Swedish Food - Post 2

Hej Hej!

So it's been far too long since I posted about my food adventures in Sweden! Here's a little recap of what I've been eating when I haven't been on vacation outside of Sweden!

Okay, I'll start with proof that I have been cooking myself. This is my take on an Indian Mixed Vegetable dish where I used halloumi, a dense Greek Cheese, instead of Paneer, an Indian dense cottage cheese. I was craving paneer a lot my first few weeks but couldn't find it anywhere, but one of my co-workers suggested using halloumi, which turns out to be delicious!

Next is the shrimp salad I got from the fish market (which is inside an old church in Gothenburg). It was quite tasty although the dressing didn't have enough of a kick to it for my taste. 

Now that you've seen some healthy options, let's talk langos. Yes, this is fried bread covered in sour cream, cheese, and onions. This beauty is called a langos and it is festival or "fair/carnival" food here in Sweden. It reminded me of a chalupa from Taco Bell which just made me miss the Mexican food we have in California. 

This is Tah Dig, a Persian Rice dish one of my co-workers brought me to try. It has a layer of rice, a layer of saffron, yogurt, and some dried berries, more rice, some chicken, and then some more rice. It was really good and the berries brought a slight sour taste to the pallet.

Speaking of Persian food, here is a chicken and beef kebab with some Iranian bread and yogurt. It was delicious! I've never had a kebab that's been marinated so well. The bread was really good too, though I have to say I like naan better ;) 

Alright, I'll warn you, the rest of the food is dessert (or in my case, fika), so those with a sweet tooth beware. I'll start with the White Mocha Frapino and a Strawberry Summer Muffin (with cardamom). Basically, Espresso House is the Starbucks of Sweden. I see them everywhere and they offer free wifi, yey! The "muffin" was more like a cupcake, but delicious and the White Mocha Frapino has been my favorite out of the two flavors I've tried at Espresso House so far.

Last Monday I was craving cinnamon and decided to bake an apple cake. So I googled a recipe and brought the cake to fika the next day. The cake was nice and cinnamony and moist so I'm super happy with the recipe I found online. I can't imagine living in a world without Google!  

As I've mentioned before, Friday fika is kind of special on my floor at work. We have the person in charge of making coffee for the week bring some dessert to go along with fika. Last week, some coworkers and I decided to bake cinnamon rolls after work on Thursday for the Friday fika. It was a brilliant plan! I learned that Swedes use this "pearl sugar" to top their cinnamon buns instead of icing as we do in the states. Also, they have a measurement that translates literally as "spicyspoon" in English. It basically equivalates to a "pinch" of something. Anyways, warm cinnamon rolls are amazing in any country! 

 

The person in charge of fika brought a raspberry-coconut homemade pastry that was delicious especially when paired with a cinnamon bun. I think having fika alone is going to have me gaining a few pounds, or should I say kilos, before coming home. 

Swedes have a thing for licorice. I do not. That is why I think this licorice ice cream is a disgrace to ice cream, but a lot of people enjoy it here. Luckily my house mom was nice enough to let me have a spoonful of her licorice ice cream so I didn't have to waste a tub! 

My house mom was also nice enough to make me and Alex (my fellow intern) Rhubarb Pie. My house mom has rhubarb growing in her backyard, so she explained to me that you use the stems and not the leaves of rhubarb for making pies and even fruit drinks. The crust on the pie was fantastic and the rhubarb added a unique taste the pie. 

This is a mint flavored Italian nugget a coworker brought from the Gothenburg Cultural Festival (don't worry, I'll have a blog post on that later). It had an interesting texture but I liked the combination of nuts and chocolate. 

Someone also brought this Almond-caramel crusted cake with a sweet vanilla custard for fika today. It was a really great combination of textures and sweetness. 

I can't seem to find the picture of this delicious kebab pizza I had a few weeks ago, but I'm planning on having at least one more blog post dedicated to food so I will save it for then, if I find it. 

Anyways, I better go run and burn off some of this delicious food I've been having :) I hope you all are doing well! 

Take care, 

Dilpreet