A Taste of Sweden: for the love of meatballs and IKEA

L: Lingonberry Juice

R bottom: Cans of Pear Cider

Three things spring to mind when I think of Sweden: tennis legends (eg: Borg and Wilander), ABBA and of course, IKEA. All very much larger than life, all iconic and all very Svee-dish.

But do any of you actually know anything about Swedish cuisine? I certainly didn’t. And did you know that IKEA is actually a great place to start your journey into Swedish gastronomy? Thanks to Dave from This Is Home, IKEA Sydney has graciously hosted its first ever food-blogger meet with a Taste of Sweden dinner. Cue the happy bloggers - me in particular as discovering new cultural cuisines is what I live for.

Swedish cracker bread and tube of creamed roe

The guest list was your usual motley crew of Sydney food blogs – Chocolatesuze, A table for two, Grab your fork, Here comes the food, Eat show & tell, The heart of food and I am obsessed with food. The location? A sectioned off area of the IKEA restaurant at Rhodes.

The ever photogenic Chocolatesuze

Naturally all of us started the night early with a shopping trip at IKEA where I happily picked up a set of coloured bowls for a mere $2.95. The rest gleefully tropped through wonderland a.k.a the IKEA food store for all their Swedish goodie needs. Seriously, I think it's next to impossible to visit IKEA without actually buying anything!

Swedish groceries - enough reason to visit IKEA!

After the meet and greet, we launched right into it with drinks of Pear Cider, Elderflower juice and Lingonberry juice (which tasted like apple and blackcurrant). No doubt my favourite of the night as all restraints were in gear to prevent me from accosting the jug of sweet crimson liquid. The pear cider was strangely fragrant but I couldn’t quite put my finger on the strange flavour. But don’t get me wrong, I still loved it.

Swedish entr ees

We were also privy to a little demonstration of Ikea cookware and frying pans – the smallest selling for only $4.50! And before you raise your eyebrows, IKEA cookware is surprisingly resilient. I own a few saucepans that costed next to nothing however their non-stick coating has lasted a lot longer than the more expensive brands.

Blogger carnage

But I digress. Swedish cuisine is not the most sophisticated or fancy, but it does centre on simple homefood that is wholesome, fresh and comforting. Seafood and fish are common in a Swede’s diet especially salmon and herring, which can be fresh, salted or pickled.

First course arrived with a quick educational pitstop from the lovely Petra - our go-to host about all things Swedish and culinary. Entrées were an assortment of Swedish breakfasts and snacks – open sandwiches (smörgåsar), crisp bread (knäckebröd) and rye - all topped with common condiments such as hard-boiled eggs, shrimp, a selection of pickled herrings, gravlax (salmon cured in salt, sugar and dill) and creamed smoked roe (Kalles).

Top: Swedish appetisers

Bottom L-R: Pickled herring in dill marinade (dillsill), creamed roe and hardboiled egg on cracker bread

Gravlax - salmon cured in salt, sugar and dill with honey grain mustard and dill on bread.

I wasn’t so much of a fan of the crisp bread or knäckebröd (cardboard springs to mind) but I adored the toppings! The Kalles - the coral-coloured salted cod roe (which tasted like creamed anchovies) - is the Swedish equivalent to Australia's own vegemite. A Swedish cultural staple and an acquired taste for foreign tongues. Luckily I adore my vegemite and I loved this tube of Kalles, especially squeezed over hard boiled eggs. In fact I’m enjoying a tube of it right now on lavosh.

Kalles (creamed cod roe) and hard boiled egg on knäckebröd

Top: Swedish caviar rolls - red Swedish röd caviar, onion and creme fraiche wrapped up in bread (mjukt tunnbröd)

Bottom L-R: Shrimp (räkor), hard boiled egg, lettuce, cucumber and mayonnaise served on bread, Salmon Gravlax

Along with the entrées, we were presented with bowls of different types of pickled herrings in assorted flavours such as dill marinade (dillsill), carrot and onion marinade (ingladsill) and mustard (senapssill). I'm now addicted to pickled herring and I’m also enjoying some of that with cream cheese and crackers.

Our mains came direct from the IKEA cafeteria. Prior to tonight there was endless Twitter banter amongst Sydney food bloggers about Swedish meatballs. With this in mind, Dave made sure there were plenty in stock for our dinner. True to our form most of us went crazy for the balls.

My dish of Salmon Pytti Panna with Basil & Mustard Sauce certainly isn’t the prettiest of dishes but it was oozing comfort and taste. Like a Swedish bubble-and-squeak, it is a delicious blend of chopped country vegetables with diced cooked salmon. It didn’t look like it was a lot but it was immensely filling and satisfying.

Mr S. orders a chicken schnitzel and chips with gravy. My pet schnitzel hate is a bland chicken fillet under a soggy crumb. Thank goodness for IKEA. The crumb was crisp and the chicken was tender, nicely salted and heavily flavoured. With the homestyle chunky chips and gravy, this was heaven on a plate.

As for the meatballs? Have a mouthful of it with gravy and a good dash of lingonberry jam and you’ll understand why we can wax love for these balls of meat till the cows come home.

Suze almost bypassed the main course for her favourite dessert - Princess cake (Prinsesstårta) - a sponge cake layered with whipped cream, jam and custard under a smooth green marzipan coating. It was certainly interesting and quite a looker but a fan of marzipan I am not.


Another gorgeous looking treat was the Punch Roll (Punschrulle) – a Swedish pastry covered with green marzipan and dipped in chocolate. It’s flavoured with punsch liqueur (made from arrack) and cacao and often referred to as a ‘vacuum cleaner’ (dammsugare).


The Delicato (Chokladboll) is a chocolate ball of vanilla, butter, oatmeal, coffee, cocoa and sugar. The flavour of coffee was stronger in this than chocolate and the texture was dense and grainy due to the oatmeal. Interesting and unlike the soft, fudgey chocolate balls that I normally eat.


To our surprise, we were also presented with IKEA gift bags containing the IKEA Cookbook and various Ikea goodies. I received a rather nifty looking apple corer while Mr S. received cookie and pastry cutters (guess who’s taxing it!). As a bonus, one of the bags contained an extra giveaway with Billy the lucky winner of a gigantic piece of IKEA cookware and utensils.


And the Swedish frivolity didn't stop at IKEA as we ended up at Suze's dwelling for a slice of Swedish Daim Cake and vanilla ice cream.


Yep, I love all things Swedish. In case you like to know, Edberg was my favourite Swedish tennis player, Chiquitita is my favourite ABBA song and IKEA makes furniture shopping fun. Now my fridge is lovingly stocked with the likes of Dillsill, Senapssill and Kalles. Fabulous Svee-den I say!

A big cheers to Dave and the crew from IKEA for a great night!


IKEA NSW

Rhodes Shopping Centre
1 Oulton Avenue
Rhodes NSW 2138
(02) 8002 0400

Store Trading Hours
Mon - Wed, Fri 10am- 7pm
Thu 10am - 9pm
Sat - Sun 9am - 7pm

Restaurant Hours
Mon - Fri 9.30am - 6pm
Thu 9.30am - 8pm
Sat - Sun 8.30am - 6pm