DO YOU IKEA LIKE I IKEA?
Ten things I bought for the kitchen and the table. And yes, of course I came home with Swedish meatballs.
Need cutlery organisers. Need Scandinavian crackers. Need a long walk through a metaphorical forest of homewares and furniture looking at how Swedish people live their lives. Need, also, things I don’t yet know I need, like very fine, crisp, ginger biscuits. Need a trip to Ikea.
To do Ikea properly, you need a strategy. Make a list of your wants and needs. Can they be fulfilled other than by a multinational conglomerate with an amazing design ethic? By something local, Australian, hand-made, second-hand? No? Then measure up your drawers or whatever is relevant, and head off. Do not try to visit Ikea when in a hurry, and avoid peak times. Take your own bags or use the trolley to empty everything into the car. Wander in awe. Take quick photos of things of interest as reminders, as all will quickly blur. DO NOT buy any rubbish. Then - strike.
Here’s what I brought home, and why.
KNACKEBROD CRISPBREADS, $5.50
Rye and multigrain. So crisp, they crack like toffee. The office lunch has been fun ever since, with toppings of smoked salmon and egg, matje herrings and egg salad, and chicken liver pate and lingonberry jam, under a scattering of rostad lok, crisp-fried onions. Tip: buy yourself a bunch of dill.
LINGONBERRY JAM, $5.50
So bright, so red, and with real little lingonberries in it! (Sylt Lingon)
GINGER THINS, $4
This is THE BEST biscuit to use to sandwich rounds of ice-cream this summer/ this Christmas. In the meantime, do a Swedish Devonshire - spread with crème fraiche and lingonberry jam, sandwich with another one, squeeze together.
365+ COFFEE MUGS, $2
At 240 ml, they’re not too big, not too small, and hold their heat. And they stack! And they’re $2.
PROPPMATT WOODEN CHOPPING BOARDS, $5
I keep a stack of small chopping boards - new and vintage - in the kitchen because sometimes you just want to chop a tomato and not get the major chopping board wet, because that has the bread on it. 30 x 15cm.
VARIERA STORAGE UNITS, $5
I am going to be SO organised. One for breakfast spreads, one for Indigenous spices, one for all those small kitchen tools I can’t fit into my kitchen drawers any more.
UPPDATTERA CUTLERY TRAY, $10
I am already so organised. You should have seen this drawer yesterday.
RINNING DISHWASHING BRUSH, $2
So cute. So effective. So good for glasses.
SWEDISH MEATBALLS, $16.50 kg
They’re tiny, meaty and frozen. Not particularly promising. But thaw, and fry in a pan with butter and oil until tanned, then whip them out and make a quick cream sauce in the pan (recipe below), then return them to the pan to heat through and serve with mashed potato and lots of dill. And a spoonful of lingonberry jam.
Ikea has launched a plant-based Swedish meatball, called ‘plant balls’, leading to the best food/retail quote of the year from Sharla Halvorsen, Health & Sustainability Manager at Ikea Food. “We actually hope that we sell less meatballs”.
KALLES KAVIAR, $7.50 (PURCHASED BY TERRY)
Creamed smoked fish roe that comes in a toothpaste tube. I don’t get it, but he gets it. Happy as.
Note: You may have read recently that Ikea will be launching a new form of smaller ‘metro’ style store that won’t stock food. True, there is a new concept store at Melbourne’s Highpoint shopping centre which seems to be more about helping you plan and design entire kitchens, etc, but it has not affected existing Ikea food stores or canteens.
RECIPE: THAT CREAMY SAUCE YOU NEED FOR SWEDISH MEATBALLS
To cook the meatballs, heat a little butter and olive oil in the pan, add the (thawed) meatballs and fry in batches for 5 to 10 minutes until tanned.
Remove and keep warm.
To make the sauce, melt 1 tbsp butter in the pan and scrape up any meatbally sticky bits. Once melted, scatter with 1 tbsp plain flour and cook gently for a minute, stirring with a wooden spoon, to cook the rawness out of the flour.
Gradually add 150 ml chicken stock, stirring, then whisk in 100 g cream or crème fraiche and 2 tsp Dijon mustard, and allow to bubble and reduce, while you’re stirring. Season with sea salt and black pepper. May need more stock, depends how thick you like it. Simmer gently for a minute or two to allow the sauce to thicken.
Return the meatballs to the sauce, add sea salt, pepper and chopped dill or parsley, and push-pull the pan a few times over the heat until the meatballs are well-coated.
Thanks for reading! And special thanks to my right-hand man, Terry Durack, for buying only two tubes of Kalles Kaviar, and putting back the other two.
I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.
Well done on the trip to IKEA. Glad you found your way out also... I love going to IKEA but admit it is some time since I did so due to lockdown restrictions. And I do prefer to go without my husband as he hates IKEA due to it being a bit like a maze. I note you have wide drawers which would well suit those storage dividers, I have some but I end up with gaps where I have to search for things, (narrow drawers) although possibly like you I could go to the drawer blindfolded and still find what I’m looking for. Good to see that you were able to get the meatballs, I heard recently that there was talk of them deleting them, but then perhaps that is because they are looking at the non meatball replacement. There are some great recipes for non meat meatballs or burgers, but when you want meat, you want meat! Steak for din dins tonight!
Loved this article, Jill. I love IKEA as well. Hoping to get there in the next week or two. I agree, the Swedish Meatballs are so tasty and and handy to have in the freezer. Love the ginger biscuits too. At Christmas IKEA has them in very pretty tines -- handy for gifts.