The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann
Oct 5th, 2009 by admin
As I have a long weekend planned in Gothenburg, Sweden in December, it was with great excitement that I read through Danish TV chef and food writer Trina Hahnemann’s The Scandinavian Cookbook. Gothenburg will be the first of several Scandinavian trips for me, so I was as interested in the evocative photography as I was in the recipes. The photos, taken by Lars Ranek, one of Scandinavia’s leading food photographers, ‘reflect the cycle of a full year comprising seasonal ingredients and dishes, lifestyle and festivals’. I hope that I’ll be able to capture the essence of Gothenburg in winter in a similar way with my little Leica…
The book is divided into the twelve months of the year and focuses on a ‘light, modern version of Scandinavian home cooking’. The four seasons are reflected in the recipes, with much emphasis on fresh local produce. A short introduction accompanied each recipe, explaining the background to the dish, sometimes with a personal anecdote. I find this an essential part of any cookery book, because I like to learn about the origins of a dish than simply be told how to prepare it. For example, Hahnemann describes Skagen, located in the northern tip of Denmark, where the famous Skagen fish soup comes from, and it sounds like a place I would love to visit.
Out of all the recipes, my personal favourites included potato cakes with lumpfish roe and beetroot salad; various smørrebrød (open sandwiches made with rye bread); kartoffelkage (traditional Danish cake which resembles a large potato, but is actually choux pastry covered with cocoa-dusted marzipan and filled with luscious cream); meatballs with thyme, summer cabbage and lingonsylt; langoustines with herb mayonnaise; fruit ‘porridge’ with cold cream; gravad lax with honey mustard sauce; reindeer with anise and pepper, potato-celeriac gratin and Brussels sprouts; cinnamon rolls and småkager (Danish vanilla butter cookies).
I chose to replicate the recipe for potato soup with bacon and chives from the October chapter. According to Hahnemann, hot meals in Scandinavia are usually served with potatoes and her grandparents ate potatoes almost every day of their lives. I love potatoes, so this sounded perfect to me.
Potato Soup With Bacon & Chives - serves 4
Ingredients:
- 1.3kg potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
- 2 leeks, sliced
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tbsp whole peppercorns
- 1 litre water
- 100ml double cream
To serve:
- 100g bacon, diced (instead of bacon, you can use crisp croutons of dark rye bread)
- 4 tbsp chopped chives
- grainy bread
What to do next:
Place the potatoes in a large saucepan with leeks, garlic, bay leaves, salt, peppercorns and water. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and leave to simmer for 20 minutes.
While the soup is cooking, fry the bacon until crisp and golden, then leave to drain on paper towels to remove the excess fat.
Remove soup from the heat and take out the bay leaves. Purée the mixture in a blender or food processor then return it to the saucepan. Add the cream and heat through. Adjust the seasoning to taste, then serve the soup very hot with the bacon and chives, plus grainy bread on the side.
I made one version with bacon for myself, while the husband had the non-meat version with rye bread croutons. Delicious and just right for autumn weather.
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I’m very much looking forward to visiting Gothenburg the week before Christmas, when I can eat æbleskiver (Christmas butter-fried doughnuts), drink glögg (warm red wine with aquavit and spices), visit the Christmas market and bring back lots of food goodies. And I’ll certainly be turning to The Scandinavian Cookbook for inspiration after the trip. If you have any eating suggestions in Gothenburg, please let me know!
The Scandinavian Cookbook was sent to me by Quadrille Publishing to review and costs £20.00.
Trina’s next book The Nordic Diet will be published in January 2010. It’s all about ‘eating with the seasons, taking advantage of locally sourced seasonal ingredients and eating a balanced diet of protein, carbohydrate and fat’. Please email food@quadrille.co.uk for more details.
Other book reviews on World Foodie Guide.
Great review Helen, The Scandinavian Cookbook makes me SO nostalgic and I love Trina’s recipes – straightforward to follow, delicious and seasonal. Can’t share any tips for Gothenburg I’m afraid, but I suspect you’ll eat well there
Another great book review Helen, you’re getting better at it, really like the slick food photos that go with the book reviews too.
Will be look forward to your amazing foodie trips in the coming months…. especially the Japan one!!
I love this book! The recipes are lovely and the photography is breath-taking! Here at Peter’s Yard, we were fortunate enough to be asked by Trina to provide our crispbreads at a Scandinavian evening at la Fromagerie hosted by her and also at James Beard Foundation in New York last week! It’s such a thrill to know someone who knows so much about Scandinavian Food, wanted to use our crispbread, even though we are just a small bakery!
I’ve seen a sneak preview of the next book which looks eaqually good. I love the sentiment that she reinforces about spending quality time together over good food, with friends!
Oh this looks so good, thank goodness I did not see it on my trip to Ireland – I broke my own rules and stocked up on more than a few cookbooks, shamefully I had to buy another bag to accommodate them. We ate a lot of delicious soup – and this potato soup would have fit right in.
