Category: SWEDEN

Where to go for ‘fika’ in south of Sweden

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Fika is a common Swedish word, meaning to sit down with a hot drink and either eat a sandwich or a cake with it. We do this a lot. When I grew up we would have six meals a day, and three of them being fika. Our day usually looked like this:

  • breakfast
  • morning fika
  • lunch
  • afternoon fika
  • dinner
  • evening fika

When meeting up with friends in Sweden you usually go for fika instead of a drink sometimes, since alcohol is more expensive there, but also because the culture is slightly different. Swedes drink, a lot actually, but not usually much on weekdays unless going out for a meal or it being an occasion.

If you ever go to the South of Sweden – where I’m from – I recommend you to try these few places for fika, lunch or just a cup of coffee:

Kust (Coast): A gem in Falsterbo with a cosy deck with tables, feeling almost like New England. The food is fresh and nice and the sandwiches huge. Everything is made to order, and they ask for your name instead of giving you a number – a nice touch. I went there with Emma and we had a salad each. Caesar salad at the top, and sweet chili chicken below.

http://www.kustcafe.se/

Katrinetorps trädgårdscafé (Katrinetorp’s garden café): Near where the bridge between Denmark and Sweden attach to the mainland you find a nice old house called Katrinetorp. On the grounds you find both an antique shop, English garden and this lovely café with outdoor seating in the most adorable courtyard. We had prawn sandwiches here after my parents had picked up us, and I was too hungry to take any photos. But the food is nice, the cakes look amazing and the surroundings are lovely as well. They also serve proper mains for lunch if you prefer.

http://www.malmo.se/Medborgare/Idrott–fritid/Natur–friluftsliv/Natur–och-rekreationsomraden/Katrinetorp/Katrinetorps-tradgardskafe.html

Lilla kafferosteriet (The little coffee roastery): On the street Baltzargatan in Malmö you encounter this low yellow house on the corner where Christopher had his best latte ever (!). You can buy all sorts of coffee, sandwiches, cakes and buns and it all looks lovely. You can either sit in the mismatched cosy sofas and chairs indoors or take a step out into the garden and enjoy the sun. They also have coffee to go, and a shop where you can buy different coffee blends to use at home. As far from Starbuck’s as possible and sooo much better!

http://rosteriet.blogspot.com/

Mosaik, Malmö, Sweden

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We went out eating with friends in Malmö, one evening in Sweden. We headed to Gränden, a cosy court yard restaurant with cheap and cheerful food; but the reason you go is that court yard. But not any more. After been waiting for 45 minutes, having dealt with really rude staff, experienced flat drinks and having tables given away to other people although we were first on the waiting list is just not acceptable.

Tired, hungry and grumpy we went to Mosaik on the grand square instead. We were greeted by happy, efficient staff and managed to have a lovely evening despite the way it began.

Mosaik is a tapa style place with dishes from all over the Mediterranean. One dish Christopher and I shared was these mussles. They look fantastic don’t they?! They were good, but less tasty than they look unfortunately.

The fried potatoes looks quite plain but was delicious! After the meal my friends asked me what the best dish was and I actually said the potatoes. They looked at me with amazement and shook their heads… 🙂

But then I remembered the mushroom risotto, which actually was the best dish we had that evening. Creamy, light and full of flavour.

Christopher enjoyed this goat’s cheese toast all by himself, I had no idea what was with me, but for some reason I didn’t fancy goat’s cheese that day. Didn’t fancy cheese, how unlike me!

I love calamari, and when I make them myself I usually don’t coat them with batter because they are so soft and lovely as they are. Normally when dipped in batter it is because they are either readymade and rubbery (read: horrible) or like they want to hide less good produce. With those sceptic thoughts I was quite surprised when these calamaris were smooth and soft on the inside with crispy batter on the outside, not the rubbery limd at all.

We were three couples eating together and each couple chose their selection of tapas to try, and all of us ended up trying the teriyaki marinated chicken wings which were lovely.

We managed to have a really nice evening together, like you always do with good friends, and we definitely had better food were we ended up. Still a cheap place, but with far better service…

Nice lunch with friends

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As an ex-pat, you feel very liked and popular when you go home to visit; everyone wants to invite you over for dinner. The tricky part is to have time to meet everyone in just a week.

A couple who has invited us over for several times are Therèse and Tobbe, and this time we could gladly accept.

It was a perfect summer’s day when we got to their house for lunch the other day. They had set the table outside and Tobbe was barbequing when we arrived. We had a great time together, and enjoyed salmon barbecued in tin foil with tomatoes, leek and feta, bulgur wheat, salad and a cold caviar sauce. Very nice and fresh! For dessert we had a chocolate mousse with whipped cream and melon.

