Delicious Scandinavian salmon recipes - Telegraph You can be too ahead of the curve. A decade ago I became fascinated by Scandinavia, sure it would be the 'next big thing'. My parents always loved Scandi style and our 1970s home was full of it; there was Orrefors glassware in the cupboards, pickled herrings in the fridge, and Abba playing on the Bang & Olufsen stereo (a piece of kit so precious only my dad could change the records). A familiarity with all things Nordic, and a love of Hans Christian Andersen, pulled me northwards. And so did the food (gravlax was one of first 'exotic' things I made. Salmon was abundant in Northern Ireland when I was growing up and you had to find things to do with it). Since so many Scandinavian ingredients - root vegetables, asparagus, herring, rhubarb and berries - are also ours, I wanted to see what they did with them. Once Ryanair could get me to Stockholm for as little as 16 quid, I started exploring, bringing back recipes for great but simple meals: baked salmon, roast beets and dill potatoes eaten under a sun that still glowed at midnight; hot smoked trout with sour cream; rice pudding with cloudberries. Now, at last, we're all in love with Scandinavia. Apparently we like Ikea more than our own John Lewis. Their crime dramas mean we spend evenings immersed in subtitles and dark melancholy. And René Redzepi's Copenhagen gaff, Noma, has the title 'best restaurant in the world'. When I look at what is particular about their food it is freshness. That can be an overused word, but the cuisine of Scandinavia has a particular green coolness. There is no ingredient, for example, that makes you feel more as if you are walking in a forest than the region's beloved dill. Salmon is another Scandinavian staple, and they value it more than we do. They seem to appreciate its pureness and therefore treat it with respect, but also with imagination. It is most often served simply with sour cream, but they also pair it with other fresh, light ingredients - eggs and horseradish, wild summer mushrooms and cabbage, beetroot and capers, even gooseberries - in a way that makes you look at this fish anew. Indeed, their approach to salmon exemplifies their whole attitude to cooking: take a simple food, enhance it with ingredients from the same culinary wardrobe, and never overwhelm. It's midsummer. Set a table in the garden. Put a jug of wildflowers on it, chill a bottle of aquavit and cook one of the dishes given here. We may not have the midnight sun but it feels good to cosy up to our northern neighbours.