God Jul! Our Swedish Christmas
The Other Half often reminisces
that the best Christmas we ever had was the one we spent whilst living in our
campervan at Camping Het Amsterdamse Bos. You might think that with memories of
defrosting the waste pipes with a hairdryer and cycling twenty-two kilometres in
temperatures barely above freezing to buy a tie-down strap for the awning as it
was so windy, the bar had been set fairly low. I can’t remember what we ate
that Christmas, it was in a pre-vegan era, so most likely involved steak,
frites and lashings of mustard and beer. We’ve both eaten more than enough
traditional Christmas meals over the years and I’ve cooked many, most recently
the Twilight Christmas Dinner and Dance meal for ninety guests, but I rarely
cook that in that style at home. In fact, I can’t remember the last time we had
a full English roast-type meal. At Christmas last year we had a hot spicy
chilli and the previous (pre-vegan) year I did the traditional French seafood,
maigret and bûche de noel.
We are not ashamed to admit that
we are great fans of Ikea. Most of our furniture is Ikea flat-pack – we’ve
become quite expert at interpretation of the instructions now we’ve had so much
practice. The selection and installation of a new kitchen had prompted a few
trips to the blue and yellow mother ship in Bordeaux, so we seized the
opportunity to grab a few Swedish delicacies from the Ikea Food Shop. It was
then that I hit upon the idea of a themed country-based Christmas. This year we
would have a Swedish Christmas, albeit a vegan version.
Like many northern European
countries, Sweden has a high proportion of vegetarians and vegans within the
population, 10% in 2014 (FOE, 2014). However, the traditional Christmas fayre
is a smorgasbord featuring a great deal of fish, both herring in various forms
and smoked salmon. Like many countries the main meal takes place on Christmas
Eve, and the Christian festival has replaced the previous pagan mid-winter
festival of Jul. With a few variations the main constituents of the Swedish Julbord
are: snaps or vodka, herring and beetroot salad, pickled herring, Gravalax
(smoked salmon) and mustard sauce, cucumber salad, Jansson’s temptation,
meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy, a centrepiece Christmas ham, Butter saffron
cake, Glogg (mulled wine) and pepparkaker (ginger cookies).
There are few vegan Swedish
Christmas recipes on the Internet, however, I did get some good inspiration
from a couple of vegan bloggers. Many Swedes seem to stick to the meat and fish
theme using meat substitutes such as seitan and tofu-based lookalikes. As we don’t
like to eat much more than on a normal day I decided to keep it simple with a small
starter, meatball main and a cake, and not to shy away from using bought
ingredients. By the time the kitchen installation was finished we all needed a
rest!
On one of our Ikea trips we
picked up a bottle of Snaps, frozen cinnamon buns, some dill and sesame
Knackbrod crackers, lingonberry jam and a tin of fabulous ginger thins
biscuits. We started Christmas morning with cinnamon buns, hot from the oven
and a glass of Glogg (mulled wine) – it was too early for Snaps! The previous
day I’d made some vegan meatballs, following a recipe said to be virtually
identical to the vegetarian meatballs now available in the Ikea restaurants.
So, preparation was just a case of making a simple chilli tomato sauce, slicing
up some potatoes for my vegan, dairy-free version of Jansson’s Temptation (use
capers instead of anchovies and soya gratin cream) and popping everything else
into the oven.
For the starter we had Knackbrod
with a jar of vegan beetroot hummus (Alnatura brand) brought back from Germany.
This was fabulous – I could eat it every day, and will be having a go at
replicating the recipe soon. The list of ingredients were simply beetroot,
sunflower seeds, soya cream and seasonings. The Ikea lingonberry jam and Dill
and Mustard sauce were good, sweet and sharp contrasting accompaniments, but
the Snaps proved too strong for us (it may be useful for cleaning drains…). The
main dish comprised Jansson’s Temptation (to which, I only now realise, I
forgot to add the capers), Swedish vegan meatballs on a bed of chilli
tomato sauce, and some rotekraut (red sauerkraut), again a reminder of our
German holiday.
I toyed with making a Butter
Saffron Cake. There were plenty of vegan recipes on the Internet,
but it seemed too similar to traditional English Lardy cake for our taste, so I
moved very slightly further south in culinary inspiration here and substituted
with our favourite Dutch Apfelkuchen, followed by coffee and ginger biscuits.
It was a superb Christmas meal, and great fun to research the different
culinary traditions of our European neighbours. Next year we’ll be picking
another country’s Christmas cuisine to try in a new tradition that we have
created.
Swedish Vegan Meatballs
3 cups of cooked green lentils (just under 2
cups dried)
¼ cup sautĂ©ed mushrooms
¼ cup diced onion
1 garlic clove minced
¼ cup fresh parsley
2 tsp dried thyme
½ tsp fennel seeds
½ tsp chilli flakes
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 cup breadcrumbs (French chapelure)
2 flax eggs
2 tbsp soya cream
1 tbsp soy or tamari sauce
1 tsp Dijon mustard
·
Prepare lentils and allow to cool; prepare flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flax, 6 tbsp water)
·
Process lentils and mushrooms for two minutes
until like a thick paste
·
Transfer to a large bowl and add onion, garlic,
herbs and spices and breadcrumbs
·
Whisk together flax eggs, soya cream, tamari and mustard
·
Add wet ingredients to dry and mix thoroughly
·
Form into meatball shapes, place on lined baking
sheet and drizzle with olive oil before baking at 180c for 20–25 minutes
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