Remember back when I mentioned that we bought some mead on our recent trip to Prince Edward Island? We drank it to celebrate our second wedding anniversary, with an all-Scandinavian meal inspired by The New Nordic, a cookbook by Simon Bajada. Well, I thought I’d share a couple of the dishes that I prepared as part of our Nordic anniversary feast.

I’ll break this post up into two parts, but don’t worry: I’ll be dill-igent about getting the second part out really soon!

Perhaps I should take a small step back and explain the whole Scandinavian thing? We are into all things Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic… Because my husband Erick is learning Swedish. (And doing a great job, I must say! Or, “han gör et bra jobb.”) By extension, I am learning a fair bit about Nordic culture and music! So I thought I’d tackle a little Scandinavian cuisine as well.

The menu for our all-Scandinavian anniversary meal | flourishandknot.com

I’ll be sharing the recipes for the Coho Salmon Gravlax and the Chilled Pea and Dill Soup over the next couple of days. The gravlax is a fabulous appetizer, and the soup was Erick’s favourite part of the meal (although the mead ran it a close second)!

We started off with the gravlax, which was super simple to prepare, but thoroughly dill-licious!

*For those of you who are new around here, I love to dill-iver a good (or very bad) pun. Please don’t let your readership dwin-dill just because my sense of humour is somewhat dill-usional.*

Traditional Scandinavian gravlax appetizer made of smoked salmon, cream cheese, dill, capers, and lemon juice | flourishandknot.com

Salmon & Dill Gravlax

For six medium-large appetizers or twelves small appetizers, you will need:

1 package smoked salmon

cream cheese

fresh chopped dill

six slices of toasted rye bread

capers

1 fresh lemon

  1. Lightly toast the bread.
  2. Spread a thin layer of cream cheese on the bread slices.
  3. Add a piece of salmon to each slice.
  4. Add some capers on top of the salmon.
  5. Sprinkle some dill on top.
  6. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice

It’s that simple!

Now, some of you may be leery about using capers: I was too. But really, they have less taste than olives and just add the perfect amount of saltiness to this kind of dish. I highly recommend a second chance for those little guys!

Traditional Scandinavian gravlax appetizer made of smoked salmon, cream cheese, dill, capers, and lemon juice | flourishandknot.com

This is a perfect appetizer for summer entertaining, as it requires NO oven time whatsoever and can be whipped up in under ten minutes. I hope you’ll give it a try!

So tell me: what is your favourite appetizer for summer or last-minute entertaining? Do you have a standby recipe whose ingredients are always in the pantry? Leave a comment and let me know! I love to hear from you.

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This post was featured at My Urban Family!

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