According to Wikipedia my great grandparents would have called it koldtbord, being from the Lofoten Islands of northern Norway. But the Swedish smörgåsbord is more ubiquitous. Smörgåsbord literally means “open-faced sandwich table.”

That’s a pretty broad definition, and it has indeed led to an infinitude of iterations. For our holiday dinner this past winter I was inspired by the savants over at my favorite brunch haunt, Broder, and decided to stick to a few basics: gravlax, herring, and Swedish meatballs.

Gravlax stems from the ancient tradition of salt-curing fish. Traditionally salmon were heavily salted and buried in the beach sand along the high tide line. Over time I imagine people got tired of eating sand and decided to cure the salmon in their refrigerator instead. Gravlax at its heart is simply a decadent cured raw salmon treat. There are many variations, most containing some citrus notes and a lot of dill. After deciding on a citrus, juniper, dill, and gin variation I made two batches—one with wild salmon and one farmed. The difference was astonishing, let’s just say I’ll not be buying farmed salmon again soon. You can see the recipe I used as a foundation here.

Julsenap is a tasty mustard condiment. Again there are a million ways to make it, but I stuck with a pretty simple and delicious recipe: mustard, honey, vinegar.

Pickled herring has long been one of my favorite treats and was the first thing I was excited to make. Unfortunately I found it entirely impossible to source any fresh herring anywhere in Portland. Luckily we have a great European foods store in town—Edelweiss—and I found a few delicious pre-made pickled herring offerings.

Ikea made Swedish meatballs famous, but Broder makes them legendary. I found a fantastic recipe that mimics theirs quite well, but the real secret is in the sherry cream sauce… I’ll leave that one up to you to figure out.

Always looking for liquid libations to accompany a meal, I decided to develop a cocktail list for the evening as well. A friend brought a sultry Gloegg—a traditional warm spiced wine and I offered my favorite cocktail in town: Old Salt’s Brown Butter Bourbon Old Fashioned. The real crown pleasers though were a fresh Loki’s Mucus (eggnog) and my own Fimbulvetr. The Fimbulvetr is Krogstad Aquavit, campari, fresh grapefruit, housemade cardamom bitters, and a juniper berry garnish.