In between we have polished off a five-hour slow cooked chili, a good lump of ox cheek, several pork pies, a few kilos of Cumberland sausages, a dozen pickled onions and much more beside.

I dined with the in-laws, my parents came from England, telephone calls, SMS’, Facebook messages and other greetings were exchanged. And altogether we knocked back a fair few bottles of wine and port.

And through the haze of it all, on the last day of the year, one dish stands out against all of them: my homemade gravlax with mustard sauce. It was delicious. We had it as a starter with our turkey. And we shall have the rest tonight before our herb-roasted fillet of veal.

For those of you who don’t know, gravlax is fresh salmon, cured with sugar, salt and dill. It’s a lovely dish. The salmon is most often sliced paper-thin and served with a classic, light mustard and dill sauce. And very good it is, too.

Highlight of the year

The gravlax I prepared in the week, I did a little differently; using a loin of fresh salmon I thickly sliced it when marinated and served it with a rich, dark, almost fruity mustard sauce; an absolute winner, and one of the best dishes I have eaten this year.

A belated Merry Christmas to you all, and a happy and successful 2013.

Gravlax with Mustard Sauce

4 portions

• 800g back loin of fresh salmon
• 2 tbsp. salt
• 2 ½ tbsp. sugar
• 1 tsp. crushed white peppercorns
• 1 handful of fresh dill

• 1 tsp. red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• 2 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp. HP sauce
• 1 tbsp. vegetable oil

Chop the stalks and half of the fonds of the dill (reserving the rest for garnish)

Mix the dill with the sugar, salt and white pepper

Knead the mix into the salmon, coating the entire outside surface

Wrap it tightly in a double layer of cling film and leave in the fridge for 48 hours

To make the sauce, whisk together the sugar and vinegar, then add the mustard and HP sauce

Add the oil a little at a time, whisking as you do

Leave in the fridge overnight

To serve, unwrap the salmon and brush away the excess dill mix. Brush the salmon with the mustard sauce and slice it in thick slices

Serve the mustard sauce on the side

The best bit of the Julbord (or Christmas table) though, is the Swedish Christmas ham. Essentially it is a ham, like all other hams; depending on who you ask, it should either be boiled, or oven roasted; smoked, or not. That detail is of little importance. What makes it the perfect Swedish Christmas ham is the final glazing: a divine coating of mustard and breadcrumbs that gives it that all important Christmas taste.

Most people indulge only on Christmas Eve. I tend to go overboard and make it at least one week in advance, eating it thickly sliced for breakfast and on crisp bread, as a late night snack, before, during and after Christmas.

It might look like an ordinary ham to you

The key to a good Swedish Christmas ham is the glaze, which should be neither too sweet, nor too sharp. My preference is to boil the ham with peppercorns and bay leaves, to give it a touch of spice; and to overcook it slightly, so it errs just on the side of dry. You can Google a recipe, to get it just to your liking.

Then comes the glaze. With this there is no option. You need to find Swedish mustard, which is ever so slightly sweet (if push comes to shove, head to your nearest IKEA to pick some up), for the essential Swedish taste; anything else is just plain old ham.

…but with a bit of magic it becomes the food of the Gods for a few weeks in December

Swedish Christmas Ham Glaze

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 dl grainy Swedish mustard
• 1 dl Dijon mustard
• 1 dl fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 dl ginger snap biscuits (again, head to IKEA if you can’t find the real thing)

Beat the egg yolks and mustard together

Paint the mix over a cold cooked ham (about 1-2 kilos in weight)

Crush the ginger snaps into crumbs and mix with the bread crumbs

Sprinkle the crumb mix so it coats the ham

Grill in an oven at 200c for 15 minutes or until golden brown

That’s it

As an Englishman abroad I usually protest and cook something altogether different; partly just to be stubborn; partly because I think fillet of beef is over-rated and over-priced: just being the smallest cut of beef, doesn’t make it the best.

But a good potato gratin, on the other hand, is something to savour, any night of the year. There’s something about the combination of potatoes and cream that is at once frighteningly unhealthy and shockingly comforting.

As it’s so close to Christmas I treated the family yesterday by quitting work early and preparing a Wednesday feast. I bought a chunk of fantastic locally-raised aged sirloin of beef and all the requisites for a killer potato gratin.

The best piece of meat

Deserves the best potato dish

I simply rubbed the beef with olive oil, sea salt an d black pepper and roasted it till medium rare. With the potatoes and some broccoli it was perfect simplicity and one of the most luxurious meals you could think of; even more so as it was a regular Wednesday and not New Year’s Eve.

