Tag Archives: food illustrator

Concept of Smörgås & Snittar

In my latest cookbook, Smörgåsbord: The Art of Swedish Breads and Savory Treats, I want to encourage you to make small portions of a classic Swedish Smörgåsbord. A little like a Smörgåsbord tapas! Together with a flavorful bread, it’s a concept that works for everyday smörgås (open-faced sandwich) meals as well as for festive starters.

The first chapter is dedicated to Nordic breads, both classic and new creations, baked with either yeast or sourdough starter. As rye bread is the most distinctive type of bread throughout the northern countries, I have included five different types. But there are some tasty wheat based breads too and a stove-top baked flatbread made with barley flour.

The rest of the chapters concentrate on spreads and toppings you can serve with the breads for every day smörgås, seasonal treats or more festive occasions. The last chapter is where you will find condiments like pickles, whole grain mustard, crispy onions, and classic sauces. It’s that addition that can turn any dish or open-faced sandwich into something more special. In my opinion the best smörgås is built up with several combined toppings.

As a starter for your upcoming holiday dinner parties or just as a treat for yourself, I suggest you serve a few of the dishes arranged separately at the counter and have everyone build their own little treat. You can also create snittar, Swedish tiny open-faced sandwiches, by cutting the bread into squares, rounds or triangles, and top them with any spreads of your choice. Here are a few of my favorites snittar that are based on recipes from the book:

Pickled Herring with Sour Cream, Red onions & Brown Buttered Bread Crumbs – Pickled herring is a staple in Sweden and comes in many different flavors, either in vinegar or with cream. I love herring and like many Swedes I eat it all year around. In the book I share two of my favorites, a creamy mustard herring and a vinegar based herring spiced with rhubarb, cloves, and cinnamon.

Gravlax on Toasted Sourdough Bread topped with Fresh Pickled Vegetables and Pickled Mustard Seeds – If you plan ahead, gravlax is a simple and festive smörgås topping that can be flavored and paired in many different ways. The most classic is to serve it with simple mustard sauce or as in Finland with Fresh Pickled Cucumber (pressgurka). My version of gravlax is cured with fennel seeds and I warmly recommend it served on toasted sourdough bread and topped with Quick Pickled Vegetables and Pickled Mustard Seeds. (You can find all these recipes in the book).

Roast Beef with Danish Remoulade and Crispy Onions on Danish Rye Bread – This is a very common smörgås or smørrebrød combination in both Sweden and Denmark. The remoulade, which is a mayonnaise based sauce spiced with curry, pickles, capers, parsley and tarragon, is simply whipped together and pairs surprisingly well with roast beef and crispy onions (rostad lök). The Danish rye bread, baked with loads of whole rye berries, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, and toasted sesame seeds, is a delicious and wholesome bread. Instead of roast beef, I’m sure this little treat can easily be done with some leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

For every recipe in the book you will find several more pairing suggestions. I hope you will find it useful and inspiring enough to find your own special Smörgås combinations.

And there is of course always the option to create a whole feast too! If you plan it well, it doesn’t have to be that complicated and for many dishes like cured ham, gravlax, and pickles most of the process takes place when you are at work or doing other things.

If you bake or cook anything from the book, I would love to see it! Please share it with me here in the comments or tag it with #ArtofSmorgasbord on instagram, twitter, or facebook.  A selection will be re-posted or linked to here on kokblog.

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Smörgåsbord
cooking & baking by others:

Danish Rye Bread & Rustic Rye Bread
baked by Kira Nam Greene

Tweaked version of Rustic Rye Bread
baked by Jeremy Shapiro

Rustic Rye Bread
baked by Kira Nam Greene (1st bake)

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other related links

upcoming Smörgåsbord events

talking Smörgåsbord on Off the Menu
with Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl
at WCCO | CBS Local Minnesota
(October 28, 2017)

Foodrepublic
want to make Smörgåsbord tatoos

Smörgåsbord interview
on Martha Stewart

you can read more about the book
here and here

 

Don’t have your own copy of Smörgåsbord? You can get it in almost any bookstore online all over the world! Here are a selection of bookstores… Random House, Barnes & Noble, Indie BoundAmazon (US), and Amazon (UK).

