The ScandiKitchen Cookbook E-Book

Bronte Aurell

• Herausgeber: Ryland Peters & Small
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 176

Beschreibung

An entertaining introduction to Scandinavian food containing over 80 recipes developed by Bronte Aurell, owner of the popular ScandiKitchen Cafe in London's West End. This book features recipes for all occasions, ranging from morning buns, lunchtime savouries, hearty dinners and indulgent desserts, to bakes and other foods for special celebrations. Enjoy fresh and simple open sandwiches, healthy Nordic salads, delicious traditional hot dishes and indulgent cakes. Discover new flavours and textures from mustard pickled herring and gravlax to sticky Kladdkaka cake. There's so much more to Nordic food than pickled herring and meatballs. Stretching from the midnight sun of northern Norway to the flat, fertile fields of Denmark, Scandinavian food culture is a lot more varied than you might think. Dishes and ingredients link all the regions together, bringing a uniquely Nordic food experience to life that was created by thousands of years of heritage and shared culture. Scandinavian food is simple. Natives call it 'husmanskost' (farmer's fare). It's natural and honest. When you work with the very best produce, there's no need to overcomplicate it. Its appeal lies in the fact that it is healthy, wholesome, flavoursome, simple to make and beautiful to look at.

Leseprobe

THESCANDIKITCHEN

COOKBOOK

THESCANDIKITCHEN

COOKBOOK

Recipes for good food with love from Scandinavia

BRONTË AURELL

Photography by Peter Cassidy

For Jonas, Astrid and Elsa – always, with all my love x

Senior Designer Sonya Nathoo

Commissioning Editor Nathan Joyce

Head of Production Patricia Harrington

Creative Director Leslie Harrington

Editorial Director Julia Charles

Publisher Cindy Richards

Food Stylists Bridget Sargeson and Jack Sargeson

Prop Stylist Linda Berlin

Indexer Vanessa Bird

First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Ryland Peters & Small

20–21 Jockey’s Fields

London WC1R 4BW

and

341 East 116th Street

New York NY 10029

www.rylandpeters.com

Text © Bronte Aurell 2015, 2024 (recipes on pages 37, 56, and 59 written in partnership with Kobi Ruzicka)

Design and photographs © Ryland Peters & Small 2015, 2024

ISBN: 978-1-78879-599-9

E-ISBN: 978-1-78879-633-0

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The author’s moral rights have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed and bound in China.

CIP data from the Library of Congress has been applied for. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

Notes

• Both British (metric) and American (imperial plus US cups) are included in these recipes; however, it is important to work with one set of measurements and not alternate between the two within a recipe.

• All spoon measurements are level unless otherwise specified.

• All eggs are medium (UK) or large (US), unless specified as large, in which case US extra large should be used. Uncooked or partially cooked eggs should not be served to the very old, frail, young children, pregnant women or those with compromised immune systems.

• Ovens should be preheated to the specified temperatures. We recommend using an oven thermometer. If using a fan-assisted oven, adjust temperatures according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

• When a recipe calls for the grated zest of citrus fruit, buy unwaxed fruit and wash well before using. If you can only find treated fruit, scrub well in warm soapy water before using.

CONTENTS

Introduction

The Scandi Pantry

Breakfast

Open Sandwiches

Feature: The Scandi Lunch Solution

Salads, Soups and Lighter Dishes

Feature: Smörgåsbord

Dinner

Feature: Autumn Crayfish Festival

Desserts

Feature: Midsummer

Bakes

Feature: Christmas (Jul)

Fika

Feature: Fika and Hygge

Index

Acknowledgments

HEJ AND WELCOME TO SCANDIKITCHEN

We first had the idea for ScandiKitchen in a ski lodge on a Swedish mountain in 2006. It was the last day of holidays and we had to go back to London. We were discussing what food we needed to stuff into our checked plane luggage (and if we could get away with wearing any of these items as a hat), because there were very few places in the UK where we get hold of Scandi foods and where we could go and be ‘Scandinavian’ with our friends. So, if noone else was going to make a place like that, then why shouldn’t we?

