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I mentioned last week that my vacation reading included a translated-from-Swedish mystery, Detective Inspector Huss. Irene Huss has two teenage daughters, a chef husband and a band of colorful colleagues. It's well written, with lots of good dialogue moving the action forward. I liked it well enough to request the next two books in this series from the library, and I'm now reading the second, The Torso, set largely in Copenhagen.

This has led to strange insights into food in that part of the world. From The Torso,

They walked to Grabrodretrov and the small rustic pub Peder Oxe, known for its meat dishes and generous glasses of wine. All of them chose tender ox rolls in a divine cream sauce, black currant jelly, and a large helping of early spring greens

I've not knowingly eaten ox ever, as far as I know.

But this was the passage that intrigued me, a brief mention intended to be familiar to Swedish readers:

Just after ten o'clock, Irene put her key into the lock of the door to her home. A heavenly smell of Jansson's Temptation hit her when she opened it....

You shouldn't eat Jansson's Temptation right before you go to bed, especially if you have problems that can affect your night's sleep. Irene lay awake and tried to digest her agonizing thoughts and that anchovies-in-cream dish until the early hours of the morning...

I needed to look at a recipe for this.

It turns out that Swedish anchovies are not actually anchovies (Engraulis encrasicholus). They're sprats (Sprattus sprattus), according to the glossary at the Nordic Recipe Archive:

Swedish anchovies: Swedish canned sprat fillets have a distinctive flavour (eg sugar, cinnamon, sandalwood and ginger is used to spice the brine), and their taste differs greatly from that of real anchovy fillets. This is an important fact to know when preparing original Swedish or Finnish dishes that call for anchovies to be used, thus meaning Swedish canned sprats.

Good, I think. A little anchovy goes a long way with me.

The name seems to come either from a 1928 movie called Janssons frestelse, or, more fancifully, that "this was the food that tempted Jansson, a religious fanatic, to renounce his vow to give up earthly pleasures."

Swedish store Ikea is said to carry sprats, or you can get them online at a site such as Swedensbest (where you may also join the Greta Garbo society). These ansjovis are so different that one Swedish cook suggests using salmon in this dish -- if you can't find sprats -- rather than anchovies.

Blogger (Door Sixteen) and book-cover designer Anna Dorfman-Stark of Newburgh, N.Y., last Christmas offered her Swedish mother's recipe:

Janssons frestelse (Jansson's temptation)
2 yellow onions, sliced thinly
3 tbsp butter
6 medium raw potatoes, peeled and cut into small strips (julienne style)
20 Swedish sprats/ansjovis (save the brine)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Saute onion in 1 tbsp butter until nicely browned.

Butter a baking dish.

Layer potatoes, onions, and anchovies (finish with a layer of potatoes).

Drizzle 1 tbsp of the brine from the can over the top.

Dot with remaining butter (2 tbsp).

Pour 3/4 cup of the cream over the top.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes, adding the remaining cream (3/4 cup) after 15 minutes.

Janssons may be covered and reheated at 300 degrees for about 20 minutes or so and kept warm until serving. Aahh!

I couldn't find a recipe for ox rolls.

 Tags  books recipes

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