Smörgåsbord – My second cookbook

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This week my forthcoming book, Smörgåsbord: The Art of Swedish Breads and Savory Treats (Ten Speed Press) is on its way to the printer and will hit the bookshelves on September 26. Yay!

The book is a celebration of the Swedish tradition Smörgåsbord which is a festive buffet with dishes like cured herring, gravlax, cold cuts, pickles, salads, and meatballs. This table with its well balanced flavors of sweet, sour, and salt is an excellent display of Nordic cuisine.

As the word Smörgåsbord is composed of two words; smörgås (open-faced-sandwich) and bord (table), the dishes are always served with several different types of bread, butter, and cheese. A smörgåsbord is most often set up in a separate room and the table can sometimes be several meters long and consist of over 100 dishes.
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At a time when we have too many things on our minds, it’s hard to find the time to prepare a whole smörgåsbord. The intention of this book is to inspire you to make smaller portions as festive starters or individual smörgås bites. Every dish in the book includes pairing suggestions so you can easily create your own personal smörgåsbord spreads. The dishes can be as simple as deviled eggs, or more ambitious with freshly baked rye bread paired with hot smoked salmon, homemade pickles, and marinated mustard seeds.

Thanks to my editor Kaitlin Ketchum for believing in this project. It’s always a pleasure to work with you and everyone at Ten Speed Press.

If you like, you can already now pre-order the book in several bookstores online: Random House, Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, Amazon (US), and Amazon (UK). The book is also listed at the Swedish bookstores Bokus and Adlibris.

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related links

Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break (my first book)

Smörgåsbord chapter pattern on fabric at Spoonflower

 

my second cookbook

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I’m finally ready to tell you, I’m working on my second book. It will be, like the first one, an illustrated cookbook with recipes and stories inspired by my Swedish roots.  But instead of being on the sweet side I will be sharing savory treats. Right now I don’t want to reveal more about the subject, but stay tune I will share more details soon.

It all started about one year ago when I sat down over a fika with my dear editor Kaitlin Ketchum to discuss some initial ideas for a potential book.  The meeting was followed by a few weeks of intensive thinking, drawing, writing and cooking while looking over a walnut orchard in Chico, California. The final proposal ended up in a contract and was followed by an extensive amount of recipe tweaking, research and writing. And when I couldn’t lift more pots or fit another bread in my belly, I sat down to draw.

I’m now working closely with the Ten Speed Press team to get all the pieces in place. Later this Spring it will be off to the printer and the book is scheduled to be published by Ten Speed Press, September 26, 2017.

Some other exciting news is that Fika has been translated and published in both Chinese and Korean. And the book is about to be translated to Simplified Chinese. Hurrah!

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Related links

Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break
by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall

Behind the Scene of Fika
more about my first book

Fika on National TV in Korea
(in Korean)

johannak-bakar

Cheese Collection on Society6

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As many of you know, last year Tenaya Darlington (Madame Fromage) and I worked on a series of seasonal cheese articles. We were both dreaming of turning these cheeses into some kind of illustrated products. And today we are finally opening the doors to our cheese collection over at Society6*.

I’m totally over the top excited about doing this with Tenaya and the best thing is, I’m learning so much about cheese.  And don’t you agree that for any cheese loving person, these products makes great holiday gifts?

Our cheese selection includes art prints, greeting cards, iPhone cases, laptop sleeves, tote bags, pillows, mugs, wall clocks, hoodies and T-shirts etc. One of my favorites is this pillow with a Provelone patternIt’s decorative and hilarious at the same time! In the future we hope to add duvet covers and shower curtains to our cheese collection. Or how about some blue cheese leggings? We also hope that Society6 one day will add tea towels and aprons to their standard products.

We really hope you will enjoy our selection.

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See also…
Madame Fromage’s Cheese Lovers Gift Guide

Cheese Calendar by Tenaya Darlington & Johanna Kindvall
Your Spring Goat Cheese Primer (part 1)
Late Summer Cheese Picnic (part 2)
Smoke and Funk: A Fall Cheese Board (part 3)
Winter Blues: A Pairing Party for 8 to 12 (part 4)

Selection of cheeses in my portfolio.

*Society6 is an online print-on-demand shop which offers many different product with printed artworks on them. Which is great as we don’t have to keep everything in stock. The product will be printed and handled just when ordered.  Society6 ships anything almost anywhere in the world.