Crispy, creamy and delicious

Perfect Potato Gratin

4 portions

• 1 kg floury potatoes
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• ½  tsp freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 dl grated cheese ( I used a sharp, Swedish Västerbotten, but Emmental works well)
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp fresh-ground black pepper
• 3 dl double cream
• 1 glass white wine

Set your oven to 170C

Peel the potatoes and the garlic and slice (potatoes to about 2 cm in thickness, garlic to as thin as you can manage)

Peel the onion, half it lengthways and slice into half-circles, about 1 cm thick

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and transfer into an oven-proof dish, making sure the potatoes lie flat and as tightly packed and layered as possible

Cook in the oven for 1 ½ hours until browned, thick and bubbling

So far, so spooky. In reality, it is rather charming (apart from having to get up at six in the morning to make it to the school show before dawn breaks) and the kids love it. For me, it was an excuse to set the children to work.

Ginger biscuits – pepparkakor in Swedish – are an essential part of Lucia day, and what better way to make them than to convince the kids that baking a couple of kilos of the stuff is nothing but good fun.

Tonight all four of them took over the kitchen table in an explosion of flour and powdered ginger, mixing, kneading and rolling their way through enough ginger bread dough to fuel an army. It’s got to beat sitting in front of the TV, any day.

Girls love it

Boys too

The recipe is fairly simple; the muscle involved in mixing it together is equivalent to a 30-minute session at the gym; and the result is delicious. For a parent with children’s exercise in mind and a sweet tooth it’s a win-win situation.

Precision baking at work

The mess took a good hour to clean up, but the results were well worth it. And the kiddies had the time of their lives. Or the time of this week, at least.

Thank goodness for outdated but charming misunderstood ancient traditions. Without them the biscuit tin would be empty.

the result is worth the mess

Swedish Ginger Biscuits

•  200G butter
• 1 ½ dl dark syrup
• 3 dl sugar
• 1 ½ dl double cream
• 1 tbsp. Powdered ginger
• 1 tbsp. Powdered cinnamon
• ½ tbsp. Powdered cardamom
• 1 tbsp. Bicarbonate of soda
• 10 dl flour

Warm the butter, syrup and sugar in a saucepan until it is melted into a sticky mass

Add the cream and the spices and stir vigorously to a smooth paste

Stir in the bicarbonate of soda and the flour

Work the dough until it becomes smooth

Place it in the fridge to rest over night

Remove from the fridge one hour before baking

Set your oven to 200C and roll out the dough so it is around 3mm in thickness

Cut out your desired shapes and place them on a baking sheet lined with baking paper

Cook in the oven for five minutes and let cool before eating

On Thursday night, when I finally made it home, I had no desire to leave the house again. I wanted to curl up with the family, light candles and relax. But there wasn’t much in the store-cupboard.  We had plenty of delicious, slow-grown, crunchy Swedish root vegetables, but no meat or fish. The thought of digging out the car and driving to the supermarket left me cold.

The quickest, cheapest soup I have ever made

So it was decided: it would be vegetarian Thursday. I’m not so creative with vegetarian food; it’s not really my thing. But I decided (not for the first time this year) that some kind of soup was probably a good idea.

I decided on a sweet, spicy and sour lentil and root veg soup (something for everyone). The bonus: it was probably the quickest and cheapest dinner I have made in a long time. And one of the most delicious; especially when the knee-deep snow glistens and the candles flicker. We followed dinner with a film and a glass or two of red:  the perfect early start to a winter weekend.

Steamy and warm. Just what you need on a Swedish winter night

Quick and Easy Lentil and Vegetable Soup

• 2 dl red lentils
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, sliced
• 1 leek, sliced
• 1 parsnip, sliced
• 1 tsp crushed coriander seeds
• 1 dried red chili, crushed
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tin crushed tomatoes
• 1 ½ litres vegetable stock

Fry the lentils and vegetables in olive oil for a few minutes

Add the coriander and chili and stir

Pour in the lemon, tomatoes and stock

Stir, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes

Whizz up the soup with a hand blender until it is thick and smooth

Serve with warm, crusty bread and a dollop of sour cream

On Saturday we took a little tour in the country: our destination, a local pig farm selling outdoor-reared pork. If meat is the King of food here in Sweden’s eastern enclave, pork is the King-of-Kings.  Of course, like elsewhere, you should avoid the cheap, mass (and rather cruelly) produced pork, sticking to proper outdoor-raised pigs instead; and you need to cook it right to avoid that classic dry-as-cardboard pork chop.

I found an old recipe the other day for pulled pork that I pulled out of a newspaper an age ago. Pulled pork is a classic slow-cooked barbecue dish that becomes so butter-soft that to serve, instead of slicing, you simply pull it apart into shreds with two forks; It’s a dish you must try at least once in your life.

