Scandinavian cooking is one of my favorite types of cuisine. There is a freshness and rustic simplicity in their choice of ingredients and manner of food preparation. Fruit figures prominently in many salads and mains like Curry and Apple Herring, Pork and Prune Meat Balls, Blackberry and Goat Cheese Salad, and Seared Scallops with Blueberry Vinaigrette. They share the Japanese inclination to use a lot of seafood such as halibut, herring, lobster, shrimp and eel. Vodka-cured salmon (aka gravlaks) is a delectable Scandinavian specialty -- Sweden is the birthplace of Absolut Vodka, after all.
A theme I want to explore in the cookbook is the soup + sandwich combo. (In warmer weather, I prefer salad + sandwich.) It's a familiar, homey style of eating. I chose to make a Leek and Potato Soup and an open-faced Mushroom and Apple Sandwich.
I hadn't counted on leeks being so hard to find. The first two groceries I went to had leeks but they were drying out and starting to turn brown. The third grocer didn't even have any. Pushed into making a choice, I bought a green zucchini and yellow zucchini to replace the leeks. The skin of the green zucchini and mild flavor of roasted zucchini would be a reasonable substitute, and adding some yellow onion and garlic would make up for the missing onion-like flavor. Two pinches of oregano, a bit of marjoram, coarsely mashed potatoes and fat free sour cream completed the soup.
The sandwich filling was a very fast and easy stir-fry of butter, oyster mushrooms, red onion, Fuji apple slices, fresh rosemary, and lemon zest, topped with a few teaspoon scoops of soft cheese. I served it with a few slices of smoked salmon.
For these and many more Scandinavian recipes, take a look at the New Scandinavian Cooking website.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
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