The idea for ScandiKitchen was never about being fancy. It was about making the food we miss from home and introducing it to the people around us: Good Food With Love From Scandinavia. In the eight years we’ve been open, this is still the principle behind every single thing we do. From the open sandwiches we make in the café, to the groceries we stock in the shop and online, and the amazing people who choose to work with us… Everything comes down to being honest about who we are, how we eat and being able to proudly say: We eat this at home and we think it’s really nice – try it.

The run-up to opening day was a bit of a blur. Everything was done on a shoestring and we worked so hard trying to get everything ready in time. This was mainly due to a huge time limit on things, as Brontë was pregnant with our first child and the due date was fast approaching. Opening day – Tuesday 10th July, 2007 – was hot and humid, and we worried that nobody would come. But they did – and we were busy and bustling for the whole day. We closed the shop in the early evening, cleaned up, locked the door and drove to the hospital to say hello to baby Astrid, who arrived considerately just after midnight. Jonas slept in a chair at the hospital and went back to open the shop the next morning at 7am. It was a harsh welcome to the life of café ownership.

The café has gone from strength to strength, despite the economic climate. A few years later, we added a web-shop and wholesale to the business and moved Jonas out to the warehouse (a place we named ‘StockHome’, obviously). Today, ScandiKitchen supplies Scandinavian food to the whole of the UK and parts of continental Europe, too.

We love that our customers are a mix of Scandinavian expats, people who have Scandinavian ancestry, and local people just interested in different and good food. We welcome everybody, and we genuinely want to know about the food you’re missing from home or the Scandi recipe you’re trying out for the first time.

Being busy is good, but it also means we sometimes don’t get to sit down and talk about baking or cooking with everybody as much as we’d like. Our customers and friends have asked us for years to write down our recipes and tell our story, so here it is. The recipes in this book are honest and they are how we make food at home and at the café. Nothing complicated or fancy, just simple Good Food With Love From Scandinavia. We hope you enjoy it.

Brontë and Jonas X

THE SCANDI PANTRY

Here is a small guide to some of the products you may find in a Scandinavian pantry today. It is by no means a complete list – Scandinavia is over 2,500 km/1,550 miles from top to bottom – and our pantry varies from region to region. We have included notes on some of the ingredients most commonly found across the countries, and those we get a lot of questions about at the café. Being an authentic expat shop, we often help people to find the exact ingredient for their particular recipes. You’ll find a comprehensive list of products on our website at www.scandikitchen.co.uk

HERBS AND SPICES

Allspice

Used in minced/ground meat dishes, such as meatballs. Usually bought ground, but you can buy the dried berries and grind them at home.

Caraway seeds

These often feature in bread, and many of our cheeses use them as a flavouring.

Cardamom

Vikings first sampled this aromatic spice during their raids on Constantinople. It’s used mainly in baked goods and cakes. The recipes in this book are made using pre-ground cardamom, which loses potency quickly once opened, so adjust accordingly. Alternatively, shell cardamom pods to grind your own. Bear in mind that if you do grind your own, you’ll need to adjust to a lower quantity, as it is so much more potent. You can buy cardamom seeds ready-shelled in speciality shops.

Cinnamon

Cinnamon is used extensively in Scandinavian baking. It is worth opting for a good-quality ground cinnamon rather than buying cheap cinnamon powder.

Cloves

Used in Christmas baking and cooking – and in Glögg, aka Nordic mulled wine. Ground cloves feature in our ginger biscuits.

Curry

In Danish cooking, and some Norwegian and Swedish dishes, mild curry powder is used (Meatballs in Curry Sauce, and Curried Herring, to name but two dishes). Danes have been using curry powder for at least the past 100 years in several traditional dishes. It’s never spicy and you sometimes have to add ground turmeric to increase the desired yellow colouring.

Dill (fresh)

Used in many fish dishes. We also use crown dill (dill that has been allowed to flower) when cooking crayfish in August. We usually favour fresh dill, although dill seeds and dried dill are also used. Dill is also used to flavour aquavit.

