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THE LOCAL RECIPES

RECIPES

Three kind of bizarre but totally Swedish recipes

Put together the perfect Swedish dinner using these top-three regional delicacies from all corners of Sweden.

Published: 6 June 2016 08:00 CEST
Updated: 13 July 2017 10:59 CEST
Three kind of bizarre but totally Swedish recipes
Great recipes for a Swedish dinner. Photo: Susanne Walström/imagebank.sweden.se

Article first published on Sweden's national day in 2016.

These recipes are shared with The Local courtesy of Taste of Sweden. Scroll down for a map of the best recipes each Swedish region has to offer. And click here for even more typically Swedish recipes.

1. Starter: Chili and Saffron Pancake

This is a twist on the island of Gotland's saffron pancake speciality. Modern and savoury, it makes for the perfect starter at your dinner party. Serve together with a tasty spring salad.

Serves: 4


A twist on this traditional Gotland saffron pancake. Photo: Leif R Jansson/TT

Ingredients, pancake

250g rice pudding

zest from ½ lemon

0.25g saffron

1 egg

100ml whipping cream

½ tsp sambal oelek

½ tbsp flour

100g goat cheese

butter

Ingredients, salad

250g asparagus

1kg shrimp (unpeeled)

10 ramson leaves

3 garlic cloves

½ chili (we recommend spanish peppers)

100ml mild olive oil

1 tbsp chopped thyme

zest from one lemon

salt and pepper

1 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Heat oven to 200C/180C fan.

2. In a bowl, mix together rice pudding, lemon zest, saffron, egg, whipping cream, sambal oelek and flour.

3. Pour the pancake mixture into a buttered tin and sprinkle the goat's cheese on top.

4. Bake for 25-30 minutes and then leave to cool. For best result, leave overnight.

5. Cut the asparagus into 2-3cm pieces and cook in lightly salted water.

6. Peel the shrimps and put to the side. Cut the ramson into strips, and peel and slice the garlic and chili.

7. Fry the garlic and chili over high heat. Make sure the garlic does not burn. Leave to cool.

8. Add the shrimps, asparagus, ramson, thyme, zest and lemon juice. Mix together and add salt and pepper to taste.

9. Serve together with the saffron pancake.

2. Main course: Bacon filled potato balls

Its Swedish name, Pitepalt, is named after the city of Piteå in northern Sweden and is best described as a Swedish-style dumpling.

Serves: 4


Anyone in the mood for some palt? Photo: Jurek Holzer/SvD/SCANPIX

Ingredients

1kg potatoes

0.5kg boiled potatoes

300-500g flour

salt

660g bacon

Method

1. Peel and grate the potatoes and put in a strainer to remove any excess water. Grate the boiled potatoes and cut the bacon into cubes.

2. Combine potatoes, salt and gradually add flour so it creates a doughy texture. Do not add too much flour as you still want the mixture to be a bit wet.

3. Roll the mixture into balls, flatten with your hand, fill with bacon and roll into a ball. Make sure the bacon is completely covered by the potato dough.

4. Cook the potato balls in salted water for 45 minutes, or until they are floating on top of the pan.

5. Serve with lingonberry jam and melted butter.

3. Dessert: Spit cake from Skåne

A spit cake ('spettekaka' or 'spiddekaga' in a regional accent) is a southern Swedish speciality and is made by layering the batter on a rotating spit over an open fire or special oven. This recipe shows you how to make the cake using a regular oven. Good luck!

Serves: 20


Crown Princess Victoria and a spit cake from Skåne. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT

Ingredients

600g sugar

6 eggs

600g potato starch

Method

1. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Fold in the potato starch and stir until you've got a smooth and creamy mixture. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and add to the mixture.

2. Put the mixture in a piping bag with a nozzle of 1cm. Pipe the mixture in a spider web pattern onto a burning boiler (25x35cm). Bake in the middle of the oven, 125C/105 fan, until hard, and then repeat until all mixture is gone. Every layer needs to be made smaller and smaller, so it resembles the structure of a tower.

3. Once the complete tower is baked, leave to cool until it's ready to serve.

FOOD AND DRINK

OPINION: Are tips in Sweden becoming the norm?

Should you tip in Sweden? Habits are changing fast thanks to new technology and a hard-pressed restaurant trade, writes James Savage.

Published: 5 April 2024 13:59 CEST
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. 

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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