So lovely to sit outside in the sunshine, sipping on crisp white wine and just chatting away. Thank you guys, for a wonderful afternoon!

Barbecue and canapés with girolles

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The second day in Southern Sweden we spent the day in Falsterbo, a lovely little town by the seaside because Christopher was playing golf with Claes there all day, at a links course with insane amounts of water but nice views. I don’t play golf, so I spent the day with my best friend Emma (Claes’s fiancée). We gossiped a lot, had lunch at a nice café and prepared dinner for the boys. When they got back feeling tired after a day outside, we bribed them with beer to light the barbecue, while we took care of the rest of the cooking.

When we went to the supermarket I was pleased to see that they had lots of fresh girolles, that are in season now. It is my favourite mushroom and I find it really sad that I can’t buy them in a normal supermarket here in the UK. Girolles are best paired with butter and garlic and they make out a simple, but delicious, canapé.

We also had souvlaki, a nice salad with cucumber, tomatoes, leafy mixed salad, red onions and plenty of feta and another salad with giant couscous, pitta and homemade tzatsiki.

Emma gave the sauce top marks! It tastes fantastic with fat yoghurt and a big glug of olive oil. Yu-um…

I prefer giant couscous to the smaller variety, it is chewier and tastes better I think. In the salad above I kept it really simple, adding just thin slivers of red onion, herb salt, olive oil and chopped parsley. Simple yet delicious.

Girolle canapés, serves 4

100-150 g girolles, brushed and chopped

1/2 solo garlic or 1 garlic clove, pressed

a large knob of butter (enough to coat the mushrooms generously but not enough for them to bathe in)

chopped parsley

a bag of readymade brushettinis (garlic and herb if available

Fry the girolles on high heat in some of the butter. Add more butter as well as the garlic and lower the heat (so the garlic won’t burn). Season and mix in the parsley. Scoop up onto the biscuits and serve.

The first evening back home: crayfish and hollandaise

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We went back home to Sweden last Tuesday and after being picked up in Malmö we had a lovely lunch at Katrinetorp where we also had a look in their antique shop and after a quick visit at the shop Provinsen more close to home we finally got home to the summer house.

It is situated on the south coast in Sweden, only 2 km from the most Southern point in Sweden, and I love coming there and breathing the sea air.

I had wished for crayfish for dinner, so we had that as a starter, followed by barbecued fish, salad, potatoes and homemade hollandaise. To eat it outside on a blue and white tablecloth made it a perfect summer’s evening with Christopher and my parents.

For the first time I tried to make hollandaise a different way than normal (for me). Instead of melting the butter and adding it to the egg yolks, I used cold butter cut in cubes and incorpotating them into the yolks instead. It worked a charm and makes it easier not to split the sauce, since the temperature rises more slowly than with melted butter.

After dinner mum and I went for a quick stroll on the beach and I really enjoyed being home.

Hollandaise sauce sås, serves 4

3 egg yolks

150 g (cold) salted butter

1/2 – 1 tbsp lemon juice

salt & white pepper

Mix egg yolks and lemon juice in a non stick saue pan (start off with only half a tbsp lemon juice if you don’t want the sauce too sharp, you can add more add the end). Cut the butter into cubes and put one of two into the egg yolks, while whisking. Let all the butter melt before adding more and repeat this until all the butter is used. The sauce will slowly thicken and when it is thick enough, remove it from heat, still stirring, season and pour it into a cool dish to serve immediately.

A week’s holiday

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Copenhagen

Today is the start of our holiday. One week in sunny (please?) Sweden coming up!

We have plenty planned already; lots of dinners, catching up with old friends, and hopefully some time on the beach.

I can’t wait to once again visit Gränden in Malmö with friends, a cheap place that mainly serves barbecued scewers, but it is so cozy to sit in their courtyard a warm summer’s evening. Most likely we will go to Copenhagen for the day and we’re having a few friends around for dinner as well.  We might venture to Ystad and enjoy a wander and a meal there, but most of all I am looking forward to just seeing friends and family and the sun that has stayed clear of Britain all summer.

The blog will still be updated, and I will try to send you a little postcard.

Have a great week!

Midsummer

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Wednesday was the longest day of the year, and the Friday after the Nordic countries celebrate the pagan tradition Midsummer.

It varies the way you celebrate, but most people dance around a maypole, eat traditional food such as pickled herring in different flavours, sour cream, chives, new potatoes, meatballs and strawberry cream cake.

