Grilling in Sweden

I just returned from an amazing vacation/visit with some friends in Stockholm, Sweden.  In addition to bringing back the usual souvenirs, I brought home some serious lessons in cooking that I’m excited to put into use!  While we tried to follow the typical “you’re on vacation, eat out as much as you want” rule… there was an opportunity to prepare some home-cooked steaks and I’d go so far as to say it was the best meal of the vacation!

It started with a trip to the butcher shop to buy the steaks – inch and a half thick, 21 day dry-aged porterhouses that were cut to order.  Clearly this was a good butcher shop, but what made it really interesting was the various other meats that you might not expect to encounter at a butcher shop in the States… horse meat, snake meat, and even zebra meat!   Perhaps those would have been fun to try if the regular beef porterhouses didn’t look so delicious, we’ll save the zebra for the next trip. 

To create that traditional steakhouse flavor, all that’s needed is a little salt and pepper.  I’m certainly open to using a more complex (more spices) steak seasoning when it’s a lesser cut or when following a recipe, especially around the holidays, but sometimes it’s best just to keep things simple. 

When eating steak, I used to care very little about the sides and complements to the meal – heck I’d even joke that when it was somebody’s birthday instead of a cake for dessert they should be served another petit filet with some candles instead.  However, as I continue to experience more and more delicious food I’m finding that sides can really make a substantial difference to the meal.  The first tip I learned dealt with preparing home-made garlic butter.  Of course it’s easy enough to mix a few crushed cloves of garlic with butter, here I am doing the mixing - the trick is making it presentable afterwards. 

If you wrap the butter in plastic wrap you can shape the butter into a nice cylindrical shape and place it in the freezer for just a few minutes to let the butter firm up again – which will help it retain this new shape.  Unwrap the butter and lightly sprinkle it with a spice to really make it look nice – basil, oregano, whatever you like!  It might be hard to see but here's the finished garlic butter.

The next epiphany I had was how easy (and delicious) roasted garlic can be!  We were cooking potatoes and sweet potatoes in the oven anyway, and my friend cut apart a clove of garlic, drizzled olive oil over it, and placed it right in the center of the baking sheet with the potatoes.  Over the course of the next half hour the kitchen filled with a delicious aroma and the roasting really tamed the flavor because you could eat the cloves whole they were done in the oven!

The final lesson was in the grilling itself.  I’ve long used a propane Weber grill, however it simply doesn’t reach the same temperatures that a charcoal grill can reach.  Having higher temperatures that can sear the steak and seal in the flavor really does make a remarkable difference. 

It was the meal that made the trip – great food, great wine, and great friends.