The Swedish Chef

Dining out at night here in Stockholm can get pretty pricey. The same dish at lunch will often cost at least twice as much at dinner. It's one reason why we've taken to cooking more these days, and I've found myself online hunting for recipes more and more lately. We've had quite a few culinary successes, including broccoli quiche, spaghetti carbonara, southwest omelettes, fresh vegetable stir-fry, chicken and rice with curry sauce, chicken cordon bleu and Swedish pancakes. And in the baking section, I've tackled chocolate cake, pop-overs, cinnamon sugar muffins and chocolate cookies. Something that turned out not-so-well: a sad-looking tuna pasta salad.

One of my favorites so far has been chocolate cookies, which resulted from improvising, after a failed attempt at finding chocolate chips in the grocery store. (Chocolate chips are one ingredient I wasn't expecting to have trouble locating...so I'm still not sure if chocolate chips are not sold here, or if we were just at a lack-of-chip store.) Honestly - and, yes, this is a bold statement - we agreed these were better than the cookies at the Minnesota State Fair! Perhaps I'll be opening my own booth...

Another favorite, and the only Swedish recipe of the bunch, is the pancakes. Swedish pancakes are not fluffy like American pancakes, and are typically served as a lunch item, topped with lingonberry jam and whip cream. You could also sprinkle with sugar, top with fruit or break out the good old American maple syrup. So I though we'd share the Swedish pancake recipe we tried and liked:

Swedish Pancakes
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

To prep: Mix the dry ingredients. Add milk alternately with dry ingredients, a little at a time. Add oil and mix thoroughly. Beat eggs until light and fluffy before adding to mixture. Refrigerate at least 2-3 hours, or overnight, if you're planning on having them for breakfast. To cook: Preheat, then lightly butter 6" skillet or pan. The skillet is ready when a drop of water sizzles on it and the butter will melt, but not burn. Pour enough batter onto pan to completely cover the surface. After 1-2 minutes, check to see if pancake can be turned over by gently loosening around the edge with a spatula. Flip when lightly browned underneath.

We definitely recommend trying the jam and whip cream topping for the truly Swedish taste. The sugared pancakes were good as well. Let us know what you think if you give them a try.

We also recommend taking a peek at this clip of The Swedish Chef for a little inspiration. And if you were wondering, no, he's not really speaking Swedish.