SWEDISH MEMOIRS

I have always been very fond of Sweden as far back as I can remember. From the time when I was a little girl, my family has had business ties with Swedes. My Dad's friend Sven  is a dear friend of mine as well. When I was about 7 years old, I got a little note from then 8 year old Evelina through her mother Ylva who was in India on work. From then on, we have continued to write letters to each other which then graduated to emails and now whatsapp messages!! Like all friends, we have shared and discussed all things related to pets, books, movies, boys, schools, etc.

And when I was 15 years old, I had the opportunity to visit her for 4 weeks and go to school with her as well. Those 4 weeks as a 9th grader in Sweden during one summer, was a period of enlightenment and change for me. I came back a different person and till date I remember my time there fondly. One of the memories I carry with me was the time I spent in the kitchen with Ylva, my friend's mother. I was her sous chef in the kitchen and enjoyed spending that time with her during the weekends. Ylva, was a warm and caring mother who would churn out delicious meals for the family everyday. I went to Sweden as a scrawny teenager and came back as a plump one!! I gained 8kgs in those 4 weeks I spent with Evelina's family. So you can imagine what a fantastic cook Ylva was and still is!! Ylva has been a strong influence on me when it comes to my fondness for food and cooking.

Since 1995, I have visited Sweden numerous times and have been a big fan of Swedish home cooking. My favourite is of course, the Swedish meatballs. But I must say, that my most favourite are the breakfasts there. I love the different breads, honey, smoked salmon at times, the cream cheese and other cheese spreads!

During my short stay of 3 days in Sweden this October, I got to eat all my favourite dishes and what made it even more special was catching up friends after a long break. I was going back to Sweden after a break of 7.5 years, a lot of things have changed since my last visit there. For starters, Evelina has two little adorable boys aged 4 and 5 and I met them for the first time last month. Evelina put in a lot of effort to make sure that they were delicious dishes on her table for every single meal while I was there. What was very striking for me to know was that she has inherited the dining table from her parents after they moved and it was the same table that witnessed me gain 8 kgs in the summer of 1995. Only fingers crossed this time that it doesn't happen again! ;-)

My very first dinner at Evelina's was a seafood extravaganza. She had to drive to Gothenburg to pick me up from the airport and she used this opportunity to visit a local seafood store and bought a lot of goodies to feed me. There was boiled shrimp which was very flavourful and was served with a spicy aioli. There was also cold-smoked salmon and hot-smoked salmon with gravlax sauce. She had also baked a potato gratin for dinner. Its layers of potato slices baked in cream along with garlic and parsley. Now what can go wrong with something like that? It was heavenly! Although I manage to buy smoked salmon every now and then from the big metros in India, the gravlax sauce is something I miss here in India. I love the sweet, spicy and sour taste of the gravlax sauce and has been unable to recreate the same in my kitchen.

Clockwise from top left - Hot and cold smoked Salmon, Vintage Volvo, boiled shrimp and the grey autumn skies over the Swedish countryside

Evelina and her husband John, live in the Swedish countryside about 3 kms from the nearest town of Gallstad. She has her own hens in a coop and gets fresh eggs from them every day. A week before I arrived, she had a bought a whole sheep from the farmer next door and had it butchered and packed into neat little packages to be tucked into the freezer, to consume over the next few weeks. I made Rogan Josh with some of that lamb and it was a big hit with her family. I also made a chicken curry for dinner one evening and had her little boys running around in circles with their tongues out as they found it too spicy. Evelina made Swedish meatballs for lunch one day when her mother visited us. In no time, she made the meatballs, sauce and potatoes while chatting with us in her kitchen. The meatballs were served with Lingonberry jam which is a classic combination.

Like I mentioned earlier, breakfasts are my favourite in Sweden. With fresh eggs from Evelina's back yard, the breakfasts in her house were very special. As a teenager, my favourite was a layer of butter on any bread and a thick layer of honey. I had to eat that one morning just to relive that summer of 1995. Another day, it was smoked salmon with gravlax sauce and eggs. One of my new discoveries this time is the cheese spread that is available in tubes in a multitude of flavours. The flavours range from smoked shrimps, shrimp and crayfish, ham, blue cheese, chives and smoked reindeer meat with actual bits in it. During one of my visits to the local grocery store I was amazed to find a huge display of these cheese spread tubes. The range of flavours was just mind-blowing!

This was probably my shortest trip to Sweden and the first time I did not visit Sven and his family. Sweden and its people are very close to my heart and I am already longing to go back to Sweden. I hope to make it back to Sweden in 2 years from now with my little boys and share with them the culture and friendship that is very special to me. 

Prawn Balchao

The first time I ate ‘Prawn Balchao’ was at the Karavalli restaurant in Taj Gateway Hotel, Bangalore. It is one of the best seafood restaurants in India that I have been to. And no trip to Bangalore is complete for me without having one meal, preferably dinner there. Prawn Balchao is a tangy dish with a thick masala that can be served as an appetizer or as a side dish with plain boiled rice or a mildly spiced pulao. It is almost like pickled prawns, both spicy and tangy. It will stay well in the fridge for up to a week because of the presence of vinegar.

Last Sunday, I went to the fish monger with the hopes of buying fresh white pomfret to make a crispy fried dish. But to my disappointment there was no white pomfret on that particular day. I found the prawns fresh and good so I bought a kilo of it to make our favourite balchao. Very often I change my menu depending on whats available fresh in the market.

I have tried making balchao earlier with different recipes from cookbooks and on-line websites. On Sunday, I arrived on my own version combining a few recipes. Here it is……..

Ingredients:

600 gms prawns, shelled and deveined
½ cup oil
1 inch ginger
15 garlic cloves
1 tsp cumin
10 red chillies
5 cloves
1 inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp mustard seeds
¾ cup malt vinegar
2 onions, chopped
4 tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp brown sugar
2 sprigs curry leaves
Salt to taste

Serves : 3 - 4

Cooking time - 1 hour

Wash and drain the prawns thoroughly. Add salt and keep aside. Grind the ginger, garlic, cumin, red chillies, cloves, cinnamon and mustard to a fine paste using half the vinegar.

In a pan, heat half the oil and sauté the prawns until all the moisture dries up. This will take a while since the prawns will give out about a cup of liquid and all this liquid has to dry up. It should take about 15 mins or so. Now remove the prawns and keep aside. In the same pan, add the remaining oil and sauté the chopped onions until lightly browned.

Add the ground masala and sauté for about 5 mins until the raw smell leaves. Add the chopped tomatoes and remaining vinegar and sauté until the oil separates. The tomatoes should be cooked through and pulpy. Now add the prawns back in to the pan along with the brown sugar and curry leaves and sauté for a few more mins until the oil separates again.

It is perfectly fine to substitute malt vinegar with white distilled vinegar and brown sugar with regular white sugar. The flavour of the dish may be slightly altered but it’ll still taste fantastic. The oil used in this dish may be a little too much for some people but this dish needs ½ cup of oil to get the desired taste. I have tried cooking it with less oil but the taste is not as good at the end.