Monday, November 4, 2013

Falu sausage fried in the oven – food for angels

To hear the the Swedish angels singing cheerful songs, where they sit on their white clouds and look down at the polar bears who walk on snowy streets, you offer them oven baked Falu sausage.

We mere mortals often face this dish in staff canteens. But we also do it gladly at home.

It's good. It is easy to prepare. It's even pretty to look at. What more could you ask for?

Start with a Falu sausage ring. You can use the entire or a part of it. It depends on how many you shall saturate.


Remove the skin. Cut the sausage into slices, but not completely through. They shall hang together at the bottom. In the gap between the sausage slices you add onion slices and cheese slices. Place the sausage in an ovenproof dish. Then add chopped apple in the dish. You can instead use chopped tomato. Place slices of cheese over the sausage (if you like melted cheese - otherwise leave it be). Pipe over ketchup and mustard.

Put the dish in the oven on about 392 º F (200 º C) for about 30 minutes. 


Best way to see if it's done is to look at the course in the oven. 


Serve with vegetables and mashed potatoes; ketchup and mustard to taste.




Dine and enjoy - and wave to the angels!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Pytt i panna (fried diced meat with onions and potatoes)

One of the most useful dishes in Sweden is “pytt i panna” (fried diced meat with onions and potatoes).

This dish is one of our many classic national dishes. You can make a “pytt i panna” for lunch when you have some remnants of meat and potatoes, which you want to use. You can also be served it in the middle of the night after a nice big party. Then you say that it's "midnight snack."

“Pytt i panna” consists mainly of prepared meat of any kind. It may be, for example, pieces of steak, smoked pork or meatballs. I also like bacon and sausage in this dish. The meat should be cut into smaller pieces. 

The other main ingredient is cooked potatoes cut into pieces. Of course you can also fry raw potato pieces, but a point with “pytt i panna” is often to use something that is already cooked. You also need chopped onions to get a good “pytt i panna”. Some salt and pepper to enhance the taste. 










You fry all the ingredients together in a frying pan. I normally start with the onion, then the meat and finally the potato pieces.


Classic accessories are pickled beetroots, pickled cucumber and/or lingonberry jam. Ketchup can also be added.

Some pieces of raw carrot,  maybe a piece of boiled parsnip and some pea pods enhances the quality of the meal.


For everyday use I drink milk or plain water from the tap to the “pytt i panna”. 

When you eat it as a "midnight snack" after a party, beer and snaps are the right drinks.

Snaps - "skål"