Serves: 4
Approx cost: €10
Approx calories (per serving): ~650
Approx preparation and cooking time: 60 minutes
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #9b9b9b;”]It’s my 100th post! Yep – I’ve now published 100 recipes on FiveEuroFood.com – here’s to the next 900 ;). Let’s take a trip down memory lane – what have I learnt from my early posts? Well, check the final pic on my first post! Eesh, you won’t see that anymore – horrid photo! My food photography for one, while far from perfect, has been improving over time. My wife recently bought me a wonderful book – “Plate to Pixel: Digital Food Photography & Styling” which has a whole heap of useful advice inside and I’m looking forward to applying the knowledge and making the photos on my blog here look even more delicious.
I wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who comes here. In the last 9 months I have met some great people through my site. I love reading your comments – and I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again – you inspire me to carry on. Those of you with food blogs yourselves – when I’m feeling unmotivated, I just need to look at one of you peoples’ blogs and I get a whole load of great ideas – ideas I never would have thought of in a hundred years, and it’s amazing to see the sort of things that other people are doing with ingredients I’m familiar (and not so familiar) with, so I thank you!
Before we move on to today’s recipe I did promise a giveaway. After seeing some comments on this subject before, I’ve decided that I’ll be offering out an awesome kitchen knife to the person winning the draw. I’ve read many comments before where people lament not having a decent knife, and it’s seriously one of the most important things you can have in the kitchen. My wife bought me a set for my last birthday present and they’re really good. Great weight, great build quality. The knife is a 6 inch utility knife, pictured below, and will be sent directly from the factory in Thiers, France. It can even be personalised with your name! The winner will be drawn on the 6th of September and all you need to do to enter is just leave a comment below – be sure to enter a valid email address on which I can contact you! You can get two entries into the”pot” by “Liking” FiveEuroFood in the Facebook box to the right of this post – let me know that you’ve done this too in your comment 🙂
Now onto the recipe! At the time of writing the post I still didn’t have a functioning oven and despite peoples’ wonderful suggestions I was, unfortunately, in no situation to make a cake. I got to thinking and realised I needed something sufficiently “celebratory”, but I so badly wanted a cake, so why not have a “Swedish Sandwich Cake”, or “Smörgåstårta” (pronounced “smur-gors-torta”). The recipe below is really purely a guideline because there are about a million ways you can customise it. It’s a very popular celebratory food in Sweden – something commonly seen at all manner of parties and events. I hope you enjoy it 🙂
Ingredients
- 6 slices Sandwich Bread
- ~400g Prawns or Shrimps
- ~6 slices of cold meats – ham, beef, turkey, chicken etc
- ~350g Crème Fraiche
- ~6 tbsps Mayonnaise
- 3 Eggs
- 1 Onion
- Half a Red Bell Pepper
- Large chunk of Cucumber
- 2 or 3 pickled Gherkins
- 2 tbsps Horseradish Sauce
- Large handful of fresh Parsley
Instructions
- Chop the cold meats into strips place in a bowl. Chop up the gherkins finely and add into the bowl with 2 tbsp of Crème Fraiche, 1 tbsp of Mayonnaise and the Horseradish Sauce. Mix well and set aside. Next, mix 3/4 of prawns or shrimps in a separate bowl with another 2 tbsps of Crème Fraiche and 1 tbsp of Mayonnaise. Peel and chop the onion finely, add half to the shrimps and mix well and then set aside. Boil the eggs for about 6 minutes and peel them, and then chop the cucumber and the bell pepper into thin slices. Mix the rest of the Mayonnaise and the Crème Fraiche together well in yet another bowl.
- Cut the crusts off the bread and arrange two slices next to each other. Scoop over the chopped up meats and spread to cover the bread slices. Place another two slices on top and then spoon the shrimps/onion/mayo mix on top. Again, spread out to cover the bread and then finally place the last two bread slices on top. Spread or pour out the Mayonnaise/Crème Fraiche mix you have made and spread it out to cover, as best as you can, the entire top and sides of the “cake”. Different mayonnaises and Crème Fraiches will yield different results – some will be spreadable and thick, others much more runny. Finally, peel and chop the eggs and the parsley finely, and arrange each remaining ingredient on or around the “cake” in a pleasing manner. I’ve surrounded the bottom with cucumber and chopped egg, placed bell pepper and shrimp and onion on top and topped it all off with parsley.
- Last but not least, cut into slices and enjoy!
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