Oh, I'm so cool.  I love Scandinavian.

I have been extolling the virtues and merits of Nordic cooking for a long time now - I have been travelling to this region since the mid 2000's.

The stellar success of Noma has, in part been responsible for highlighting the brilliance of the Nordic kitchen - but I'm not sure, personally, how eager I am to actually forage for my own nuts, berries and algal foams.

Simple Swedish cooking is very attractive to me.  Potato salads flavoured with dill (a herb I do not usually like), pickled beetroot and salads made exclusively from cabbage and dressing all combine exquisitely with herrings, or simply a steak.

One thing that I learned to appreciate the qualities of at an early stage is the majestic beauty that is pytt i panna.  In its essence, pytt i panna is about as close to bubble and squeak as you can get, but its just a little bit more refined and opulent.  Small cubes of crisply browned potatoes combine with some onions, some garlic and literally whatever you happen to have left in the fridge (hence the name, which in Swedish means small bits in the pan).  Usually some kind of cold cubed meat it added, but always it is served with a fried egg and some pickled beetroot on the side.  The surprisingly optional addition of HP sauce is left utterly to the devourers discretion.

I peered into the cavernous maw of my fridge this morning to find that I still had the remnants of a savoy cabbage and the top section of a dome-like celeriac languishing in the back of my fridge.  I have some eggs.  I have some of my pickled beetroot.  A quick bit of mental cooking arithmetic = pytt i panna o' clock tonight.  I need to pop out this morning to pick up some things for a kids lunch (its going to be sole goujons - but I'll tell you about that later), so I think I'll get some salami or chorizo to make the aforementioned hotchpotch.

Photo's to follow!