"Body cakes"? Well, that's the translation of “kroppskakor”. I have absolutely no idea as to why they have this name... Your guess is as good as mine.
But, behind this somewhat sinister name lies a simple, humble dish. Potato dumplings. Yet another uncharismatic dish I've decided to document.
Kroppkakor have many regional variation throughout Sweden. The variables lie in the amounts of raw vs. cooked potatoes used in the dumpling, onions or no onions in the filling (heck, some areas of Sweden apparently skip the pork, too and fill these with fillings made from eels or even pelagic birds! Sorry, my market was out of these two ingredients...), and if it is seasoned with allspice or black peppar. I've loosely used a recipe based on kroppkakor from one of Sweden's baltic islands: Öland.
The ingredients (left to right, top to bottom):
About 1 pound of small, boiled potatoes, 1/2 pound salt pork, about 20 allspice berries (or about 1 tsp ground allspice), nearly 2 pounds of uncooked potatoes, one onion (I used 2 small...) and about 2/3 cup flour.
Start by finely grating the uncooked potatoes and squeezing them through a cloth to remove as much moisture as possible:
Mash or rice the boiled potatoes and place in a mixing bowl:
and add the grated, fresh potatoes, about a tsp salt as well as the flour. Mix to form a sticky dough. Roll the doll into a log (using wet hands) and cut into 12 equal pieces.
Next you’ll need to finely chop the salt pork and the onion(s). Sprinkle with the allspice, and saute until lightly browned.
Carefully add about one tablespoon of the filling to each disc of dough and pinch to seal shut.
The dough, due to its consistency, actually seals very easily. Use wet hands to avoid a huge mess! You’ll end up with 12 dumplings (save any leftover filling to serve along side the dumplings if you wish).
Meanwhile, bring a rather large amount of salted water to a boil. I used about 7 quarts and had 1 ½ teaspoons salt per quart of water. Carefully add your dumplings to the rapidly boiling water.
Let the water come to a simmer and reduce the heat to keep everything at a steady simmer. You’ll want to let these simmer for about 20 minutes. They’ll float to the surface as the get done.
Serve with peas, melted browned butter and lingonberry jam.
Actually, in Sweden, kroppkakor are served with a lingonberry product known as “rårörda lingon” (literally, raw-mixed lingonberries). These are simply fresh lingonberries that have been mixed with sugar. This preserves the berries but the end result has more of the sourness and bitterness that fresh lingonberries have than cooked preserves. Perhaps something similar could be done with cranberries?
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