Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Entrecôte with baked tomatoes, fried mushrooms, potato gratin and parsley butter.
Photo for CMC © Jan-Erik Nilsson and Cheryl Marie Cordeiro 2009

It’s during autumn in Sweden that you realize that the epitome ‘Land of the Midnight Sun’ is only valid during the short summers. During the winter, everything turns pretty much into the ‘land of the midday sun glimpse’, if at all, because autumn and winter days are often punctuated with stretches of dark grey, gloom and rain. So there isn’t much else to delight in during these days, except a hearty meal of your favourite cut of steak!

With logs burning in the woodstove and with a flip of a switch to turn on the lights, the kitchen is as warm and as bright as we could wish for. And we went about preparing the meat.

There are numerous recipes to be had over the internet with regards to preparing meat, most with detailed instructions, so here is an outline of our version.

In order of preparation.

1. Cut and put out the meat in room temperature. It cooks better if it hasn’t been previously refrigerated so that it is colder on the inside than the outside. Personally I think meat turns more flavourful if it is salted about 50 minutes before it goes into the pot, more or less.

2. Prepare parsley butter.

Mix butter with chopped parsley.

We store our own parsley form the summer ready to use, in the freezer. Add some lemon juice, some Worchester sauce, salt and white pepper. Mix and refrigerate until serving.

Kalops, a classic Swedish autumn dish
A solid meat stew that fills you with energy to ward off the autumn chill.
Serve with potatoes, pickled root beets and a tall glass of beer.
Photo: Cheryl Marie Cordeiro for CMC © 2009

Living in Sweden, in Northern Europe makes you change your habits with the seasons and when the days get shorter and the leaves turn yellow, orange and brown and start dressing up the grass lawn in all kinds of colours, you start thinking about more hearty foods that warms the core of your body. Autumn is also harvest time for all kinds of vegetable roots and the livestock that had been grassing outdoors all summer are also now starting to fill up the meat counters in the supermarkets.

A traditional autumn dish in Sweden that is rather simple to make is kalops. Its a full flavoured, meaty beef stew that would feel completely at home in an Indian restaurant if it wasn’t for the spices that are different in Sweden.

Here are the ingredients if you feel like trying. Serves four persons as a single dish.

Heat up a large and deep pot with a dollop of butter and let two diced and sliced onions simmer.
Cut up about 1 kg (2 lbs) beef (marrowbone) in comfortable bite sized cubes.
Add about 10 allspice seeds and 2-3 bay leafs.
Add 1 meat cube if you like and if so, no extra salt in needed.
Add 1/2 liter of water mixed with 3 tbs wheat flower to thicken the sauce. Halfway through the cooking time, add two carrots cut up in thick slices.
Simmer under lid on slow heat. When the onions are mostly dissolved the stew is ready (about 1-1,5 hour).

This old fashioned dish just gets richer and better with longer cooking time. In many Swedish cookbooks, they also recommend that you let this dish sit for a few hours before serving. Overnight sitting is best.

Enjoy!

North Sea “krabbtaskor”, Cancer Pagurus served as Singapore Chilli crabs
Photos © Jan-Erik Nilsson, Cheryl M. Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC, 2009

If you happen to live in any of the Nordic countries and so close to the sea that you can buy fresh crabs from the local fishermen, the Swedish “North Sea” crabs (Cancer Pagurus) are at their most delicious during the last three months of the year. The most popular way to cook and serve them in Sweden is, as simple as possible. Cook for 15 minutes with a dash of salt and a handful of dill seeds. Tidy up, crack open and serve with white bread, some extra rock salt and butter.

While I do love the simplicity of the Swedish version of crabs, I had begun to crave something spicier after the August crayfish celebrations, and the first thing I thought of when I got my hands on these Volvo of crabs was – Chilli Crabs!

A close second was to make Bakwan Kepiting, a Peranakan crab and porkball soup, but the former won hands down on my palate craving for the moment.

There are certainly many ways to cook Singapore Chilli Crabs, whether you find them at Changi Village, Punggol or along the East Coast in Singapore. Here’s what I used for my Swedish version of Singapore Chilli Crabs:

Ingredients

About 3 large Swedish Cancer Pagurus crabs (estimate 1 crab per person. See picture for size)
Vegetable oil for stir-frying
3 cloves garlic
3 fresh red chilli, roughly chopped
1 inch ginger
1 cup of water,
2-3 cups of crab stock from the crab bath
1 cup tomato ketchup,
Chilli sauce or chilli paste, according to taste
3 tbsp sugar, or according to taste,
1 1/2 tsp cornflour,
1 tbsp pounded brown preserved soya beans,
1/4 tsp salt

This sauce is really tasty and you can stretch the dish to serve more by just increasing the amount of sauce and serve with white bread…

The ingredients to the gravy, pounded. Somehow blending is just not the same.

Mushroom in béchamel sauce, wrapped in Swedish crepes.
Photos © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro-Nilsson, 2009

The kitchen wafted with the smell of crepes frying in butter, and I couldn’t help but linger to watch, as the ladel, filled with a generous helping of light yellow batter was distributed evenly over the black enamelled surface of the cast iron pan; the batter, to cook but a few minutes on each side.

The Chef was making, Swedish crepes.

Swedish crepes? I enquired, as they looked rather French to me. And there I was told that, well, perhaps there was not much difference in recipe, except that this specific recipe was handed down from a line of great Swedish Chefs – great grandfather to grandfather, grandfather to father and then father to son. The key to making these crepes, was to make the batter so thin, that you wouldn’t think it could hold together.

There was a round of bemused expressions in the kitchen, but the efforts proved original enough. And they tasted good, whether eaten with homemade strawberry jam or with ice-cream wrapped inside.
Continue reading “Mushroom crepes, it all begins with a béchamel” →