Scandilicious! by Signe Johansen

Signe Johansen: Crac(l)king

For some reason I've been to Islington and its surrounding boskiness rather a lot in the past week; I was there on Friday evening for the launch of Signe Johansen's cook book, Scandilicious! It was a crispy, aromatic summer evening; the leafiness of the area was a suitable setting for the recipes, which aim to show that Scandi cooking is not all about rollmops and herrings. There are receipts for hot trout salad, chocolate cake, and one for sour cream porridge that manages to sound enticing. I talked to a man who smoked salmon for a living (he was wearing rubber boots, having just come from the refinery) - some of his wares were available to taste, and were indeed perfect; and there was, delight of delights, a whole roast suckling pig. The tenderness of the flesh, the crackliness of the, well, crackling (although I did stop short at eating its ear), were so delicious that I may well have been seen going up for seconds.

Signe's recipes are the kind that make you want to go and sample them immediately - and I urge you to do the same.