They're here. Well, the Swedish ones at least (the Danish ones are still a little way away).
Farsk potatis - new Swedish potatoes. In the shop. Now. Yummy. Come and get your little bag - £2 per half kilo. Well, we know what we're having for dinner tonight: matjes herring, new potatoes and lashings of cremefraiche and dill dressing.
Sebastian posing with a few new potatoes in hand. Wearing his favourite Swedish underpants, feeling a gush of national pride.
We bet your Mum always told you to eat up your potatoes when you were a kid. Ours certainly did – not that we minded, especially in the summer when the potatoes were new, fresh and from the farm down the road.
Today, the taste of Scandinavian summer still starts with the first new potatoes of the year, boiled and dressed in melted butter and chopped parsley. Perhaps the taste of summer to you is Midsummer’s eve, eating matjes herring with potatoes, chopped chives and crème fraiche... Either way, it is the taste of home for most of us. And yes, they DO taste different than English potatoes.
Either way, good news: we’ll be stocking Scandinavian potatoes again this year. Not in great amounts, mind you, so if you’re clever, you let us know if you are interested so we can make sure we order enough for you. We’ll have Swedish potatoes and we’ll also stock some nice potatoes from West Zealand in Denmark (from some nice farmer down the road from Bronte’s mum and dad’s house. They have an annoying dog that barks all the time and the farmer himself has a scary mono-brow, but man, they grow nice tatties).
They’ll come in early June, in time for Midsummer parties... Prices depends on local seasonal prices, we’ll keep you posted.
Did you know we also do catering? Indeed, we serve lots of fantastic companies across the capital with Scandinavian food - from traditional open sandwiches to lighter snack lunches to canapes and breakfast meetings.
It is not only Scandinavian companies that use our services - we've catered for hundreds of different companies, from the BBC to film production companies and banks such as Goldman Sachs - and big events like "the International Wine Challenge". We count all the Scandinavian Embassies and Chambers of Commerce amongst our customers - as well as big companies such as Bang & Olufson, Kvadrat, Handelsbanken and many, many others. On top of that we have lots of regular private customers who use our services catering for big family events and parties.
In a recent survey to our customers, 100% said they would use us again. (Parp, parp, that was our trumpet blowing.)
If you fancy chatting to us about our catering, give us a ring or send a mail to iwantfood@scandikitchen.co.uk and we'll get back to you promptly.
Party catering can be bespoke - as is breakfast meetings and buffets. Here's a taster of our lovely open sandwiches and canapes (again, we can amend to suit your particular event):
For canape suggestions click here and for open sandwiches click here
'I used the Scandinavian kitchen delivery for an important presentation to clients and everyone absolutely loved it! The food was great quality and the presentation prefect! We are a Danish company so it was complete package! Thanks again, Julie at www.egecarpet.com"Excellent canapes. Good service from staff prior to event and canapes delivered on time.
"Excellent canapes. Good service from staff prior to event and canapes delivered on time."
"The food was excellent and there was only a couple of pieces leftover. Everyone said how good it was. We will definitely use you again.
Sally at DnB NOR Bank ASA"
tags: danish, food, catering, swedish, norwegian, london, corporate
It was a beautiful weekend. Athough the weather didn't really please, we were happy because we got to eat smörgåstårta, which is basically the sin of Swedish cuisine. Why? Well, imagine a bunch of sandwiches struck together into a loaf and then coated in mayonnaise and decorated in the best 80's style you can imagine. It's yummy - but naughty.
Here's our wonder - we're sure this one would have made any Swedish housewife from the eighties proud.
This smörgåstårta is made with smoked salmon, prawn, crayfish and egg. Just so you know, we do also make a less 80's version to order for your own party, should you ever need it.
Our sticky Swedish chocolate cake is very popular (for some people it has proved so popular that they're considering rehab to beat the habit).
We are often asked about this cake - where does the recipe come from and whyis it so good? Well, the type of cake, kladdkaka, is a very popular cake in Sweden. There are hundreds of different ways you can make it and most are very nice. Aunt Inga's recipe, however, is one of the extremely nice ones.
Aunt Inga is Jonas' auntie. Unfortunately, she is no longer with us but her recipes are. Aunt Inga was a true foodie - when she passed, we found a bunch of books that were a bit like diaries, but had details of every meal she'd ever cooked for her friends - just so she could be sure she'd never cook the same thing twice.
Do pop by for a pice of Inga's kladdkaka - or sample our more recent addition to the daily menu of our Scandinavian Kitchen Carrot cake - it has pine nuts in it and is very yum.
Love,
The Kitchen People
x
aunt Inga
A semla (semlebullar) is a cardamom yeast bun filled with marzipan and whipped cream and dusted with icing sugar. It's divine. Every year at around this time, Swedes across the world get home sick and go in search of these cakes.
