Who knew that a traditional Swedish smorgasbord isn’t just a charcuterie board full of all kinds of meat, but is actually a refined, five-course meal? Not me! Until I got my first box from this company called Try The World, which offers subscription boxes of gourmet foods from a highlighted country or city every month. I signed us up for 6 months of boxes for our 6-year anniversary, and I got a free Sweden box so we decided to start celebrating early.
I decided to make a traditional smorgasbord feast yesterday, which is the first time I’ve ever attempted making a 5-course meal. I was so completely proud of myself for how well it turned out! Hubs and I both like to consider ourselves adventurous eaters, so we love any chance we get to try out a cuisine we haven’t had before.
The first course was a herring potato salad, which is apparently a must-have at a smorgasbord feast. I found some pickled herrings in the kosher section of the supermarket and made sure that I didn’t boil the potatoes too long – there’s nothing worse, in my opinion, than a soggy, mushy potato salad. The Swedes also like to top their potato salad with crumbled potato chips, which hubs said he could appreciate as a Jersey guy…who used to put ketchup on his tomatoes as a kid. Oh brother.
Course number two was another smorgasbord staple, smoked salmon on crispy Swedish flatbreads, with a sweet & spicy mustard, dill and sour cream. It was really tasty! The mustard from the box was definitely the star (and nope, no one is forcing me to say any of this lol).
The third course was kind of a stray away from tradition, mostly because I had brought this item back from my recent Paris trip and hadn’t had any of it yet! We had foie gras with some very thin, crispy potato crackers I found at our grocery store, and this onion fig preserve that was definitely the star of the show. Thank you Wegmans (my love)!! Such a crispy, sweet, savory, velvety, decadent bite! (I had three. Hubs had five or six.)
Did I mention that this fancy feast was enjoyed on the comfort of our couch? For two reasons: #1 we have no counter space, and the meal covered our entire basement apartment dining table, and #2 we watched the Olympics all day long and it was just a beautiful thing. I love the Olympics!
After a short break, we were ready to dive into the main course of this smorgasbord feast – Swedish meatballs, my first ever scalloped potatoes (yep, I know, I’m late to the party on this very easy, traditional, tasty dish), and a cucumber-radish salad. For the salad we used English cucumber and a mandolin to slice them perfectly (we also used the mandolin for the potatoes). The salad was wonderful, and the super thin slicing and the fact that we let it sit in its mustard-red wine vinegar brine dressing for over an hour made it super tender, and the flavors were perfectly melded. I had put out some ligonberry jam to go with the meatballs, but in my excitement I forgot to add it. I remembered when hubs went back for his second helping, so at least one of us got the full experience.
After this course I needed to just lie back and enjoy the Games for a while, but eventually we had Swedish coffee (which was very strong and very smooth and delicious!) and these cookie chocolate crisps that came in the box for dessert. Not a shabby meal at all!
Here’s to six years of marriage (almost!), trying new things, stuffing our faces while watching the Games, and pretending to be Swedish for an evening. I won’t be rooting for Team Sweden in the Olympics though…sorry. #TeamJAalltheway #okTeamUSAtooiguess #cantforgetTeamCanada #ihavelotsofteams
