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The Swedish strawberry drink that’s perfect for summer

Swedes love berries and enjoy putting them in both chilled cordials and hot drinks. Here, food writer John Duxbury shares his favourite recipe for a raw strawberry squash (rårörd jordgubbssaft) that's delicious year-round but perfect for Swedish summer time.

Published: 6 May 2016 07:14 CEST

The Swedish strawberry drink that's perfect for summer

Strawberry cordial is a refreshing summer drink. Photo: Janerik Herniksson/TT

Ingredients

1kg (2lb) strawberries

500ml (2 cups) water

2 tsp lemon juice

600g (1 1/4 lb) caster sugar

Method

1. Rinse the strawberries and take away any leaves.

2. Purée the strawberries with the water and lemon juice in a food processor. Transfer to the fridge and leave for 48 hours.

3. Line a sieve with muslin and strain the mixture through it.

4. Put the juice into a clean pan and add the sugar.

5. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until all the sugar has dissolved.

6. Boil for 3 minutes, skimming the scum from surface with a spoon.

7. Put the hot liquid into sterilized bottles. Store in a cupboard and, when opened, in your fridge. Sterilize bottles by washing and then placing in an oven at 120°C (240°F, gas 1) for five minutes.

Always wash strawberries before using in any recipe. Photo: Heiko Junge/TT

Serving suggestions

Dilute to taste with cold water, about one part cordial to six parts water.
Serve with lots of ice and garnish with mint if desired.
Use the cordial in a salad dressing instead of honey.
Add to water when boiling root vegetables to give them a little extra sweetness.
Mix with some elderflower cordial and sparkling wine to make a cold summery soup. Garnish with sliced strawberries and crème fraîche.
Top with boiling water for a pleasant hot winter drink.
Dilute with water and freeze to make ice lollies.
Add to sparkling water or sparkling wine to make a delightful summery drink.

Other tips

Look out in kitchen shops for a handy little stand for straining. They hold the muslin at the top and it makes straining so much easier.
Replace some of the strawberries with rhubarb to make rhubarb and strawberry cordial, a classic combination.

This recipe was originally published on food writer John Duxbury's Swedish Food website.

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

The Local’s guide to tipping in Sweden is clear: tip for good service if you want to, but don’t feel the pressure: where servers in the US, for instance, rely on tips to live, waiters in Sweden have collectively bargained salaries with long vacations and generous benefits.

SEE ALSO: What’s the tipping etiquette in Sweden?

But there are signs that this is changing, and the change is being accelerated by card machines. Now, many machines offer three preset gratuity percentages, usually starting with five percent and going up to fifteen or twenty. Previously they just asked the customer to fill in the total amount they wanted to pay.

This subtle change to a user interface sends a not-so-subtle message to customers: that tipping is expected and that most people are probably doing it. The button for not tipping is either a large-lettered ‘No Tip’ or a more subtle ‘Fortsätt’ or ‘Continue’ (it turns out you can continue without selecting a tip amount, but it’s not immediately clear to the user).

I’ll confess, when I was first presented with this I was mildly irked: I usually tip if I’ve had table service, but waiting staff are treated as professionals and paid properly, guaranteed by deals with unions; menu prices are correspondingly high. The tip was a genuine token of appreciation.

But when I tweeted something to this effect (a tweet that went strangely viral), the responses I got made me think. Many people pointed out that the restaurant trade in Sweden is under enormous pressure, with rising costs, the after-effects of Covid and difficulties recruiting. And as Sweden has become more cosmopolitain, adding ten percent to the bill comes naturally to many.

Boulebar, a restaurant and bar chain with branches around Sweden and Denmark, had a longstanding policy of not accepting tips at all, reasoning that they were outdated and put diners in an uncomfortable position. But in 2021 CEO Henrik Kruse decided to change tack:

“It was a purely financial decision. We were under pressure due to Covid, and we had to keep wages down, so bringing back tips was the solution,” he said, adding that he has a collective agreement and staff also get a union bargained salary, before tips.

Yet for Kruse the new machines, with their pre-set tipping percentages, take things too far:

“We don’t use it, because it makes it even clearer that you’re asking for money. The guest should feel free not to tip. It’s more important for us that the guest feels free to tell people they’re satisfied.”

But for those restaurants that have adopted the new interfaces, the effect has been dramatic. Card processing company Kassacentralen, which was one of the first to launch this feature in Sweden, told Svenska Dagbladet this week that the feature had led to tips for the average establishment doubling, with some places seeing them rise six-fold.

Even unions are relaxed about tipping these days, perhaps understanding that they’re a significant extra income for their members. Union representatives have often in the past spoken out against tipping, arguing that the practice is demeaning to staff and that tips were spread unevenly, with staff in cafés or fast food joints getting nothing at all. But when I called the Swedish Hotel and Restaurant Union (HRF), a spokesman said that the union had no view on the practice, and it was a matter for staff, business owners and customers to decide.

So is tipping now expected in Sweden? The old advice probably still stands; waiters are still not as reliant on tips as staff in many other countries, so a lavish tip is not necessary. But as Swedes start to tip more generously, you might stick out if you leave nothing at all.

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