The tradition is to eat them in "fat Tuesday" in February - the day before the faste. Now a days the Swedes eat them from New Year and all they way to end of February!
We bake some nice Semlor here at Scandi Kitchen in London and from Saturday, you can come get yours, although until February we're only doing a limited amount (so best to order if you want to guarentee availability).
Photo courtesy of Helena. Thanks. It's very nice.
13th December every year is the celebration of St Lucia (or St Lucy) – a festival widely celebrated across Scandinavia. Girls dress in white robes and carry candles in a long procession and sing the hymn about Lucia. The candles symbolise the fire that refused to take St. Lucia's life when she was sentenced to be burned. Traditionally a Catholic festival, it is thought that this tradition survived in Scandinavia because it is celebrated during the very dark days of winter. Some people believe that back in the day when us Scandies celebrated Yule (or Jol) at Winter Solstice, it was both a season of giving, kindness and celebration - but also a season of fear of dark forces – the scariest night of all at that time was called the Night of Lussi – Lussinatta. Some believe that the festival of light is from this time to fend off the evil forces. Whatever you choose to believe, for us it is really all about saffron buns and trying to persuade Henrik and Seb to wear Lucia costumes and crowns of candles. So far no luck. In Sweden, a traditional kind of bun, Lussekatt ("St. Lucia Bun"), made with saffron, is normally eaten on this day. It’s rather yummy – and we’re serving these all week in our little store so do pop by for your fix.
The Christmas deliveries are starting to come in... Some of the new stuff added this week includes:
Gløgg spices
Vortmix
æbleskiver
Brunkager
Pebernødder
Klejner
Swedish Chrsitmas beer and Swedish Chrsitmas aquavit
Yum yum. Mums mums, as they say in Sweden. Welcome to our homemade Princess cake - Prinsesstårta as it is called in Swedish - a wonderfully indulgent sponge layer cake with raspberry coulis, creme patisserie and whipped cream, all wrapped up in a thin layer of marzipan. Green marzipan, at that.
We have also added home & handmade Kladdkaka - directly translated this would be splat-cake or sticky cake, but that doesn't sound too good so we're instead going to tell you that it is a bit like a really gooey brownie - expect richer, more gooey and served with a dollop of cream. In fact, it's a little bit like if you image a brownie crossed with a chocolate fondant. Voila, the Swedish infamous Kladdkaka.
We make these cakes daily at our shop here in London - but when they are gone, they are gone. £2.50 a slice to eat in.
Cakes can also be made to order - lagkage as well (Danish layer cake) - price on request - email bronte@scandikitchen.co.uk for details.
We've had quite a few enquiries lately or Crown Dill - Kron dill. Crown dill is a version of dill used for Krafskiva / crayfish parties - it has a much stronger flavour and is also the dill used to cook the crayfish in when they have been caught and is what gives the crayfish its strong flavour that is so important.
Now, we couldn't find any so we turned to Danny, he is the dude that sources our fruit and veg from across the UK and he is very knowledable. Even Danny felt that this was a big challenge - crown dill is siply not used in the UK in any shape or form and in the 20 years in he's been in the business he had never been asked for it.
Danny, however, doesn'ty give up so easily and he went to see a herb farm and chatted to them for a while. As it turns out, Crown Dill is the dill after it has flowered, but all dill over here is cut several weeks before it reaches that stage.
It's too late this year for crown dill to get ready in time for your crayfish party but we will definitely be stocking it next year as Danny has made special arrangements for a Scandi Kitchen Crown Dill Patch at the dill-farm.
Stockholm Culture Festival "Carnival"
All good things come to an end and so it was time for us to leave. Following the grand finale of the Culture Festival on Saturday night, we awoke to the pouring rain (being British I believe it is my duty to always talk about the weather) and the knowledge that team GB were third in the Olympic medals table. Go team GB!
On reflection, we think Sweden has the answer to London's knife crime problem - Swedish female police officers; that is if the two we saw are a good representation. Gone would be the thoughts of knifes, in the hope of being searched thoroughly by a female police officer!
Our final day took us to Stockholm's City Museum where we learnt about the city's "filth" and "prohibition" - even chocolate was banned and servants could be jailed for wearing silk! The horror!
As we stocked up on choolate with Daim (no longer prohibited), Stimorol chewing gum and Swedish literature, the call came for us to reluctantly catch our flight. I did try to take SK to new heights of the mile high club (not that one!) and serve tea in my SK t-shirt, but was not successful. I think I lacked the lucky SK mug, so will try again next time. In retaliation I ripped a page out of SAS's 'Scanorama' magazine, to help plan my next holiday to Sweden. If I were to only travel to Sweden for my annual holiday every year, I would be very happy.
