Swedish Pancakes and Lingonberry Jam

Having just returned from a glorious Labor Day weekend in Door County, Wisconsin I decided to get my Swedish on and try to duplicate the scrumptious Swedish Pancakes we had at                         Al Johnson’s Restaurant and Butik in Sister Bay. I can claim just a smidge of Swedish blood having been given the middle name of Christina after my maternal great-grandmother Christina Selander who was Swedish. I don’t know if she ever made these tender pancakes that are traditionally served with the tart jam made from Lingonberries but I’d like to think they were part of her culinary repertoire. Similar in texture due to the eggs in the batter, they are thicker than the French inspired pancake or crêpe and I can see them veering off to a similar savory end  filled with a little sour cream and sautéed wild mushrooms. As I perfect my technique I may come back with something along those lines to share but for now, it’s the basic Swedish Pancake. We learned from our server that lingonberry jam is not cooked. The restaurant gets buckets of lingonberries from Sweden and mixes them with applesauce and a tiny bit of sugar to get the right consistency.  They serve the homemade jam with baskets of limpa bread, various wasa and other crisp breads, with their famous Swedish meatballs and of course, with the Swedish Pancakes. Lingonberries are best described as a cross between cranberry and current and are know under all of these other names; red whortleberries, cowberries, fox berries, mountain cranberries, mountain bilberries, or partridgeberries. Another berry native to Scandinavia are Cloudberries. I was given a jar of Cloudberry jam a few years ago and could not better describe them so am borrowing what I found in The Telegraph about the more rare arctic cloudberry. “These are unlike any other berry you have tasted. Squat and soft, like a raspberry, they are the colour of apricots but taste musky, tart, exotic.”  I’m going to search out a new jar to use on my next batch of Swedish Pancakes.

Method

• Separate eggs, and beat yolks in a medium bowl with sugar and salt. Add milk and flour alternately, stirring gently after each addition, to form a thin, smooth batter. Stir in melted butter. (Batter can be covered and refrigerated at this point for up to a day.)
•  Beat egg whites until they hold stiff peaks. Gently stir them into batter; do not worry about fully incorporating them. Do not overstir
•  Heat a cast iron or non-stick skillet or griddle over medium-high heat; when a drop of water skips across it before evaporating, it’s ready. Melt some butter in pan, and, using a tablespoon, scoop up a bit of batter and put it in pan. Cook as many pancakes at once as will fit comfortably, turning them when they are brown. Total cooking time is less than 5 minutes per pancake.
• Serve immediately, spread with lingonberry or cloudberry jam, or sprinkle with powdered sugar and some lemon juice. Roll up and enjoy.

One goat valkommen committee at Al Johnson’s Restaurant & Butik

Keeping the grass nice and even…they do come down at night and are not up during windy or inclement weather, FYI P.E.T.A.