How To Make Toast Skagen (Swedish Shrimp Salad)

Before I had made my first dinner reservation in Stockholm a few months ago, I was already eagerly planning on meals laced with all manner of fish and vegetables that had been smoked, dried, preserved and pickled.  I started doing some homework in Chicago at Tre Kronor, one of the city’s only Swedish restaurants that serves home-style dishes, rather than just the cliché pancakes and cinnamon rolls.  One dish I immediately fell for was the skagen (SKA-ghen).

Made from tiny, cold water shrimp the size of a doll’s hand, it is essentially a shrimp salad, albeit one with deliciously addictive Nordic roots.  Served with some small toast points, paired with a crisp viognier or even a bottle of Hitachino White Ale, it’s a great little weapon to keep in your cocktail party arsenal.

We had lunch on the charming island of Fjäderholmarnas, about a 30 minute ferry ride from the center of Stockholm.  Just a five-minute walk from the dock is the island’s main restaurant, Fjäderholmarnas Krog.  I asked the chef if she wouldn’t mind showing me how to make it.

SKAGEN RÖRA

(recipe by Frida Andersson, chef of Fjäderholmarnas Krog, Stockholm)

Serves 10

Mayonnaise

3 egg yolks

1.5 Tbsp Swedish mustard (sweet)

2 cups sunflower oil

2 Tbsp Red wine vinegar

Put the egg yolks, mustard and vinegar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add 3 pinches of salt and 1 pinch of ground white pepper. Whisk it all together. Add the oil in a steady drizzle, which will emulsify, and form the mayo.

1 pound peeled, deepwater prawns from the Northeast Atlantic

1 tsp horseradish

3 Tbsp chopped dill

Roughly chop the shrimps and mix with the dill and the horseradish, squeeze the juice of one lemon on the mixture; add the mayonnaise.

Serve with lightly buttered toast and bleak (or trout) roe. You can also garnish with some fresh dill and a wedge of lemon.