Until next time....
Enjoying my Polkadrom ice cream
As we discovered on our final morning in Göteborg, where we thought we were getting away without paying for things, everything during the culture festival is in fact put on for free! An excellent idea we thought, especially for all the travelling families we saw. We opted to explore the city museum in our final hours and what a fantastic place this is! Most reccommended thing to do in Göteborg after the "Hagabulle". The viking exhibition with the only viking boat on display in Sweden was excellent, as was the history of family life in the city.
As the rain comes down on our last day in Stockholm, we are greatful for the better weather that this wonderful city has given us over the last two days - warmth and sunshine.
Our train journey from Göteborg was swift and we arrived at our hostel to find ourselves in a strange room with no windows or ventilation, however, it did have a proper matress and not a slice of foam to sleep on! That said I at least, have slept better here despite these factors. Although it's very disconcerting every morning waking up in pitch black!
Since arriving in Stockholm, we have spent our hard earned money in Gamla Stan, on Drottingholm and in it's vicinity. We have solved the mystery of the cover of the new Stig Larsson books (why does the first English translation have the cover of the second Swedish book in the trilogy - the clue is in the direct translation of the Swedish title!) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Although sadly the chance to eat some crayfish has not presented itself, I'll have to tuck in back at SK. Any chance you can put some aside for me?!
Like Göteborg, Stockholm has it's Culture Festival this week, which we have been able to enjoy in Gustav Adolfs Torg seeing a concert by Che Sud Aka, that had us dancing on the streets and last nights finale of Opera selections, which was to be followed by a carnival featuring three different themes; Brazilian, Latino and Caribbean. Whilst the opera was great, sadly the carnival was billed to be more than it turned out to be, no carnival costumes except on the three lorries and just a mass of Stockholmers, mostly the young following each lorry in normal clothes, as the Ung08 festival had just finished. Most disappointing of all, no fireworks! Ah well, we can't have everything.
A trip to Sweden is never complete without an escape to the archipelago and we took the boat to Fjäderholmen, with it's craft shops, Swedish whisky and restaurants. What has, after 2 pieces of Princess Torta, 2 vanilla buns and half a hagabulle each, become a "cake tour" of Sweden, was in Fjäderholmen, supplemented with a "Polkadröm" ice cream (picture to be added tomorrow). Whilst expensive, it was a sight to be seen and very delicious. Perhaps it could be used as a template for SK ice cream? - Flavours to include blueberry and elderflower, we suggest.
We have been looking out for words that read funny in English, but have failed to come up with anything new. What does make us smile is the sight of young Swedes in groups looking "hard and cool" (gosh I sound like my mother!) which they do well, until they start speaking Swedish! It's too nice a language to listen to and just doesn't have the right effect!
Time to enjoy our final hours in Stockholm. Last postcard tomorrow.
Heather, SK t-shirt and the elusive "Hagabulle" - Can I have a semla this big please?!
We awoke to sunshine and a new day, although by the end of breakfast it had already clouded over again. Nevertheless, off we headed Jo, SK t-shirt and I in search of the elusive 'Hagabulle'. So much had been promised by the information book in the hostel and thankfully we were not disappointed. It was huge (see photo above) and we had to share it (although we were not prepared to share it with the wasps, who were stalking us yet again!), too much for one person after breakfast! I challenge Tobias to make a giant semla for my birthday in February!
Our stomachs very full we headed off to the guided city walk, which was part of the Göteborg Culture Festival (previously the Göteborg Festival, but too many Swede's used it as an excuse for getting very drunk and so the word 'Culture' was added!). Our guide from the Stadsmuseet was very funny and in summary, we learned that all you need to know about the history of Göteborg is that there was a fat man, a man who brought potatoes, it burnt down several times (although they were told to re-build in brick the Swedes did not, hence multiple burnings!) and that it was built around the same time as Cape Town, New York and Jacarta, by the Dutch and so the streets are on a grid pattern in the centre at least!
Our swift history of Göteborg complete and having escaped with only a spitting of rain so far, we went in search of willow weaving only to find not only was it not on, but that it cost SEK100 entry fee.....we think not, cheap skates that we are we are saving our hard earned pennies to spend in SK! Mildly disappointed we headed off to the Konstmuseet to look at Scandinavian art and were mightily impressed, especially when we got away without paying the SEK60 entry fee to the special exhibition that was on! We do not endorse such activity of course, but hey, no one asked for tickets, who could blame us and that's 3 pieces and a drink in SK! We left into the glorious sunshine we had not seen since Copenhagen, but this soon set and we were left cold again and still being hassled by the damn wasps and we didn't have any food or drink this time. Time for dinner. As the rain pours down outside, I don't think we will be heading out again!