The raw ingredients

You need a big piece of pork from a fairly fatty cut. I used boned shoulder.  And you need time. Good pulled pork, proper pulled pork – the sort that is so soft and juicy you could slice it with a spoon – is not a dish you can hurry. In the world of slow food, pulled pork is the three-toed sloth. A good one takes around seven hours in the oven. But boy is it worth it.

Rubbed and ready to go

I served it in soft, white bread rolls with guacamole and red cabbage and apple coleslaw and I can safely say it was pretty much the most popular dish I have made this year.

Seven hours later: one of the finest dishes I have ever tasted

Pulled Pork

6 portions

Sauce:

• 4 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 dl balsamic vinegar
• 1 dl brown sugar
• 1 dl soya sauce
• 2 tblsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 dl tomato ketchup
• 2 onions, roughly chopped

Pork:

• 1 kg pork shoulder without bone
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp sugar
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• 1 tsp powdered ginger

Heat your oven to 110C

Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a bowl

In a separate bowl mix together all the dry ingredients for the pork to make a powdered rub

Cover the meat in this rub and knead it in with your fingers so it forms a coating over the surface of the meat

Place the meat in a roasting dish and pour in the sauce so it forms a ring around the meat

Put it in the oven and cook for six hours. Turn of the oven and leave to rest (in the oven) for an hour

Place the meat on a chopping board and pull apart and shred using two forks

Mix the shredded meat with the sauce and serve with bread, guacamole and/or coleslaw

Known as högrev in Sweden, depending on where you buy your beef, back rib is chuck, blade and perhaps a touch of neck: therein lies the problem with the differences between how countries butcher their meat. Whatever you call it, it’s a wonderful cut from behind the cow’s head and above its front leg. Containing around 20 percent, perfectly marbled fat it is the ideal cut for thinly-sliced marinated grill-steaks, minced beef and slow-cooked stews.

cheap and delicious: a winning combination

And at more than half the price of the so-called finer cuts of beef (shame on you sirloin and fillet) and with ten-times the flavour, it’s a smart choice for cooks-in-the-know.

I bought a chunk earlier in the week from a farmers’ market I walked past on the way back from a meeting. See what joys you discover when you skip the taxi. I used half of it in a simple stew, with red wine, onions, carrots and a few bay leaves. The other half I will probably mince up with a little smoked pancetta for Friday night hamburgers: a sure way to get the kids home from friends in time for dinner.

one hour in the oven and it was good to go

If I have time I like to use it slow cooked in a whole bottle of red wine, with bacon, mushrooms and button onions. The best way is to cut the meat in fist-sized pieces (not small cubes) and cook it at 160 for three or four hours: amazing. Maybe that’s an idea for Saturday’s dinner.

Before the annual, near-incandescent coat of snow falls here on the top of the world, late afternoon can be a dark and miserable affair. On my train journey home, speeding through the ink-black blanket of frozen night, my craving for fresh, summer-flavours revisited me like the ghost of July past.

From my paltry (and poultry) haul from the depths of my fridge, was born this night, inspiration for a soup of such light and refreshing flavour, that winter would be all but forgotten.

Sounds like a plan. The execution of said plan was so simple, I wonder why we don’t eat this delicacy on a daily basis.

A little bubbling stock, some chicken and a few greens. Can’t be more simple

The basis of the soup is chicken stock – the best you can find; ideally homemade. I wasn’t so lucky, so used stock cubes, which, at a push, work fine. Stock-cube stock lacks the clarity and clean flavour of fresh, but beggars can’t be choosers.

When you have your stock bubbling away nicely, then it is just to add your flavours. Like boiling vegetables, you simply throw it all in, give it a quick simmer and you are done. Simple, fresh and delicious. Who needs winter, I say. Not me.

Normal winter service will resume shortly, but for now it’s the summery flavours of Asian chicken soup

Asian Chicken Soup

4 portions

• 2 litres chicken stock (fresh, homemade is best)
• 1 lime, quartered
• 1 piece of fresh ginger, about the size of a small fist, cut into six
• 1 stalk lemon grass, cut in half lengthways
• 4 chicken breasts cut into dice-size cubes
• 1 smal head Chinese cabbage, shredded
• 1 bunch spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 bunch fresh coriander, chopped, or 4 tsp. dried coriander
• 3 tsp. Japanese rice vinegar

Bring the stock to the boil, add the lime, lemon grass and ginger and reduce to a slow simmer. Cook for 5-7 minutes and remove the lime, lemon grass and ginger. This gives the stock a delicious, citrus edge

Add the chicken and simmer for a further 5 minutes

Add the onion and cabbage and coriander (if using dried). Cook for 5 minutes more

If using fresh coriander, add it now, stir and serve immediately

Fortunately I have my emergency winter relief kit that I cleverly stash away each summer: a bag of delicious, Swedish West Coast prawns, bought fresh in August and frozen in suspended animation for that point in time in winter when, frankly, enough is enough. It’s all well and good with stews and game and root vegetables and ice and frozen sunrises, but sometimes you just need a little memory of summer, to get you through.