Fennel seeds

Used in bread baking – both in crispbread and other breads.

Ginger (dried)

We usually use ground ginger in our Christmas baking. Pieces of dried whole ginger are sometimes used in our mulled wine.

Juniper berries

Often used in game dishes. They’re great with reindeer and venison.

Liquorice

We use liquorice powder, syrup and root for baking and general cooking. Look for high-quality syrups and powders such as ‘Lakrids by Bülow’ – they cost more, but will improve the end result immensely.

Saffron

Swedes love using saffron at Christmas in baking – we rarely use it in savoury cooking. You often find powdered saffron in Swedish supermarkets. You can use the strands, too – but you have to grind them finely before using in baking. To intensify the colour, soak in the warm liquid specified in the recipe before using.

Salt

For centuries, our diet has utilized salt to preserve our fish and meats, and it is said that this is why Scandinavians often have a taste for anything salty. Our love of all things salty means we even like salt on our liquorice.

Seville orange peel

Seville orange is bitter, and we use this at Christmas time for Glögg and for baking speciality Christmas breads. If you can’t get Seville orange, substitute with other dried orange peel, but note that the result will be less subtle in flavour.

Star anise

We use it in both sweet and savoury cooking.

Vanilla

We use a lot of real vanilla, but we mostly use vanilla sugar (rarely extract), which looks a bit like icing/confectioners’ sugar. You can make it at home by adding 150 g/1 cup of icing/confectioners’ sugar to a small food processor with a dried-out vanilla pod/bean. Pulse until completely pulverised, then sift out the large pieces of pod/bean. You can buy vanilla sugar in Scandinavian food shops.

BERRIES

Cloudberries (bakeapple)

It’s near impossible to buy fresh cloudberries and frozen ones fetch a very high price (around £40/$64 per kg). The cloudberry is hard to cultivate – people who forage for it know the best patches and they definitely don’t kiss and tell. On top of that, cloudberries grow on stalks and break easily. If you are lucky enough to find someone who is a cloudberry forager, make him your best friend immediately. Most cloudberries are turned into jam, which is considered a gourmet item; for that reason, we don’t spread it on toast, but use it in desserts and with cheese. It’s hard to substitute – a very tart raspberry is closest.

Lingonberries

You will find whole lingonberries in our freezers and most likely a version of lingonberry jam in our store cupboard. We use frozen or fresh lingonberries for both sweet and savoury dishes. The jam is most often used together with meat dishes. It’s rarely used as a jam on toast.

VEGETABLES

Asier

A Danish speciality food, asier is a type of cucumber which is peeled and pickled. It’s often served with Christmas pork and on liver pâté.

Pickled beetroot

We use sliced pickled beet(root) in salads, as a side dish to meals and on our open sandwiches. Nordic pickled beet(root) tends to be sweeter than others, so you may need to add sugar for a comparable taste.

Pickled cucumber

You’ll find various types of sliced pickled cucumbers in our cupboards. It’s used as a side dish or as a sandwich topping. Lightly pickled cucumber salad (soused cucumber) is more commonly used in Denmark.

Wild mushrooms

Dried wild mushrooms are used, especially in Swedish cooking. We use fresh whenever we can, but during seasons where fresh ones do not make it, we may use dried or even canned. We most often use ‘Kantareller’ (chanterelles) and ‘Karl Johan’ (porcini).

FISH

Ansjovis

The Swedes are to blame for the confusion around this ingredient: many years ago, they named a tin of sprats in brine ‘Ansjovis’ – despite not being anchovies at all. They are silver-bellied and blue-green on the sides like their Mediterranean brothers, but the end result is a spicier and sweeter one rather than salty. The famous dish Jansson’s Temptation (see page 84) has been ruined by many people substituting ‘Ansjovis’ for anchovies. The ‘Ansjovis’ sprats are much more like pickled herring than Mediterranean anchovies – so if you need to substitute, use herring instead. Store these tins in the refrigerator. You can get the real deal at any Scandinavian food store, even those selling bookshelves.