As an expat I won’t celebrate Midsummer the same way as I would at home. First of all it is a bank holiday or half day in Sweden but a full working day here, but in Sweden you would gather with your friends in the countryside, pick flowers, hang out and prepare for the traditional meal, put the bottles of snaps in the freezer so they are really cold, put the beer in a large bucket with ice to cool that down, and usually rush in when a rain shower comes, and back out when it is over.

It is seldom sunny and warm on Midsummer’s Eve, but it is part of the tradition now. 🙂 You have to make sure you have a warm jumper at hand for the chilly evening, and you just sit together, drinking, eating, singing snaps songs and chatting.

It is a lovely laid-back affair, and as I wrote this I realise how much I can miss traditions like these. But, I will celebrate Midsummer together with a Scandi friend and a few other friends on Sunday, outside in a garden in the countryside, and I know for sure that it will be lovely!

Happy Midsummer to you all!

Atmosfär, Malmö, Sweden

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When Christopher and I went to Sweden the last weekend in May, we were lucky to get an extra day there because of the UK bank holiday Monday. It was a regular working day in Sweden, so we went with dad to Malmö and had a lovely day there before heading to the airport in Copenhagen. (Yes, I fly to a different country than my own when I go home, the bridge and tunnel makes the journey over to Sweden really quick – 12 mins by train). In Malmö we went shopping, had a nice lunch and icecream. That’s my idea of a nice day off!

The two males went for the beef with mustardy potato salad and loved it. After a weekend full of eating I chose the Caesar salad, which was massive and lovely. It had some bulgur wheat in the bottom to make it more filling, but that was a bit OTT, I could only finish half of it anyway. Apart from the main courses they serve you a bowl of soup and lovely homemade bread at the start of the meal, so you won’t risk leaving here unsatisfied.

Atmosfär is good value for money, great service and although the restaurant usually is full up I have always gotten a table here.

Swedish wine

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My dad received this bottle of red (Hällåkra Rondo 2009) as a birthday present and we tasted it on Sunday when we had a barbecue.

The couple who gave him this bottle knew of course that it is from the vineyard next door to my parent’s house. It cannot be any more local produce than that!

It was exciting to try a wine which has grown in the fields around where I grew up. The wine was alright, nothing spectacular compared to other wines, and actually quite sour. But it was still better than we had anticipated, and the charm lies in the fact that this wine is from Sweden, until recently a non-wineproducing country in the north of Europe, and that it is so very local to where I grew up.

It is not a wine I will buy because it is so much better than other reds, because it is not, but to show my friends that actually, wine can be made at home as well, and that is quite big.

The vineyard, Hällåkra, has not existed as a vineyard for very long, it used to be a regular farm growing rapeseed, sugarbeets and wheat which is what is mostly grown around where I’m from. So it is a new phenomenon and that means that there is room for improvement.

The wine can be bought at Systembolaget in Sweden.

Sweden

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It is over now. Two days ago I left Sweden, family and friends after nine days there to resume my London life.

I had a lovely time in Sweden and did lots of fun things. Had a looovely dinner with mum and dad the day after I arrived, and the next day my friends came over for lunch. Then lunch with Fredrik in my uni town Lund, some shopping and a coffee with Malin and Tobbe in Helsingborg followed by homecooked food and lots of lovely sweets in front of Love Actually. Some more shopping the day after, a coffee with Carina in Malmö and a lovely three-course meal at Daniel and Maria’s in Lund in the evening. Next was Christmas celebrations with my best friend but we had crayfish and prawns with salad and garlic bread instead of heavy Christmas food.  

We always decorate the tree on the 23rd and this year was no exception. We also wrapped the last gifts, prepared food for the following day and relaxed with fondue in the evening. Then Christmas Eve with proper celebrations and tonnes of food with my relatives. And Santa dropped by…

I met a few friends for tacos, lovely company, champagne and more Swedish sweets (sooo miss the sweets) and stock up on Swedish goodies at the supermarket.

As usual my bags were extremely heavy. Partly because I carried Christopher’s Christnas gift from my parents; 5 bottles of sherry, and partly because I had lots of homemade paté and frozen wild ducks in them. 🙂 My flight was 40 mins delayed and then we had to wait an hour (!) for the baggage to arrive, and after 30 mins wait on the train they announced they didn’t have a driver and that they terminated the train I had had enough and treated myself to a cab all the way home. Amazing how my mood changed because the cabbie was nice and made me laugh and because Chris met me with a big hug and carried my suitcases up the stairs. 🙂

I have got rid of most the Christmas decorations now apart from the electric star in the window. Our flat can never be as cosy and Christmassy as my parent’s house so no point trying. Instead I’m back at work and focussing on the next big thing – New Year’s Eve!