Swedish Night

Started the night off with sauteing a whole lot of garlic in butter. Instantly, you know it's gonna be a good night.

Meanwhile, mixing some bread and milk. This was the beginning of Fred's Swedish meatballs.

We whipped out the food processor. And the smiles.

Fred begins his rolling process. Handmade meatballs rolled before pan-frying.

Eddie helps with frying them up.

Kat moves on and helps Fred out with making the sauce.

This batter would soon turn into Dan's delicious "raggmunk" (potato pancakes).

The girls worked on whipping up Bran's sauce/dressing to her "gravlax" (sugar and salt cured salmon), while the boys continued to work on their own dishes.

Bran slices up the bread for this gorgeous cured salmon. 

Then, the bones were plucked out one by one. 

Gravlax! Both gorgeous and yummy.

Dan's raggmunk hits the pan.

And Fred's Swedish meatballs are finally done. Looks and tastes amazing!

Right before dinner, Eddie mixed up a Christmas Swedish drink, called "mumma". It is a mix of dansukker sugar, sherry, a lager and stout beer, and a sugar drink like Sprite. 

Someone wanted to point out that we were going to be drinking mostly head. Nonetheless, it was pretty good. Tasted something like a spiked coke. Sweet... and dangerous. Because it was a mix of all sorts, several of us got a buzz pretty quickly.

Table is getting set, which means... dinner time!

 

Dinner has usually been started off with a soup. This is Al's flavourful Swedish split pea soup. It was so yum that I had to ask him to share the recipe. After that, we got to share and taste each other's food. The table spread looked rather impressive. 

Here is my plate of food. Omigosh... it was all so delicious. I swear... every month's cook night gets better and better. I'm loving it a lot. Not only do you get to spend quality time with your friends and cook together, but I get to learn about different foods that I otherwise wouldn't have. Before Swedish night, if you asked me to name a specific Swedish dish, I couldn't have pointed one thing out besides Ikea's meatballs. I just love getting educated. And to eat while you're at it. A sure plus-plus!

And of course, we have to finish it off with an amazing dessert. This is Swedish apple pie. The biggest different between a regular American apple pie is that the Swedish kind has no crust. It is topped with a topping of nuts, flour, and sugar, making it a cross between a pie and a crumble. I have to say that this was actually one of the best apple pies I've had. The tartness of the granny smiths, the sweet yet not super heavy crumble-like topping, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream... oh, to die for!