Herring

Eaten all across the Nordic countries, Atlantic herring is one of our staples. We pickle it, smoke it, cure it, fry it – it is a delicious fish, high in omega-3 fats. It comes both canned and in jars, but do store them in the refrigerator.

OILS, VINEGARS AND MUSTARD

Ättika 24%

This Swedish vinegar is very strong and you dilute with water accordingly. Many Scandinavian pickling recipes will specify the percentage you need to pickle your produce in (5–6% for vegetables, 12% for herring and so on). It’s near impossible to find in supermarkets/grocery stores in the UK/US, but it can be bought in speciality shops.

Mustards

Scandinavians favour sweet, strong mustards. You can substitute with the grainy Dijon mustard in recipes, although, you may need to add sugar. Scandinavian mustards are rather good and if you happen to come across a stash, do stock up.

Rapeseed oil (canola oil)

Rapeseed oil is traditionally used in Scandinavian cooking – it’s local and it has less saturated fat than olive oil. However, cheap rapeseed oil is not great so don’t go buying an inferior brand instead of using other good-quality oils you may already have.

FLOUR AND GRAINS

Crispbread

There are more types of crispbread than there is space to mention. We use the healthier fibre/high wholemeal or high-rye ones for day-to-day use and the sweeter, wheat-based ones for treats. We enjoy crispbread for breakfast and lunch. It’s not a diet bread, though.

Malt

Barley malt is important in Danish bread baking. You can buy malt protein powder online at bakery speciality stores. You can also use barley malt extract from health food stores. We also drink something called Hvidtøl, a low-alcohol malt beer used in many older Nordic recipes, which can also be used in bread baking.

Oats

Used for porridge, granola, muesli, baking – and we also eat them raw with milk for breakfast. Oat flakes (jumbo oats) or cut oats are favoured. We rarely use oatmeal.

Potato flour

Many Scandinavian recipes call for the use of potato flour (potato starch). You can buy this in speciality stores. Once potato starch is added, the dish should not boil (especially in fruit-based sauces as these will go cloudy after boiling). Substitute with cornflour/cornstarch for general cooking, although not in baking.

Rye

There are two types of rye grains available: the whole grain and the cut one (kibbled or cracked rye). I use whole rye grains for salads. The cracked rye is for bread. The two are not really interchangeable: if you bake with the whole grain, it can be hard to bite into the bread. If you cook the cracked one in salads, the result is sticky. If you cannot find cracked rye for your bread, use whole but pulse briefly in your food processor (or even pre-boil it).

Rye flakes

I love using rye flakes in granolas and porridge (mixed with normal oats). It has a nutty flavour and a good bite. Available in health food stores.

Rye flour

We use light rye and dark coarse rye flours in our baking. In this book, recipes are made using the standard dark rye.

Semolina

Used for some desserts and also as a porridge.

Spelt

Spelt is a type of wheat. Known as ‘dinkel’ in Swedish, spelt is an old grain and a cousin of the wheat we know today. Use spelt grains cooked in salads or spelt flour in your baking. You can substitute normal wheat flour with spelt flour, but I do think mixing it half and half gives a nicer result. Spelt contains gluten – but generally lower counts than other wheat.

OTHER

Baker’s ammonia

Old Nordic recipes often call for baker’s ammonia (ammonium bicarbonate), known to us as Hjortetakssalt/Hjorthornssalt. It’s a leavening agent used to make biscuits extra crispy. Substitute with bicarbonate of/baking soda/powder, although the result will not be as crispy. Note that baker’s ammonia gives a very strong ammonia smell as you bake but this disappears as soon as the biscuit cools.

Dried/active dry yeast

These are little granules you have to activate in lukewarm water before using.

Fresh or compressed yeast

25 g/1 oz. of fresh yeast is the equivalent to 13 g/½ oz. of dried/active dry yeast. It usually comes in packs of 50 g/2 oz. (usually) and looks a bit like clay.

