just returned from church where we’ve been for the traditional blessing of Easter food. Every family decorates a basket and fill it with samples of the Easter food which will be eaten tomorrow on Easter day. The tradition is only common in east European catholic countries and the church is always filled with people and baskets.

Happy Easter to all of you!

Polish bilberry doughnuts, made this evening

Pączki are delicious Polish doughnuts, filled with preserves. The most common filling is marmalade made from rose buds or plum marmalade, but you can fill them with any thick preserve you prefer. One of my favourite fillings is Advocaat custard which is vanilla custard with a kind of egg liqueur. My mother mostly fill them with plum marmalade which is delicious as well. In Poland pączki have their own day, but it’s very common to eat them during the whole year. I still remember when I was 9 years old and I toghether with my mother visited relatives in Poland during summer; we went to a bakery and bought loads of fresh pączki which we ate outside the bakery. Then we went back inside and bought another 30 to bring back to my aunt. The baker must have thought we were insane. But that is actually the problem with pączki, because when you start eating fresh still warm pączki, you just can’t get enough. When my mother used to make them at home we ate them all in no time :-) Anyway, the main day for pączki is last Thursday before Lent which is called Tłusty czwartek and means fat Thursday. I missed fat Thursday this year, which was a few weeks ago, so I made Pączki this evening even though lent has started. They were nice, but I wasn’t pleased with the result so I will make a new try tomorrow. I used bilberry jam as filling and it was lovely. Tomorrow I will probably use the same filling but I will modify the recipe and then post about it.

Ice chocolate, to the left with almonds and to the right with walnuts.

Ice chocolate, ischoklad, is a typical Swedish Christmas candy which is made really easily. I must admit that I have no clue where the name comes from, maybe because you have to store these chocolates in the fridge or else they’ll melt.

Ice chocolate (ischoklad)
(makes about 45)

200 gr chocolate
80 gr copha (Swe: kokosfett, Eng: Palmin)
45 tiny aluminium cups
optional: your favourite nuts
optional: orange liquor

Break the chocolate into pieces and put it in a deep heatproof bowl together with the copha. Melt them at a rather low temperature in the microwave. Stir the mixture and pour it into the aluminium cups.
I usually fill up 25 of the cups, then I add some drops of orange liquor to the rest of the mixture and fill the remaining cups. Add nuts. Store in the fridge, in airtight containers with a sheet of greaseproof paper between each layer.