Recipe : Swedish ‘pytt i panna’ with sweet-and-sour cucumber

  • 10 years ago
  • Views : 4479
  • Ellen Ripa

We’ve just found this great recipe for a typical Swedish ‘pytt i panna’ in the latest edition of House & Garden.

Sweden’s answer to hash is often made with left-overs, commonly the remains of the Sunday roast, which makes it sound less delicious than it really is. It’s a wonderful dish – not at all like a fry-up, partly because the sweet-and-sour cucumber and the beetroot make it fresh and light.

For the sweet-and-sour cucumber – as always prepared by my Grandma!

  • 1 cucumber
  • 2 tablespoons flaked sea salt
  • 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons caster sugar
  • 2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

 

For the pytt i panna

  • 800g potatoes, peeled
  • 60g butter
  • 4 tablespoons sunflower oil
  • 3 large onions, finely chopped
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • 300g cooked meat, either roast pork or beef, or a mixture of the two
  • 300g bacon lardons or sausage, cut into chunks roughly 1cm square (bacon or sausage can be smoked or unsmoked)
  • 6 eggs

 

To serve

  • Sweet pickled beetroot

 

Method

  1. Cut the ends off the cucumber and slice it into very fine discs – they should be almost transparent. Layer in a colander with the salt, place a plate on top and set over a bowl so that the juices can run out. Leave for 2 hours. Rinse the cucumber and carefully part dry. Mix the cucumber with the rest of the ingredients and keep, covered, in the fridge for up to 24 hours, until you are ready to serve.
  2. Heat the oven to 150°C/fan oven 130°C/mark 2. Cut the potatoes into neat 1cm squares. Heat 30g of the butter and 1 tablespoon sunflower oil in a large frying pan, and the remaining butter and another tablespoon oil in another large frying pan. Cook the potatoes over a medium heat in the first pan until golden, then cover the pan and continue to cook until the potatoes are soft. In the second pan, cook the onion until soft and golden. Remove from the heat and add the onions to the potatoes, season, add the parsley and cover while you cook the meat.
  3. Heat another 1/2 tablespoon of oil in the pan used for the onions and very quickly saute the meat until it has a good, dark, golden colour all over. Add to the potatoes. Then add 1/2 tablespoon oil to the pan and saute the bacon and sausage until golden all over and cooked through: about 5 minutes. Put all the meat and vegetables into a warm, shallow serving dish and keep hot in a low oven.
  4. Fry the eggs in another tablespoon of oil, and serve the pytt i panna with a fried egg on top of each serving. Sweet pickled beetroot (not the regular sour stuff, it has to be sweet) is delicious on the side, as well as the cucumber.

 

Et voila! Bon appetit!