Friday, November 11, 2011

Chef Mikael's Swedish Style Laxpudding

Laxpudding is a Swedish style salmon casserole and just makes the world a better place, I love this dish! It is prepared with either Scandinavian style salted salmon or cured salmon also known as grav lax or “gravadlax” in Swedish which harks back to the days of the Vikings, also a topic of some debate as there are those who are of the mind the name is derived from the term “gravid” which refers to pregnancy, this is a nod to the time of year the Vikings harvested the salmon in terms of spanning,  then there are those who believe the name comes from the term “gravad” which means berried which is what the Vikings would do with the salmon once they caught them as a means of preservation, as for myself I am drawn to the particular metaphor this dichotomy presents if you will ‘from the cradle to the grave’ such as it were, which is also how one might define the Swedish life style and relationship with its government in terms of security and stability, but I digress, along with the salmon the other components that make up this casserole are comprised of dill, sautéed onions, boiled potatoes which I might add, back when I use to prepare this dish at work there was an emphasis on presentation so it was important the potatoes were as intact and uniform as possible, one of the benefits of making this dish at home is there is less of that emphasis and more of one placed on taste and in my humble opinion I think its always a little bit better if your potatoes are slightly over cooked, at any rate the casserole is finished with egg custard royal and baked in the oven to a golden perfection, typically when served it is accompanied by clarified butter although dill butter is also quite common, and at this point the only thing left to do is to simple bask in its greatness, savor every lingering bite and collapse into a food induced coma  

Shopping List  
Grav lax
Potatoes
Onions
Dill
Eggs
Milk and/or cream
Salt
White pepper

My Mad Method

Grease a casserole dish well with butter











Place a layer of potatoes over the butter











Cover the potatoes with a layer of salted salmon or cured salmon











Spread some sautéed onion over the salmon











Cover the onions with chopped dill











Add another layer of potatoes











Add one more layer of salmon











Add one more layer of dill











Top with one last layer of potatoes











Fill the casserole with egg custard royal

Bake in a 175c preheated oven for about 1 hour or until nicely browned








Ready to serve!
 

No comments:

Post a Comment