Food & Drink

Swe-dishes: Caroline Stureson’s Salmon with Cheese (via SwedishFood.com)

In Sweden, Salmon is a popular dish to serve because the fish is available all year long off the coast of Norway. This week’s recipe for Salmon with Cheese is an especially simple dish to cook; it requires just a few ingredients and easily can be adapted to serve a larger crowd.

The recipe was posted on SwedishFood.com, but hails from the kitchen of Caroline Stureson. Stureson is the owner of Onkel Enkels Pensionat & Café, a bed and breakfast near Tomelilla in Skåne.

Salmon with Cheese (Lax med Västerbottensost)

Ingredients

• Butter, for greasing
• Salt and lemon pepper
• 7 oz. spinach
• 1¼ lb. salmon fillet, cut into four pieces
• 4 oz. Västerbottensost, grated
• 1¼ c. cream

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Lightly butter a large ovenproof dish and sprinkle over some salt and lemon pepper.
3. Add the spinach and place the salmon fillets on top.
4. Put the grated Västerbottensost on top of the salmon pieces and pour the cream around the salmon, over the spinach.
5. Bake in the center of the oven for 18-22 minutes, until the center of the salmon reaches 126°F.
6. Serve with green peas and färskpotatis (new potatoes) in season or pommes duchesse (duchess potatoes). Garnish with dill sprigs and lemon wedges.

Tips

• If you can’t find Västerbottensost, use another mature hard cheese such as cheddar, parmesan or a mixture.
• Although this dish is best freshly made, it does reheat tolerably well the next day.
• If possible, use a digital thermometer when baking fish to avoid overcooking. Swedes often use thermometers when cooking meat or fish, however, if you don’t have a digital thermometer, cook the fish until it is no longer translucent.
• If you can’t find lemon pepper, add some lemon zest to the seasoning instead.
• Swedes would normally use matlagningsgrädde (cooking cream), which contains 15% fat, but it is fine to use cream (18% fat) or whipping cream (39%) instead.