Instant dried yeast

If you have no option but to use instant dried yeast (a fine powder sold in sachets), skip the liquid step and add to the dry ingredients. Follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for the equivalent measure.

DRINKS

Aquavit

Grain- or potato-based spirit, usually containing around 38–40% alcohol. Common flavour notes are caraway, aniseed and dill. It’s always served ice-cold in small shot glasses, together with pickled herring, or at crayfish parties.

Punch

A type of Swedish rum liquor, often used to flavour rum truffle treats such as ‘Dammsugare’ (see page 173). You can substitute it for good concentrated rum flavourings in baked treats.

BREAKFAST

Everyday Scandinavian breakfasts are made up of a smörgåsbord of little, simple good-for-you things, from crispbread to berries, porridge/oatmeal, yogurt and healthy cereals. On the weekend, our lazy late morning brunches are filled with lighter breads and lovely gourmet additions such as smoked ham, cured salmon and elaborate fruit salads. Mamma was right: it really is the most important meal of the day!

NORDIC HEART WAFFLES

These heart-shaped waffles are eaten all over the Nordic countries. We use a special heart-shaped waffle iron, giving the waffles their distinct shape, which you can get online, but it’s also possible to make using a non-stick griddle pan.

2 eggs

350 ml/1⅓ cups whole milk

100 ml/½ cup Greek yogurt

350 g/2¾ cups plain/all-purpose flour

100 g/½ cup caster/granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of/baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla sugar (or use seeds from ½ pod/bean)

½ teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)

100 g/1 stick minus 1 tablespoon butter, melted, plus 50 g/3 tablespoons, for brushing

VANILLA SKYR/QUARK AND TART BERRIES TOPPING:

300 ml/1½ cups skyr (Icelandic cultured dairy product) or natural quark

½ vanilla pod/bean, seeds only

2 tablespoons icing/confectioners’ sugar

200 g/7 oz. mixed fresh berries

STRAWBERRY JAM AND VANILLA CREAM TOPPING:

300 ml/1¼ cups whipping cream

½ vanilla pod/bean, seeds only

1 teaspoon icing/confectioners’ sugar

MAKES 10–12

In a bowl, combine the eggs, milk and yogurt. Add all the dry ingredients and finally, add the melted butter. Whisk until you have a smooth batter, taking care not to over-beat. Leave to stand for at least 15 minutes before using.

Heat up the waffle iron and brush it lightly with melted butter. Add enough batter to the waffle iron to almost cover the surface (but not quite, or it will overspill), close the lid and cook until golden brown. This will take a couple of minutes. Repeat until all the batter is used. Note that as when making pancakes, the first one of the batch is never as good as the rest! Eat them immediately or they’ll go soggy.

For the vanilla skyr/quark and tart berries topping, whip the skyr or quark for 1 minute with the vanilla seeds and sugar. Serve a dollop with each waffle and then sprinkle the berries on top. Note that skyr and quark are naturally sour in taste and you may want to add extra sugar to taste.

For the strawberry jam and vanilla cream topping, add the cold whipping cream to a bowl. Add the seeds from the vanilla pod/bean and icing/confectioners’ sugar. Whip until peaks form. Serve the cream and jam in bowls next to the waffles and let your guests help themselves (usually a tablespoon of jam per waffle is sufficient). During strawberry season, we omit the jam and serve it with freshly macerated strawberries instead. Other times, we replace the strawberry jam with cloudberry jam – a much tarter jam that perfectly complements the sweet vanilla cream.

The traditional Norwegian waffle topping is brown goat’s cheese (brunost or geitost), which is available in speciality stores across the world. The distinctive brown colour comes from the milk sugars which are boiled (along with cream and whey), turning them into caramel. To serve, thinly slice slivers of the brown cheese and add to your waffle as soon as it comes out of the waffle iron, so that it melts slightly before eating.

RYE-BREAD PORRIDGE WITH SKYR AND TOASTED HAZELNUTS