I did come across a copy of Snowflakes and Schnapps when I was there and totally agreed with your assessment. I leafed through the pages and remembering your comments, and kept thinking “yep, exactly so” – you hit all the critical points.
Signe – thanks! I really enjoyed reading all the recipes and felt quite confident about replicating more than a few because they were easy to understand.
Kang – thanks! I had fun writing this review because I really liked the book, and the soup that I made! I’m also looking forward to going on the foodie trips…
Wendy Wilson Bett – glad to meet another fan of the book!
OysterCulture – cookbook shopping, what fun! My shelves are really filling up with books. I need to spend some time going through them all and using them properly. I’m so glad you had fun in Ireland with your mother!
Helen Yuet Ling
Greta review! Scandinavian cuisine is one of my favourites. We don’t get a lot of it here – in fact there’s only one restaurant that apparently isn’t brilliant but what I tried overseas was lovely. And with the cookbook I have more of a chance of eating it than once every few years when I visit Europe!
I have never had the chance to enjoy Scandinavian cuisine but after having read your post, this is on my wishlist of all the things I have to try and do!
Oh how divine. Potatoes and bacon. I’m drooling. Thanks for pointing out the book. Its on my list to purchase.
Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella – I’m really looking to learning more about Scandinavian food when I go to Sweden! As you cook so much, you’d really like this book (lots of nice things to bake too!)…
Mathilde’s Cuisine – me neither! The book really changed my perspective on Scandinavian food. I’d like to learn more about the more subtle differences between the food in the different countries too.
Bethany – nice combination right?! As you’re a regular cook, I think this would be a great book for you…
Helen Yuet Ling
This looks great Helen and Scandinavian cuisine is perfect for winter
From a Swedish reader: I hope you’ll have a great stay in Gothenburg, but I hope (and that I’m not telling you something you already know) you are aware that Danish food and Swedish food aren’t the same thing, in fact, it can quite a lot. For example, smørrebrød is really not something you’ll find in Sweden, only in Denmark. And if you do find it here, it’ll be marketed as “Danish”.
Unfortunately, I live in Stockholm which is why I can’t recommend any restaurants in Gothenburg.
Other than that: I LOVE your website! It’s the best I have read by far!
/ Hälsporren
Gourmet Chick – it really is! I’m looking forward to making more comfort food from the book!
Hälsporren – thanks for pointing that out. Hahnemann is Danish, so I guess she focuses more on Danish food in the book, although she didn’t tell me what you have told me about smørrebrød. Thank you very much for reading my blog and I hope you’ll like my future posts!
Helen Yuet Ling
Your upcoming travels to Sweden sound like such fun (wish I could figure out how to stow away in your luggage!) I know next to nothing about Scandinavian cuisine, except for the æbleskivers that I recently made, so I would love to look through this book. Perfect choice of a recipe to sample for us: potato with bacon and chive hits the spot!
Tangled Noodle – it’s only a long weekend, but it will be my first time in Scandinavia, an area I’ve never visited. It will hopefully be the first of many visits. So many places to see and so little time and money! When I saw your post on æbleskivers, I was pleased I knew what they were…
I see you’ve already been warned that the Scandinavian cooking is quite diverse, and you should know that you need to go to Denmark if your interest lies in comfort food and alcohol a breakfast time. (Being Norwegian, I must in all fairness say that you don’t visit my home country for the food, unless you’re prepared to pay for it at places like this: http://www.bagatelle.no/grand_menu_EN.html )
When it comes to Gothenburg, you’ll have the choice of great (and expensive) French cuisine, a plethora of international/mediterranian restaurants – and quite a few places serving the Swedish “husmannskost” – everyday food. I do hope you like herring…
A great place to start is one of the two big food halls – Stora Saluhallen and Saluhallen Briggen, is quite wonderful. There, you can find absolutely everything, and everyone is quite happy to teach you what swedish traditional food is all about. There’s lots of small places where you can get a taste of something, and after reading your blog I’m sure you’ll love it!
Beautiful photographs. Really fantastic. You’ve made some very simple things come alive. So much so that I can taste the soup. Never mind about the Finnish desserts. It was just a bit of fun really. I’ll tell you more about it next time we meet up.
esben – I like the sound of ‘everyday food’ and I love herrings! Thank you so much for the food halls recs, I shall add them to my list of things to do. Going to food halls and markets is one of my favourite things to do when I go abroad! I’ll of course be writing about my time in Gothenburg…
Jonathan – thank you! Sorry the book wasn’t so specific on Finnish desserts and I couldn’t identify which might have been Finnish. Look forward to hearing why you needed recipes (plus your other new funny stories!)
Love this!! But OMG metric system. I have to worry about decimal places.. I have a slide rule next to my measuring cups!! lol
Thanks for the good recipes!
Joshua – you must get the book and the new one The Nordic Diet!
Helen Yuet Ling