swedish cooking

Cookery writer and presenter, Rachel Khoo tells Ella Walker that meatballs are a non-negotiable necessity in Sweden

WHEN you’re in another country, perhaps the easiest way to begin to fathom a culture is through its food - and Rachel Khoo is an absolute expert at doing just that. Born in south London, the food writer and presenter switched Croydon for Paris in her 20s, to study patisserie at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu cookery school. It led to her breakout cookbook, The Little Paris Kitchen, and now it’s Sweden’s turn to get the Khoo treatment. Rachel, now 37, moved to Stockholm in 2016 with her Swedish husband Robert, and The Little Swedish Kitchen sees her explore the country’s tradition of ‘husmanskost’ - or home cooking. The focus is simple, seasonable, affordable ingredients “and making the most of what you have”. Husmanskost is a way of doing things born of Sweden’s short and difficult growing season, cramped by the harsh winters. “You had cabbage, potatoes, root vegetables - that was your basis of ingredients,” says Rachel. “Plus, game and seafood; you had to be creative with a small amount of ingredients.” She takes this ethos and experiments (her cabbage recipes, for instance, don’t involve boiling, thankfully). Arguably, nothing is more Swedish or representative of husmanskost than meatballs. “I do some vegetarian meatballs in the cookbook,” she explains, with a good-natured eye roll, “and I was told I have to include the original meat-meatballs too.” They’re usually served with a smooth gravy, creamy mash, tart lingonberries and tangy pickled cucumbers (yes, almost exactly like they do them at IKEA). “You start eating meatballs as soon as you’ve got two teeth. The kids at kindergarten, they get meatballs for their lunch,” says Khoo. “It’s so much ingrained in the country - a bit like a Sunday roast for Brits - it’s an everyday food that follows you from kindergarten to the canteen at work. You’ll find them pretty much everywhere.” For Rachel, Sweden’s attraction has always been the landscape and the nature (“It’s just fields, trees, lakes, fields, trees, lakes...”). “They’re very much about embracing the seasons,” she says of the Swedes. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s summer and there are really long days and you go out in the evening and go swimming. Or, in the winter when it’s dark and cold, you still go out skating, skiing and walking.” Sitting things out and blaming the weather just isn’t done - hence grilling hot dogs outside in the snow isn’t unusual. “They love their hot dogs,” buzzes Khoo. “You can even get a hot dog with prawn salad and mashed potatoes on top, it’s a bit like a surf and turf, but in hot dog form!” Other Swedish customs we really ought to take up include fika and knackebrod. “Fika is one of the first things I learnt about,” says Rachel. “[People say] ‘Oh, let’s go for fika’ - and you meet for coffee and a bun.” Knackebrod, meanwhile, isn’t a treat. The rye crispbread is a staple at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and “butter is necessary” says Rachel. She’s currently learning Swedish, which will be her fourth language. “I can have a basic conversation, like the level of a two-year-old,” she says, laughing. The moment she really thought she was beginning to grasp it was when she decoded Swedish favourite, gravlax. “’Grav’ means ‘to bury’; ‘lax’ means ‘salmon’, so you’re burying your salmon in a sugar/salt mix to cure it. I was like, ‘Oh! I now understand!”’ she recalls proudly. Seafood is a huge part of Swedish cuisine, although you won’t find Rachel scoffing surstromming (fermented herring in a tin). “The tin bulges because of the gas,” she says, screwing up her face. More to her taste are the plump and peachy langoustines, lobster, crab and salmon hauled in along the west coast of Sweden, while inland it’s crayfish territory which, come summer, means traditional Swedish crayfish parties galore (kraftskiva). Rachel describes how you drop frozen herring as bait into lobster pot-style cages, and pull them up the morning of your party, full of clacking crustaceans. They’re then brined in beer, lots of salt “and dill”, yelps Rachel. “You can’t get enough dill!” Schnapps is, of course, crucial to any Swedish party. “They love to sing their songs and drink a little schnapps,” says Khoo with a smile. “It’s really good fun. I don’t down the whole shot, I can’t keep up otherwise - too many songs.”