Varmkorv
Hot dogs are kind of a big deal in Scandinavia, and Sweden is no exception. Before kebabtallrikar and bananpizzor, there was korv med bröd. I don't have much more to say about them, except that a Swedish hot dog is a simple affair (until it isn’t).
There's even a song about them, too. It's basically about this one hot dog guy that gets shut down because he's still selling them out of a box on his stomach after the sanitation law changed. He "paints his sausages black because he has sorrow" and turns to rock guitar, instead.
Korven
The OG Scandinavian Hot Dog (Canis scandinavicus) is the basic Swedish one you'll find in every korvkiosk in the country. Danish taxonomists may disagree, but my passport got stolen the last time I ate a rød pølse and my preferred font for this blog does not support their silly alphabet. Also, I'm right and they're wrong (read: Danish).
C. scandinavicus has morphological similarities to the New World Hot Dog (Canis calidus) and likely shares a common ancestor, but anyone who's eaten one knows that they are a different species entirely. For instance, bread of any kind is not required. The basic Swedish korv can be ordered with bread ("med bröd"), with mashed potatoes ("med mos"), or even wrapped in paper ("i papper"). The latter was more common in the past, but it's not completely unheard of today. You will also often see hot dogs served with a fork, especially if they're topped with shrimp salad and/or mashed potatoes. If you've ever eaten one, you would know. You just know.
All joking aside, this is the basic Swedish hot dog my dad used to make me at home when I was a kid. The Swedish mustard is the thing that really differeniates a basic Swedish dog from an American church cookout dog. It's a dark, grainy kind of mustard, but it's not coarse or spicy. The best substitute in the US is Dijon mustard, but, like, a really mid Dijon. A nice one wouldn't do the trick at all, but a cheap store-brand Dijon has a pretty similar flavor profile. It's just a shame mustard never comes in a tube in the US.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 hot dog
- 1 hot dog bun
- some ketchup
- some Swedish mustard (Slotts > Felix)
- optional: bostongurka (it's a Swedish pickle relish. It's just named after Boston lol)
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HOW-TO
- Prepare your hot dog how you like it. The classic choices are boiled ("kokt") and grilled ("grillad"). Kokt is the correct choice for a Swedish dog, but grillad is also okay.
- Warm up your bun the way you like, then lay the dog in the bun.
- Top with long, longitudinal stripes of ketchup and mustard. I like relish on mine, too. It's a pain in the ass to make the proper bostongurka from scratch, so I usually just put whatever pickled cucumber I have in the blender and call it a day.
The Halv-Special
This is Göteborg’s (AKA Gothenburg's) signature dog, and it’s good. If you're ever there, you need to eat one. A halv-special is a “half special,” and it's all you really need. The Hel-Special ("whole special") has an extra dog, plus extra potatoes and/or shrimp salad. It's too much...
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 hot dog
- 1 hot dog bun
- some mashed potatoes
- some ketchup
- some Swedish mustard (Slotts > Felix)
- some crispy fried onions
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HOW-TO
- Prepare your hot dog how you like it. The classic choices are boiled ("kokt") and grilled ("grillad"). Kokt is the correct choice for a Swedish dog, but grillad is also okay.
- Warm up your bun the way you like, then lay the dog in the bun.
- Top with mashed potatoes. They usually put these on with like a scooper thing, which makes them look like the containment shields of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
- Top with long, longitudinal lines of ketchup and mustard, then sprinkle with fried onions.
Korv med Bröd och Räksallad
Yeah, it's shrimp salad. It just goes on a hot dog. If you think that's bad, then you haven't seen it on a cheeseburger. Just right on top of the cheese, some fucking shrimp salad. It's like the splortiest way to eat shrimp, and it goes everywhere it probably shouldn't.
Be thankful it's not potato salad, though. The Norwegians do that, and it's wrong. It's the "joining NATO" of hot dogs.
WHAT YOU NEED
- 1 hot dog
- 1 hot dog bun
- some räksallad
- some Swedish mustard
- optional: some ketchup (please don't)
- some crispy fried onions and/or chopped herbs (chives, green onion, or dill)
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HOW-TO
- Prepare your hot dog how you like it. The classic choices are boiled ("kokt") and grilled ("grillad"). Kokt is the correct choice for a Swedish dog, but grillad is also okay.
- Warm up your bun the way you like, then lay the dog in the bun.
- Top with long, longitudinal lines of ketchup and mustard, then a fat spoonful of räksallad. Finish it off with your choice of crispy fried onions and/or chopped herbs.
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TIPS AND TRICKS
- If you want to be really cliche, you can have a chocolate milk with your hot dog. It's kind of a stereotype about hot dog places in Sweden, because they all have Pucko chocolate milk.
- At a lot of places, you can order a Bamse instead of a boiled or grilled dog. It's like a mega-dog. I guess the closest thing in the US would be upgrading your dog to a Polish sausage, but a Bamse isn't a Polish sausage. I don't think you can buy it outside of Scandinavia, though. At least, I've never seen it elsewhere. "Bamse" means, like, "a giant one," or "the world's strongest bear." He eats thunder honey and his bestie is this catty muscletwink wolf named "Vargen."