Poached cold salmon is a Swedish Midsummer classic, served with a dollop of mayonnaise and the year’s first new potatoes boiled in dill.
Ingredients
1.2 kg (2½ lb) salmon filets with skin
Marinade:
3 liters (3 qt) water
100 ml (½ cup) white wine vinegar
2 tbs salt
5 white peppercorns
5 whole allspice
2 bay leaves
1 onion
1 carrot
½ leek
Dill mayonnaise:
1 egg yolk
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 tbs good vinegar
salt, white pepper
200 ml (1 cup) canola oil
100 ml (½ cup) sour cream or crème fraiche
1 bunch of dill
Instructions
Poached salmon:
Clean the salmon filets and remove any remaining bones with tweezers.
Cut the salmon into six equally large pieces and place them in a baking dish or pan with high edges, about a centimeter (½ in) apart. Sprinkle a little salt over them.
Clean and cut the vegetables into slices.
Place all marinade ingredients in a saucepan and boil for 10 minutes.
Pour the boiling marinade over the salmon, covering the fish under at least 1 cm (½ in). Then cover the baking dish with plastic film or wax paper and let it stand and slowly cool.
Dill mayonnaise:
Place an egg yolk, mustard and vinegar plus salt and pepper in a bowl.
Beat with an electric egg beater and add the oil in a thin stream while continuing to beat. Then mix the mayonnaise with sour cream or crème fraiche and finely chopped dill.
Taste and, if necessary, add more mustard and spices.
Asparagus with crispy lamb brisket and wild garlic mayonnaise
: Paul Svensson
: 10
This dish was created by top Swedish chef Paul Svensson. Paul Svensson is known for his work as creative leader at the Michelin-starred restaurants Fredsgatan 12 and Bon Lloc in Stockholm. Svensson also represented Sweden in the most prestigious chef competition in the world, the Bocuse d’Or, in 2003, where he came in fifth place.
Ingredients
2 lamb brisket, thin
1 liter (¼ gallon) veal stock
4 cloves garlic
2 white asparagus
100g (3½ oz) butter
20 green asparagus
24 wild asparagus
20 Kaip (wild leek)
200g (7 oz) wild garlic, blanched
8 egg yolks
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
8dl (3½ cups) cooking oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
Instructions
Lamb brisket:
Salt the lamb brisket on both sides and place in a roasting tray lined with Silpat or parchment paper.
Pour 2dl (1 cup) water into the bottom of the tray and cover with another Silpat/parchment paper.
Place a heavy weight on top of the brisket and bake in oven at 150°C/300°F for 1,5 hour under pressure.
Take of the weight and turn the brisket.
Add 1 dl (½ cup) water and broth and cook an additional 1 hour.
Pour the gravy into a saucepan and divide the lamb briskets in pieces. Boil the gravy with crushed garlic.
Asparagus:
Peel and cook the white asparagus in water seasoned with salt and butter. Allow to cool in the seasoned water.
Peel the green asparagus if necessary and cook them raw in a hot skillet with sea salt and olive oil. Save two asparagus and slice them raw, put in ice water.
Cook the wild asparagus and Kaip in the same way in the hot skillet.
Wild garlic mayonnaise:
Mix egg yolks with wild garlic and mustard.
Mount with cooking oil in a thin stream and season with salt, vinegar and pepper.
Presentation:
Arrange wild garlic mayonnaise, lamb breast, gravy as shown, and garnish with asparagus and Kaip.
Garnish with slices of raw asparagus.
Beverage suggestions:
Dark ale with a bit of sweetness and not with too much hops flavor.
The dish is presented on the dinnerware Kulinara from Rörstrand – designed by Hanna Werning in 2009 – inspired by vegetables from the traditional Swedish garden and wood.
Toast Skagen is an elegant combination of shrimp and other ingredients on a small piece of sautéd bread. It was created by the popular Swedish restaurateur Tore Wretman.
Ingredients
300g (10½ oz) peeled shrimps
2 tablespoons cut dill
1 lemon
1 tablespoon grated horseradish
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons crème fraiche
salt and pepper
20 g (¾ oz) Kalix roe
bread for toast melba
butter for toast
Instructions
Press some of the juice out of the shrimps (especially if they been in a brine)
Cut the shrimps in smaller pieces and mix with mayo, crème fraiche, dill and horseradish.
Season with salt, pepper and lemon.
Panfry the bread just before serving and top the ”Skagen” on the bread.
…is a British writer and editor who moved to Sweden in 2001. A former chef turned food and travel writer, he loves everything about food, but particularly the raw ingredients themselves. When not cooking, eating or thinking about food, he can often be found hanging around in butchers shops, fishmongers and grocery stores; a hobby he can pursue for hours on end. He hopes that writing this blog will take up so much time that it halves his food shopping bills.