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Palt

Type of dumpling from Sweden

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Palt is a traditional Swedish meat-filled potato dumpling, of which there are many different variants. Palt is more common in the northern part of Sweden. Palt is traditionally served with butter and lingonberry preserves, and a glass of cold milk on the side.

01Variations

Blodpalt is an old-fashioned Swedish dish still fairly common in northern Sweden and Finland. The dish's history goes back to a time when the households carefully made use of all parts of the animals to get enough food.

Blodpalt is made out of blood (cattle or pig in the south, reindeer in the very north) mixed up with flour where the most commonly used are rye, wheat and/or barley. After allowed to swell over night, mashed winter potatoes are added. The "dough" is then formed into lumps and boiled until they float up, and then served with fried pork. This made the dish a nutritious meal often eaten during the dark part of the year.

Pitepalt is a potato palt and the speciality of the city of Piteå, though variants are eaten in the whole country. This Swedish dish has almost as many variants as households in Piteå, but they have in common a mix of wheat and barley flour (whereas other variants of potato palt may use other flours such as rye, or exclude the barley), and can have either other filling than pork, like minced meat, or none at all, then referred to as flatpalt.

All palt is made of raw potatoes, while the dumplings made out of pre-boiled potatoes are referred to as kroppkakor. This gives the pitepalt a darker color in comparison.

Butter prepared in a stack to serve on palt
Butter prepared in a stack to serve on palt

02Similar dishes

Pitepalt dumpling
Pitepalt dumpling
Watch videos about PaltExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Palt, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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