Stekt Strömming

Whilst we are still on Swedish food, I thought I should share with you another great Swedish meal and my absolute favourite - stekt strömming and potatismos. In English: fried herring with mashed potatoes.
It is one of the most amazing thing for me that Swedes are not obese with the amount of fat they eat. It just goes to show that it is not the eating of fat that makes you fat but what kinds of fat you eat and what you do the rest of the time that you are not eating.
Stekt strömming is pretty simple to make; you fillet the fish, season with sea salt and white pepper, coat with rye flour and fry in butter until golden brown. This meal is not recommended for a low fat diet because the potatismos is also made with lots of butter and a little bit of cream. It is the best mashed potatoes you will ever have. When I first discovered stekt strömming, I ate it every day for two weeks. I only stopped because I was warned that that there are government guidelines against eating baltic herrings everyday. Apparently, it is something to do with the heavy metals in the Baltic Sea.

Janssons Frestelse

Every winter, I miss Sweden. The last few months have been particular difficult for me because for some bizarre reason I want snow and snow is not easy to come by in England. I want a lot of snow and I am just not getting it here in London. However, a couple of weeks ago, I woke up to snow. Yes, in London! There was snow and the whole place looked so beautiful with the trees and houses covered in snow. I was happy for two hours and I didn't want to move back to Sweden. But then the snow melted and I went back to missing Sweden.
I lived in Sweden for nearly two years and loved it. Of course I didn't like everything about Sweden. For example, I hate that some people who use snus would just spit it out without thinking about it. It's disgusting! So if you do use snus, don't just spit it out onto the pavement.
"What is snus?" I hear you ask. Snus (or snuff) is tobacco put under the upper lip. People don't want to smoke or are not allowed to smoke, so they use snus instead.
Anyway, back to the good things in Sweden. In my Swedish classes, my teacher would ask me to write essays and translate recipes. One of the first Swedish recipes I translated into English was Janssons Frestelse which means Jansson's Temptation. I am not a big fan of potatoes but I really love this dish. In Sweden, it is made with tinned sprats but I use anchovies partly because when I first saw the recipe I thought anjovis were achovies. I now know that anjovis means sprats but I still use anchovies. I don't use as many tinned achovies as I would sprats because tinned anchovies tend to have too much salt. Here is the original recipe.

 1-2 tin sprats (approx. 20 whole sprats)
 2 large onions, sliced thinly
 500g (around 6 medium potatoes), peeled and cut into strips
 300ml cream
 A handful of breadcrumbs
 2 tablespoons butter
 1 teaspoon dill (to serve)


1. Preheat the oven to 225oC.
2. Fry the onions in a tablespoon of butter.
3. Butter an oven dish.
4. Put a layer of potatoes in the oven dish.
5. Then layer the rest of the potatoes with the onions and sprats.
6. Put a final layer of potatoes at the top.
7. Pour over half of the cream; sprinkle the breadcrumbs and add the butter.
8. Cook in the oven for 30 minutes.
9. Add the rest of the cream and cook for a further 30 minutes.
10. Garnish with dill and serve with sliced tomatoes and knackerbröd (Ryvita).

*You can use a number of different tinned fish including anchovies and tuna. Be careful when using anchovies as they tend to be heavily salted.

SAFARA

Safara, the arabic word for journey or travel. That is the name of my new magazine website which is dedicated to African food and travel. I am an African and I serve people African food for a living. My catering company Simply African has been providing catering services to mostly business clients for nearly a year now. The business is doing well, not as well as I had hoped for. But part of the reason is that I have been unable to employ a chef who understands African food (and I do mean food from the whole continent) and who would like to help me take the business to new heights. The other reason is that people have not been exposed to African food. This is about to change. Safara Magazine is born and is there to help everyone prepare African food in their own home. It will show you how to prepare the African cocktails, tell you about the best African wines (not just the South African wines); you will get information about the different places where this great food comes from and hopefully, it will help you see Africa in a better light.
Why not decide that tomorrow night is Africa night and try and prepare African food and also get some wines. You know, the more you buy African produce and products, the less poverty you will see on the continent. Buying African provides jobs and then you will be able to stop senidng aid to the continent. We need trade not aid.