For some, it comes in the shape of a winter break to warmer lands. For me, with four kids to buy air tickets for, it comes in the shape of a bag of frozen prawns.

Summer in a bag: in case of emergency, break open and defrost immediately

Swedish prawns, like all Swedish shellfish, are uniquely delicious. Raised in the cold, crystal-clean waters of the West Coast they grow relatively slowly and remain relatively small, yielding rich, juicy meat with bags of concentrated flavour.

Last Friday was cold and dark and miserable. I was late from work and the kids had already eaten, so Pia and I decided that it was high time to break out the prawns and bring back the taste of summer. I picked up a bottle of bone-dry Rhine Riesling on the way from the office and Pia plunged the prawns in water to defrost. The scene was set.

There’s a lot you can do with prawns, but I like to do nothing more than make a simple salad with them. Served with some warm, crusty bread and that bottle of Riesling, November became July in the blink of an eye.

Swedish prawns: the ultimate winter warmer

Simple Prawn Salad

2 portions

• 4 good handfuls of whole, unpeeled prawns
• ½ a mango, slightly under-ripe, diced
• 1 bunch spring onion, finely sliced
• 1 bunch fresh mint, chopped
• 1 bunch fresh coriander, chopped
• 1 fist-sized lump of feta cheese, crumbled
• A handful finely shredded green cabbage (if you want to keep it seasonal)
• A handful finely sliced sugar snaps (if you don’t)
• 1-2 red Thai chilis, seeds removed and finely chopped
• Zest and juice of a lime

Peel the prawns and place in a large bowl

Add the rest of the ingredients, some salt and pepper and mix together thoroughly

Serve immediately

The answer is probably money, or lack of it. In our desire to eat as much meat as possible, as cheaply as possible, chicken has become our champion: quick to raise, cheap to feed and extremely low on living space, it is possible (if you have little or no leaning toward animal health and welfare) to put a chicken on a plate in half the time and for about the same price as a couple of carrots.

While this is no news to anyone remotely aware of what goes on beyond the end of their nose, it still, apparently, doesn’t deter people from buying chicken that “doesn’t taste too strong.” The result is a grey, flaccid, water-logged, soft-textured substance that you can pretty much drink through a straw when cooked.

There is an alternative, though. Properly reared chicken, free to roam and fed on grain, grass and whatever else it can find is a magnificent meat: firm of texture, plump of breast, dry to the touch and full of flavour. It takes just six weeks to raise a factory-farmed chicken; at least 20 to raise a free-range one. The difference in quality of meat is enormous.

I only buy free-range, properly reared chicken meat. It costs a little more, but it means that our simple mid-week chicken dish is a feast fit for kings, not a sloppy tasteless mess fit for the dogs.

A little room to roam=a huge amount of taste

Today I picked up a bunch of locally-raised free-range chicken thighs from my nearest supermarket. They grew up on a farm a few kilometers from me. It took a little more than 40 minutes to cook them, and cost only a fraction more than their grey, limp, intensively-reared cousins. I used a recipe from a food magazine that one of my colleagues produces called Salt and Pepper. They were delicious. And they tasted of something. I’ll remember to tell the people on the tube, if I ever run into them again.

Chicken With Fennel, Tomato and White Bean Sauce a la Salt and Pepper Magazine

• 1 can cherry tomatoes
• 1 can canellini beans
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 3 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 800g bonelss chicken thighs with skin
• 1 tsp. fennel seeds
• Grated zest of one lemon
• Salt
• Pepper

Set your oven to 200C

Carefully mix together the cherry tomatoes, beans, sugar, garlic cloves, oregano and a little salt and pepper. Pour the mix into an oven-proof dish

Dry-roast the fennel seeds in a frying pan for a few minutes until they just turn golden brown. Crush to a powder in a pestle and mortar or using a spice grinder

Fry the chicken in very hot oil for one minute to get a good colour and crisp on the skin

Place the chicken on the tomato mix and sprinkle the crushed fennel seeds on top

Put the dish in the oven for about 20-30 minutes

When done, sprinkle with the lemon zest and serve immediately