High risk
Surströmming
Salted, barrel-fermented Baltic herring from Sweden, surströmming is packed in shallow tins where fermentation may continue. Its traditional production is a specialist commercial process, not a household formula.
Sweden
Recipes by the places recorded in their sources.
Sweden
Lamb, barley and cabbage pottage (modern reconstruction)
Lamb shoulder simmered with pearl barley, turnip and leafy cabbage in one pot, a present-day reconstruction built from the animals, grains and vegetables of northern European farming.
Viking Age bread (Birka and Knivberga finds)
A small, dense cake of ground barley mixed with liquid and cooked against a hot surface, the form a low-gluten northern cereal takes when a household turns stored grain into bread.
Filmjölk
Filmjölk is a Swedish cultured milk with mild acidity and a spoonable body. This recurring batch uses filmjölk from the previous batch to culture fresh milk.
Swedish-style mustard and dill sauce
Sweet mustard and Dijon whisked with sugar and white-wine vinegar, thickened with oil added slowly and finished with fresh dill: a hovmästarsås-style sauce for salmon.
Kanelbullar (Swedish cinnamon buns)
Soft Swedish wheat buns filled with butter, sugar and cinnamon. This 20-bun home batch uses fresh yeast, two short proofs and pearl sugar.
High risk
Gravad lax
Salmon is cured with salt, sugar, pepper, dill and lemon zest under refrigeration.
High risk
Suovas
Salted reindeer meat hung in the smoke of a lávvu fire over willow, birch or juniper, then cooled and in some Sámi communities dried outdoors into travelling provisions.
Barley and oat porridge (Viking Age)
Crushed or milled barley cooked in water until the starch softens and the mixture thickens, the plainest way a northern household turned stored grain into a meal, here with apple and hazelnut.
Knäckebröd
A Swedish home batch of eight thin rye-and-wheat crispbreads, yeast-risen once and baked until hard.
5-minuterssill
A Swedish ready-to-dress herring preparation: add the classic sliced aromatics and spices to already prepared herring, then serve or chill for fuller flavour.
Rårörda lingon
A Swedish uncooked lingonberry accompaniment: frozen berries are mixed with granulated sugar and thawed, with occasional stirring, until the sugar dissolves.
Tunnbröd
Tunnbröd is Sweden’s family of thin, docked flatbreads, baked soft for immediate meals or dried crisp for the pantry. This home recipe follows a northern Swedish soft rye-and-wheat version scented with anise and fennel.
Långfil and tettemelk
Långfil and tettemelk are traditional Swedish and Norwegian cultured milks with a mild sour taste and a stretchy texture produced by ropy lactic acid bacteria.
Swedish syrup rye loaf (sirapslimpa)
Sirapslimpa is a sweetish Swedish rye-and-wheat loaf with dark syrup, honey, fennel and anise, made with an overnight rye scald and a long room-temperature rise.
A surströmming meal
A Swedish late-summer meal of commercially prepared surströmming, tunnbröd, potatoes, onion and cultured cream. This is a serving preparation; the specialist fish fermentation is not made at home here.
Elevated risk
Suovas with savoy cabbage and almond potatoes
Suovas with almond-potato purée pairs pan-fried reindeer meat with buttered savoy cabbage and a reduced red-wine and reindeer-broth sauce.
Ättika
A Swedish-style spirit vinegar made by fermenting neutral alcohol with live vinegar bacteria, with a separate guide to commercial ättika strengths.
Birch sap vinegar
Vinegar from spring birch sap fermented to alcohol and then acetic acid, usually with added sugar or honey because the sap is so dilute; made in Sweden and described in older eastern European accounts.