Toast Skagen

Ingredients

• Small cold-water prawns — peeled500 g
• Mayonnaise150 g
• Crème fraîche100 ml
• Dill40 g
• Red onion1
• Lemon1
• White bread4 slice
• Butter60 g
• Whitefish or trout roe80 g
• Grated horseradish1 tsp
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Drain the prawns in a sieve and let them sit for at least ten minutes.

   12 min

2. 2

   Mix the mayonnaise with the crème fraîche, chopped dill, horseradish, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

   8 min

3. 3

   Chop the red onion as fine as you can and stir it into the dressing.

   6 min

4. 4

   Fold the prawns into the dressing gently, taking care not to crush them.

   4 min

5. 5

   Trim the crusts from the bread and fry the slices in butter until browned on both sides.

   8 min

6. 6

   Pile the prawns onto each toast, top with a spoon of roe and a sprig of dill. Serve at once.

   5 min

About the dish

The prawns are small cold-water ones and are not cut. Large tiger prawns have no place here: the point is that every spoonful is whole prawns rather than pieces.

The bread is fried in butter to a golden crust on both sides and the crusts trimmed. The toast has to be crisp — on soft bread the dressing soaks the base within a minute.

The dish was invented by Tore Wretman in 1956 and named after a Danish fishing town. It is a mid-century restaurant creation rather than an old tradition.

Worth knowing

• — The prawns have to be dry. Their water thins the dressing and it runs off the toast onto the plate.
• — Assemble at the last minute. Left standing, the toast softens, and this dish does not wait at all.
• — Home-made mayonnaise is better. The shop kind is sweeter and buries the prawns, where here it should be only a binder.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

28 g

Fat

32 g

Carbs

20 g

More from Sweden

• Köttbullar — Meatballs on a panade of bread and cream, in a cream sauce, with lingonberry and mashed potato.
• Kanelbullar — Cinnamon buns knotted rather than rolled. The cardamom in the dough matters more than the cinnamon inside.
• Swedish apple cake — An apple cake with cinnamon under a crisp butter crumble, served with vanilla sauce.