The Swedish Christmas dinner (Julbord)

We cal the Christmas dinner for julbord = Christmas table. On the left boiled potatoes that you have to the pickled herring. Red cabbage beside the potatoes (a white bowl) The Janssons Frestelse is in the green and white bowl. At the left the ham, slices of a reindeer sausage,  cheese and dates. You do not see the dates so well on this picture.

The Christmas table 2006. Then I still had my old kitchen.
We drink a dark Christmas beer or julmust to the food. You can buy Christmas beer without alcohol too. Julmust (on this picture) is a sweet soft drink. (root beer) There is never alcohol in julmust.

The ham in the shop.

I bought a ready cooked ham. You can also buy them not cooked. I opened the plastic bag of the ham. Put the gravy( stock), that also is in the bag, in a bowl. We use to dip bread in the stock. This is called "Dopp i grytan". But I did not use the stock because it is very fat. I took away the net from the ham.

I painted the ham with egg and mustard. And put bread crumbs on it.

The ham roasts in the oven in high heat in 10 or 15 minutes. This is called “griljera” in Swedish. When it's ready you have to chill it as soon as possible. We use to do this the day before Christmas Eve so it's ready in the fridge.

The ham ready on the table. We put a kind of decoration pin in it. Our son made this decoration pin for many years ago at school. We use this pin every year. We put it on the table like this.
The ham 2006 with the crust coat of bread crumbs and the pin that Lennart made when he was little. The pink food on the right is red beet salad beet salad.

Christmas food in my fridge. Then the ham was still in the plastic bag.

Pigs' trotters. I took this picture in a shop. Some people want to have this on the Christmas table. I never buy it. I took this picture in a shop. We don’t like it and most people don’t like it. I think it looks yuck.

Making Janssons Frestelse. (Jansson's temptation) Sliced potatoes, cream, onion and "ansjovis". This ansjovis is NOT the anchovy you can buy in the rest of Europe. It's Swedhish  anchovy. There is a special factory the prepare it. You cannot make it yourself because it's a complicated process.. You bake the Janssons Frestelse in the oven in an ovenproof dish.
Janssons Frestesle looks like this when it is ready. But in the brown ovenproof dish there is a pie with cheese and smoked salmon. The two ovenproof dish at the left were already cold. The others were still hot.

Making small Swedish meatballs.

Veal brawn.

Slices veal brawn and small plum tomatoes. They are named Lampadina (not a Swedish word) They come from Spain or Italy. This is not a thing we have on our Christmas table but I like these tomatoes and had them.

Slices raw spices salmon. It is made with sugar an salt. You can do this yourself but I bought it ready. And a bit smoke salmon that I had not cut yet.

Swedish meatballs and prinskorv = prince sausage.

Smoked reindeer in slices, Christmas sausage in round slices and radish. Halve eggs with a string of caviar on it. Caviar is cod roe. We spray this out from a tube. Västerbottens cheese (Västerbotten is the landscape there I live) and dates from the USA. These dates are delicious.
Christmas 2006 I had a kind of caviar on the egg that is named lumpfish roe.

Beetroot salad,(in the middle)and egg. Smoked- and salt and sugared salmon on the left. The ham in the background.

Pickled herring: Mustard herring, onion herring and tomato herring. You can buy different taste. I did choose these ones.
This dish contains revbenspjäll = ribs of pork. Her I was eating it in a restaurant. But this pork is a part of the Swedish Christmas table too. In the background a bottle and glass with Christmas beer.

Tunn bröd. Means thin bread. You can buy this soft and hard. I have the hard one. I did not have it on the Christmas table but eat it later only with a bread meal. You can also use this kind of bread to dip in the stock. But we most use rye bread flavoured with wort to dip.
Dates and Gouda cheese as dessert.

As a dessert we also can have rice a la Malta (rice porridge with orange taste) on our Christmas table. But I never have it. It will be too much to eat this too. We use to have dates and cheese.
You also can eat the Swedish Christmas table at a restaurant. This is at Hotel Toppen in Storuman.  you see the ham, at the right the mustard. They often have a ceramic pig head on the table with the food. this pig head looks like gingerbread cookies but it is made of ceramics.
Dishes with all kind of cold fish.
Dishes with all kind of cold meat. At the left moose meat, in the middle smoked reindeer meat at the right smoked sheep meat.
You take of the food from the big table and take it to your own table on a plate. Hera I have a potato and all kind of cold fish. At the left smoked and raw spiced salmon ( you make this spiced salmon with salt and sugar and dill)
Here I have the cold meat and some small warm dishes on my plate. the warm dishes are Prince sausage, ribs of pork and Janssons Frestelse.
Ove and Lennart with the Christmas table in our home.
Ove and me in soft hooded cardigan. With the Christmas table in our home.
 
Wilhelmina Schedin 2016-03-10