SWEDISH PACAKES

(Swedish Pancakes)

Recipe origin: Sweden

Ingredients

* 3 eggs
* 1 1/4 cups milk
* 3/4 cup flour, sifted
* 1 Tablespoon sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* Lingonberry sauce (raspberry sauce may be substituted)

Procedure

1. Beat the 3 eggs until thick.
2. Stir in the milk, flour, sugar, and salt, mixing until smooth.
3. Drop a small amount of batter (about 1 Tablespoon for a 3-inch pancake) onto a moderately hot, buttered griddle.
4. Spread the batter evenly to make thin cakes.
5. Turn the cakes over when the underside is lightly browned.
6. Keep finished pancakes on towel-covered baking sheet in a warm oven.
7. Before serving, spoon melted butter over the pancakes and sprinkle them with sugar.
8. Serve with lingonberry sauce for dessert after pea soup on Thursdays.

Makes about 42 pancakes.

Ingredients

* 1 large egg
* 1 cup milk
* 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon sugar
* 1/8 teaspoon salt
* 2 tablespoons melted butter
* Oil, for griddle
* Sour Cream, as accompaniment
* Lingonberry jam, as accompaniment



Directions

Preheat a Swedish pancake pan (round, cast-iron pan with shallow 3-inch indentations for pancakes) over medium heat.

Beat the egg and milk in a small bowl.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the milk mixture, stirring to make a thin batter, being careful not to overmix. Fold in the melted butter.

Grease each round cup in the pan with oil. Pour about 2 tablespoons of batter into each of the greased cups and cook until bubbles form on the top, about 1 minute. Turn with a spatula and cook on the second side until golden, about 1 minute. Remove from the pan and repeat with the remaining batter.

Serve hot with sour cream, or lingonberry jam.

Lingonberries collected in the wild are a popular fruit in northern, central and eastern Europe, notably in Finland, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Russia, and in some areas they can legally be picked on both public and private lands. The berries are quite tart, so they are almost always cooked and sweetened before eating in the form of lingonberry jam, compote, juice, or syrup. The raw fruits are also frequently simply mashed with sugar, which preserves most of their nutrients and flavor and even enables storing them at room temperature.
In Sweden and Norway, reindeer and deer steak is traditionally served with gravy and lingonberry sauce. Here is America in the Swedish culture we serve Lingonberry Jam over Swedish Pancakes



Lingonberry preserve is commonly eaten with meatballs and potatoes in Sweden and Norway. Lingonberries are a staple item in Sweden, and at the Swedish retailer. It is often sold as jam and juice in the store and as a key ingredient in dishes. Lingonberries are used to make Lillehammer berry liqueur.



Lingonberries contain plentiful organic acids, vitamin C, provitamin A (as beta carotene), B vitamins (B1, B2, B3), and the elements potassium, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. In addition to these healthful nutrients, Lingonberries also contain phytochemicals that are thought to counteract urinary-tract infections, and the seeds are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids.
Lingonberries are used in herbal medicine. They were a major component in keeping people healthy in Sweden through the long winters, when fresh vegetables were not available. A coarse porridge with fat salt pork and lingonberry preserve was a classic meal of the winter, and a large crock of the berries preserved with sugar would be found in every larder. Owing to their high content of benzoic acid, they have the additional virtue of being able to be made into preserves without boiling.

Scandinavian pancakes are similar to the French crêpes. They are often served with jam and whipped cream or ice cream as a main dish with a variety of savory fillings. Traditional Swedish variations can be somewhat exotic. Beside the usual thin pancakes which resembles the French crêpes and are eaten on Thursdays together with pea soup, the Swedish cuisine has plättar which resembles tiny English pancakes, and are fried several at a time in a special pan. Others resemble German pancakes but include fried pork in the batter; these are baked in the oven. Potato pancakes called raggmunk contain shredded raw potato, and may contain other vegetables (sometimes the pancake batter is omitted, producing rårakor). Raggmunk and rårakor are traditionally eaten with pork rinds and lingonberry jam. A special Swedish pancake is saffron pancake from Gotland, made with saffron and rice, baked in the oven.
Norwegians like their pancakes with sugar or blueberry jam, and they are often served with hot soup. Norwegians eat a great deal of rice pudding/porridge - leftovers from this can be made into small pancakes called "lapper".