Rökstenen, revistited

One of the extra perks about doing an interview study for my dissertation project is that I get to go all around Sweden in the company (university) car. Because the partricipants all don't live in this county, and since I find that interviews become better when I don't have to run to catch the train, the institute has agreed that I could book the university car on interview occassions. Marcus acts as my driver as I don't have a Swedish driver's license (yet!). But I pretty much enjoy being with Marcus on the job and being able to just "turn off" and relax on the way home, especially after long interview days.

On a trip to Västergötland county — about three and a half hours' drive away on highways — we took a little stretch / toilet break in Röks church in Ödeshög, where the largest rune stone in Sweden is to be found.

The name Rökstenen (Röks stone or Rök runestone) didn't sound familiar to me until we got there, but I soon realized that I had already been in this place 5 years ago. It was one of my first outings with Marcus and his godparents! Marcus and I had just met 3 months before then.

As I sat in the backseat then and knew zero about Swedish geography, I didn't even pay attention to the roads we were taking. I didn't recognize that the roads were the same as 5 years ago (although I remembered that it was the road we took back from Gränna in our 2008 camping / road trip). The stone is unmistakable though, so I remembered it at once:

I even remembered how I posed! I got the side wrong though.

Was I extra interested in runic inscriptions, I might have taken extra note of the fact that RRökstenen is one of the most famous runestones in the world – and not just read about it in Wikipedia later on. Heheh... oh well!

The runes were dated to be from ca. year 800, but the stone itself wasn't rediscovered until sometime in the 1600s when an antiquarian noticed it at the side of the old Röks church. Apparently, back in the 12th century, it was quite common to use rune stones that were lying around in the landscape to build churches (Interestingly, later on in Swedish history, it wasn't too uncommon to use stones from churches to build castles).

It's likely that the original placement of the stone wasn't so far from where the church stood, so when they tore down the old church and extracted the stone, they turned part of the new church grounds into an exhibit area. They also found out, during the stone's extraction, how unique the stone really was. All of the sides, including some parts of the top, had inscriptions on them – a total of 760 characters. One interpretation is that the stone retells a story from Nordic mythology; another interpretation goes that it is a glorification of a tribal leader's son's death using mythological reference, or a challenge to others to seek revenge for his son. One of the translations / interpretations of the runes could be read in Wiki.

Food journal number 60: Beef Wellington

Framed by a placemat, and ready to be eaten! Ha!

Beef Wellington. A fancy name for what in plain Swedish, would just be called a baked-in tenderloin, literally: inbakad oxfilé. And as that name suggests, Beef Wellington is nothing else than tenderloin wrapped in something. The outer layer consists of puff pastry; the middle layer can be anything from paté to duxelles (another fancy name for mushroom paste, which is what we made and used). But Mmmm! If something so delicious hides under that generic name, we might as well call it Beef Wellington to give it some recognition it deserves.

The first time I heard about Beef Wellington, I was watching Gordon Ramsey's Hell's Kitchen. Beef Wellington seems to be almost a staple there; like half of the guests order it. I had no idea what it was until they showed the dish coming out in plates, and the mystery dish... uh, looked like something we cooked before! It resembled inbakad fläskfilé, which is — guess what! — baked-in pork loins (that is, instead of beef tenderloin). Now only baked-in beef tenderloin can be called Beef Wellington, for obvious reasons. But one major difference is that, instead of having a wet mushroom sauce inside the dough, Beef Wellington calls for a dry mushroom paste. Beef Wellington also doesn't have to cook for so long as inbakad fläskfile. The beef can remain red, which I suppose would be another reason not to put a sauce that could boil inside the dough.

If you have a couple of minutes, here's a short clip on how Ramsey does his Beef Wellingtons. He's making something here for one or two people. We had about a kilo of tenderloin to bake though, so ours was pretty much a "family size" version of this one.

I used a recipe from our trusty, heavy Stora Kokboken (literally, The Big Cookbook), which even recommends making the dish with tomatoes provençal — basically tomatoes with the seed house taken out and stuffed with bread crumbs, garlic and herbs. It makes a super side dish; you don't need much else, actually.

Beef Wellington, a.k.a. Inbakad oxfilé
4-6 portions

600-700 g tenderloin, well trimmed
1 T butter
1/2 t salt
pepper to taste

For the mushroom filling:
1 shallot
200 g fresh mushrooms
1-2 T butter
100 g cooked eller smoked ham
2 T tomato paste
a dash of pepper
a dash of salt
1 egg yolk

For wrapping:
puff pastry sheets
whished egg or whisked egg whites

1. Trim the tenderloin really well. Sear it in a pan with butter to seal. Spice and let cool.

2. Finely dice the mushrooms and the shallots. Sauteé them in a pan with some butter until all the moisture has evaporated (takes some time, and some mixing). Finely dice the ham and mix it together with the mushroom paste and spices (I blitzed it all up together and further evaporated the paste). Let cool completely, then mix in the yolk.

3. Let the puff pastry sheets defrost a bit and roll it into a rectangle that could fit the tenderloin, abut 30 x 35 cm. Spread a little of the mushroom paste on the dough, lay the tenderloin on top and smear some more mushroom paste around it. (The cookbook recommends cutting folds into the loin and stuffing those with filling too; I skipped this part since I didn't want the meat too cooked).

4. Wrap the dough carefully around the tenderloin to create a packet. Make sure the sides are folded tight. Roll the packet so that the big fold would end up on the bottom, not top side. Make three holes on the dough and feel free to decorate with the remaining dough from the packet-folding, as I did here:

I wasn't that creative; I just copied the decor from the cookbook picture. Those are leaves, in case you didn't see it ;-)

5. Brush the packet with the whisked egg or egg whites and let rest in a cool place for 15-20 minutes before baking in a preheated (200-degrees C) oven. Depending on the size of your tenderloin and how rare you want the meat, bake for 30-40 minutes.

And there you have it! To quote from Ramsey: "Done!"

Trees in bloom

... in more ways than one!

Yesterday was rainy and gray, so we watched the Valborg (Walpurgis Night, witches' sabbath) festivities from our balcony, where these fireworks pictures were taken. The trees looked like they were in bloom – and in fact, they're really starting to bloom too, with leaf buds – which I thought was an appropriate image for this pre-Catholic spring festival.

The festivities, which are practiced all over northern Europe, involve the lighting of a big fire (like this one from an entry 3 years ago), using old twigs, leaves and branches that have fallen through autumn and winter. People gather around the fire as if it were a big campfire, enjoying its warmth in the chilly spring night. According to the old practice, the fire would ward away the evil spirits and witches. In the Christianized tradition, the festivities were linked to St. Walpurga, a lesser-known saint who apparently has the honor of being the patron saint of (and I kid you not): people affected with rabies. Burning witches? Curing rabies? Same, same!


We could see the fire from where we stood, but it wasn't as interesting in the the fireworks show that came later. Other events happen throughout the day, depending on where you live, are carnivals, choir singing or contests (Norrköping had an urban orienteering event). Some people also wear their student hats, a tradition from the time when people used to wear hats to show their status or occupation. And in general, people are merry. Valborg is another spring sign, after all. It's a tradition Swedes need to remind themselves that we are getting close to the better times, the lighter times, and the warmer times. Trees are in bloom!