Grilled Perch with Compote

1. Clean the perch and fill the abdomen with a little salt and yarrow leaves. Grill the whole fish until the meat can be separated from the bones.

2. Rinse the Japanese knotweed and chop into small pieces. Melt the butter and add the Japanese knotweed, and let it simmer until it’s fully cooked but not too soft. Add in woodruffs and have a taste. Serve with ground elder leaves and chickweed salad.

About the ingredients

• Common chickweed (Våtarv)

Common chickweed grows all over Sweden with the exception of high mountains. Its flowers are small with five white petals that are cleaved to the base. Common chickweed is very similar to the relatives of pale trot and greater chickweed, but a sure sign is the one-sided hairy stalk.

• Ground elder leaves (Kirskål)

Ground elder grows in the southern parts of Sweden. It is usually found in flowerbeds or in slopes inside the forest. Ground elder is distinguished by its three-fingered, paired appearance and toothed leaves. Make sure to reach out to a local guide before picking ground elder since it belongs to the flock-flowered fam- ily with the following poisonous plants; cowbane, fool’s parsley and hemlock.

• Japanese Knotweed (Parkslide)

Japanese Knotweed grows mainly in the south of Sweden. It is
a rare type of weed that can be found in grasslands and in forest edges of cultural landscapes. Japanese knotweed has hollow stems with distinct raised nodes that give it the appearance of bamboo. While stems may reach a maximum height of 3–4 m,
it is typical to see much smaller plants. The leaves are a broad oval with a truncated base, 7–14 cm long and 5–12 cm wide, with an entire margin. The flowers are small, cream or white, and produced in erect racemes 6–15 cm long in late summer and early autumn.

• Perches (Abborre)

The perch can be caught along the whole of Sweden’s coast. European perch are greenish with red pelvic, anal and caudal fins. They have five to eight dark vertical bars on their sides. When the perch grow larger, a hump grows between its head and dorsal fin.

• Woodruff (Myskmadra)

Woodruff grows in most of Sweden. It is usually found in grow- ing wildlife in the half-shed in groves and forests. It grows 10- 30 cm high and is a beautiful and fragrant soil cultivator. The green, shiny leaves sit in rosettes on the narrow stalk.

• Yarrow (Röllika)

Yarrow grows all over Sweden. It is usually found in grasslands, headlands and on roadsides. The plant consists of one to several stems 0.2–1 m in height and has a spreading rhizomatous growth form. Leaves are evenly distributed along the stem, with the leaves near the middle and bottom of the stem being the largest. The leaves have varying degrees of hairiness. They are furthermore 5–20 cm long, almost feathery, and spiral around the stems. The leaves are cauline, and more or less clasping.

Photo credit: August Dellert/imagebank.sweden.se