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SWEDIS

Recipe: Panna cotta with a Swedish rhubarb twist

Rhubarb is a spring vegetable (yes, vegetable), so we've brought you this popular Swedish combination to sweeten those chilly April days, courtesy of food writer John Duxbury.

Published: 31 March 2017 06:59 CEST
Recipe: Panna cotta with a Swedish rhubarb twist
Swedish panna cotta with rhubarb. Photo: Swedish food

Summary

Serves: 4

Preparation: 5 minutes

Cooking: 40 minutes

Ingredients

Rhubarb compote:

350 g (12 oz) rhubarb

75 g (5tbsp) caster (superfine) sugar)

1 small orange, zest and juice

2 tbsp water

Panna cottas

300 ml (1¼ cups) double (heavy) cream

120 ml (½ cup) whole milk (3-5% fat)

60g (¼ cup) caster (superfine) sugar

 1 vanilla pod, split lengthways

2 sheets gelatine

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 140ºC (290ºF, gas 1, fan 140ºC) and lightly oil four ramekins.

2. Rinse the rhubarb and cut into 3 cm (1”) pieces. Add to a bowl with sugar, orange zest, 2 tablespoons of orange juice and 2 tablespoons of water. Mix thoroughly and tip into a roasting pan, spreading out the rhubarb so that it cooks in a single layer. Roast for 30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, add the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla pod to a saucepan. Slowly heat the mixture to simmering point, stirring as you do so, then remove from the heat and leave to infuse whilst you prepare the gelatine.

4. Add the leaf gelatine to a bowl of cold water and leave to soak for 5 minutes. Squeeze the excess water out of the gelatine and add to the vanilla cream. Mix until the leaves have melted and then strain the mixture through a sieve into 4 ramekins. When cold, transfer the ramekins to a fridge for at least 3 hours to set.

5. When the rhubarb is cooked, strain the juices into a small pan and transfer the rest to a bowl. Gently cook the juices until they are nicely coloured and have thickened. Pour over the rhubarb, stir and leave to cool until required (this helps to improve the colour of the cooked rhubarb).

6. To serve, dunk the bases of the ramekins in hot water for 30 seconds to loosen them, run a knife round the edge of the ramekins and then tip out onto serving plates. Spoon the rhubarb compote over and around the panna cottas.

Tips

– For the best colour and flavour, use forced rhubarb. Forced stems have less of the bitterness of uncovered rhubarb so need less sugar to balance their tartness, while the taste is more delicate. Combined with their tender texture, it makes forced rhubarb a king among early crops.

– Instead of turning the panna cottas out on to plates, make them in dishes or glasses, pile the rhubarb on top and garnish with mint leaves.

– If possible, use quick dissolving gelatine sheets as they are so easy to use. If you can't get the same size packets you will need to do a conversion! This recipe uses two sheets from a 25 g packet containing 15 sheets (each sheet will lightly set approximately 200 ml (¾+ cup) of liquid).

– For ginger lovers, crumble over some stem ginger shortbread.

Recipe courtesy of John Duxbury, founder and editor of Swedish Food.

 

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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