Are you planning to visit Sweden in the near future? Sweden has scrumptious and unique dishes and recipes that you must try while you visit. Swedish food is more than just fish, coffee, or meatballs. With a diet rich in proteins, whole grains, and omega-3, Swedish food has been hailed for its amazing health benefits.
Being a visitor or foreigner, it can be difficult for you to find the food items and places in Sweden as most of the people eat at home. The restaurant culture in Sweden is much more different than in other countries. If you want to try some traditional and finger-licking Swedish food, then you must look for these 5 delicious dishes from Sweden:
1. Herring/Sill
This will be the dish that you will either love or hate depending upon your taste buds. There are a lot of varieties of sills and you can even eat pickled or fried herrings. Pickled Swedish herring is a classic Swedish dish derived from the times when preserving was the only way to get through the winter months. It is now an important part of all three basic traditional celebrations; Christmas, Easter, and off-course midsummer/midsummer.
The pickling juice used to cook herring is made from vinegar, salt, spices, and water. No matter what type of herring you will see in the menu, it will be generally served with boiled potato, finely chopped chives, and gräddfil.
2. Falukorv
This dish is a firm favorite among kids of all ages across Sweden. Falukorv’s origin can be traced back to the sixteenth century when Falu copper mines used horse and ox skin to make strong ropes to pullover the copper ores. At first, the meat was simply salted and smoked to make this dish. When the Germans came into the mines, then Swedes learn to make sausage out of meat. Now falukorv is made out of meat and pork by boiling it, frying it, roasting it in cream or grilling it. This is served with rice, mashed potatoes or macaroni depending upon your choice.
3. Kroppkakor
Hearty mashed potato dumplings with mushroom fillings are known as kroppkakor. There are many different versions of kroppkakor all over the country and have different names. Potatoes and flour are mixed and then wrapped by the dough and pork. Potatoes can be used either raw or boiled depending upon your choice. These are most commonly served with melted butter, double cream, different sauces, and milk.
4. Raggmunk
Raggmunk is the name of a Swedish dish made of potato pancakes. These pancakes, however, cannot be cooked using new potatoes as these potatoes don’t contain enough starch to hold the pancake together. This dish is mostly cooked in winters so this is not an issue. The butterier and crispier the pancake is around the edges, the better it will be in taste. The trick to this is not to spread the batter too thinly. If you will add some diced onion in it, then it will be called “French” potato pancake.
5. Crayfish
August in Sweden is known for the Crayfish season and people host crayfish parties with amazing décor. Get stuck in, rip off the claws and suck out the delicious juices. The crayfish are usually boiled in a brine bath with a lot of spices and crown dill. All you need then is Västerbotten cheese pie, soft bread, cold beer, snaps, crispbread and you’re good to go!
As the month of August start, the shops are full of all kind of crayfish from different countries but Swedes prefer the Swedish signal crayfish. Besides this, both Chinese and Turkish crayfish are also good.