NOTE ADDED 15/8 - Crayfish are in! Kräftor are here! Available in shop now - get yours before they go.
This post refers back to an older post as well
Kräftor : It is the season as we're really getting into the mood at Scandi Kitchen. Yahoo.
We're still taking orders for Crayfish - we're getting the first delivery on 19th August (we may even get some next week already, but we'll keep you posted about that if it happens).
The price is £8.50 for pre-orders pr box and the price in the shop will be £9.50 if you have not ordered - but we strongly suggest you put an order in as these babies tend to jump off the shelves. Order yours by sending a mail to iwantfood@scandikitchen.co.uk
If you're planning a Swedish kräftskiva / Svensk kräftskiva, then you need the following:
When you pop by the shop to pick up your stuff, you can ask any of the people who work here and they'll be happy to help you out with anything you need. They are nice like that, you know.
Arrange the crayfish in a big bowl in the middle of the table and decorate with lots of fresh dill... Serve cold.
We are often asked by our local London customers what our best selling Scandinavian products are. Well, we did a bit of looking in people's shopping baskets over the past week or so and here are the result:
NOTE ADDED 15/8 - Crayfish are in! Kräftor are here! Available in shop now - get yours before they go.
Ahhh, those lovely little things, kraftor (Crayfish). We're taking orders now for boxes of crayfish for August/September Crayfish party season - due to high demand, we need to ensure orders come in early or else we cannot guarentee availability.
If you know you'll be wanting some, mail iwantfood@scandikitchen.co.uk and let us know how many boxes you want as well as your phone number so we can get hold of you.
We'll then contact you nearer the time to take payment over the phone (due to cost, we requir advance payment) and to make sure we get the right amount of boxes in for you.
Boxes are £8.50 - there's about 16-18 crayfish in a box.
Little Johnny the Crayfish in the "before" picture... To be continued....
Bronte went to Fruit Towers (as innocent's head quarters are called) today - she's worked at innocent for many years but now she is finally full-time Scandi Kitchen.
To celebrate, the Cheese CLub at innocent had a Scandinavian day today - and we brought along several interesting cheeses that we also stock at our little shop:
Sweden: Vasterbotten, a 12-14 month ages hard cheese not unlike parmesan in texture but so seriously tasty on crispbread it is hard not to eat the whole packet.
Norway: Brunost - brown cheese, literally. Whey, cream and milk is boiled until the sugar in the milk turns almost into caramel and this gives the cheese it's distinct colour and sweet flavour.
Denmark: Gamle Ole - stinky, stinky cheese. Strong. Lovely. Great finish. Blaa Kornblomst: Blue cornflower, a lovely creamy blue cheese with a great finish. Not too strong, but still with a good bite (Organic from a small Danish dairy). Last but not least: Esrom cheese. Some claim it is the king of Danish cheeses; strong, and as our Tobias desribes it: "with a nice flavour of cow shed at the end". Yummy.
It's tradition at innocent drinks' Cheese Club to vote for the favourite at the end of a long tasting session and Gamle Ole was a clear winner.
Fruit towers, where Bronte used to work and where people love smoothies and cheese. A lot.
There's a lovely Japanese publication called Lovely London and we're featured in it. It looks really fab and they've taken some really nice photos. We're wondering what it says? Maybe "Henrik Rock Star is simply the most gorgeous at SK" or "Louise is an angel and she makes the best coffee around". Or maybe it simply says "the best place in London open sandw iches" but we think there are a lot of letters if it says just that.
Midsummer is hugely important to many Scandinavians. It signals the beginning of summer - and with the beginning of summer comes new potatoes. Well, we know you can buy them at Tescos, but honestly, they just don't taste the same. Nope, you can't convince us. They don't.
So, we're getting in a very limited amount of Swedish new potatoes (and for you Danes, yes, they taste very much the same as Danish ones) - so, your midsummer celebrations are saved. All you need now is some butter and some dill and you're in business.
The babies arrive on Tuesday afternoon. You can reserve yours by giving us a bell on 0207 580 7161.
Strong Scandinavian licourice. Lakrids. Yummy. It's the thing that most of us really miss from home. Since we opened last year, we've even converted a few locals onto the taste of Turkish pepper sweets and anything with salmiakki flavour. Salmiakki is a nice Finnish word for saying "ammonium chloride" (NH4Cl) which really does not sound like something that should be in sweets, but we love it so much we see past it.
At the moment we're doing a little feature on the salty licourice - here are some of the many kinds we stock. Learn these and next time a few sneaky Danes try to offer you one of these sweets, you can knowingly say "Ha! you fools! Don't you think I know how strong Djungelvrål is?" instead of being the laughing stock when your face ends up looking like you've just swallowed a hedgehog.
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