Vegetarian recipes from Sweden

Meat-free Swedish cooking is built on potatoes, dried peas, butter and cream, with a short list of aromatics: dill, juniper, cardamom and cinnamon on the sweet side. Yellow peas, dried and simmered at length, make artsoppa, served on Thursdays with mustard alongside. Potatoes run from roasted to fried: scored into thin slices so the top crisps while the centre stays soft in hasselbackspotatis, or grated raw and seared into pancakes as raggmunk, eaten with lingonberry preserve.

The plate is organised by contrast between salt, sweet and acid: lingonberry answers fat, pickled cucumber cuts cream. Dairy is central, and the aged cheese of the north gives structure to Vasterbotten cheese tart, served as a starter or as a light main with salad. Eating is not confined to lunch and dinner either. The coffee break, with its obligatory pastry, is part of the rhythm, and cardamom and cinnamon kanelbullar are its usual form. Most of this repertoire happens to contain no meat to begin with.