_ The Fäviken chef shares a traditional flatbread recipe._

Three years ago this month, MR PORTER ventured to the wilds of northern Sweden to meet chef Mr Magnus Nilsson and better understand his traditional Nordic cooking which, among other plaudits, has gained him two Michelin stars. He has long been inspired by a desire to show the world the variety and depth of a much-misunderstood cuisine. This explains why he wrote his exhaustive tome on Nordic cooking, back in 2015, and it is why, unsatisfied with his quest to unpick the food that comes from such a large expanse of the world, he is now releasing The Nordic Baking Book. “This is the end of a six-year research project,” he says, in conversation with MR PORTER. “I wanted to explain what Nordic food culture actually looks like. It’s one of the most misunderstood food cultures there is. If you Google it you’ll find articles on [restaurants] Maaemo, Noma and Fäviken, then you’ll get recipes for gravadlax and meatballs and then pictures from Ikea and that’s it. But that’s not the truth.”

In an attempt to explain his topic of interest, Mr Nilsson is obsessive. His 555-plus pages of recipes and glossaries show off the great breadth of baking – from pizzas, to flatbreads, to soft cakes – that the Nordic countries represent. “I wanted to present as many regions as best as possible in the book and the easiest way of explaining food culture is through recipes,” says Mr Nilsson. “I had one person on the ground in each country and region to help me find the right people to interview and also to create a balance. I’m Swedish so it’s difficult as an outsider from, say, Denmark, to work out what’s relevant.”

What Mr Nilsson seems to find most interesting in Nordic baking, as with Nordic cooking as a whole, is the fact that people now eat in a way for pleasure that they once did because of their circumstances. “In more marginal climates there has always been more importance placed on grains and dairy – something you can produce a lot of in summer and then process and store. This was a necessity a couple of hundred years ago, which turned into tradition and is now culture. People get excited about these things that were purely used for survival.”

To learn more, we asked Mr Nilsson for one of his favourite recipes from The Nordic Baking Book. Below is his traditional take on Swedish flatbreads.

Baking flatbreads like these is not something we do often, usually twice a year – once before Christmas and once in the spring. I remember at my grandparents’ farm, especially before Christmas, vast quantities were made. Up to a couple of hundred cakes each of soft and hard flatbreads in a day. When you are a kid the first task for which you assume responsibility is to start sweeping the excess flour off the rolled-out cakes before they go into the oven. This is an important task as excess flour will easily burn and turn black in the superheated oven. The task reserved for the most seasoned veteran is the baking, often done by an older lady who has, over the years, gotten accustomed to the heat of the oven, which can reach over 400°C. In a very hot oven, during full production, the baking of a single bread takes only 25-40 seconds.

Preparation and cooking time: 2 hours Rising time: 2 hours 15 minutes Makes: 15 soft or 25 hard flatbreads

For the first dough 25g fresh yeast 750ml milk 750g Swedish rye/strong wheat flour (rågsikt) OR 450g strong wheat flour and 300g rye flour, sifted

For the first dough: in a bowl, dissolve the yeast in the milk, add the flour and mix until smooth and very sticky. I usually do the mixing at this point with my hand or with a large wooden spoon, but it works fine using a stand mixer too. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave the first dough somewhere warm (20-24°C) to rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size.

Fire up a traditional wood-fired flatbread oven.

750ml milk 250g butter 280g golden syrup 1 tbsp ground aniseed 1 tbsp ground fennel seeds ½ tbsp ground coriander seeds 1.75kg strong wheat flour, plus extra for dusting 2 tsp baker’s ammonia 15g salt

Combine the milk and butter in a pan and heat to 35°C, or until the butter has melted. Add the syrup and the spices to the milk and pour the mix into the bowl containing the first dough. Mix until combined then add the remaining flour, baker’s ammonia and salt together. Work the dough for about 10 minutes by hand or 5 minutes in a stand mixer. It should be very sticky and quite loose. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rise for about 45 minutes, or until again doubled in size. Tip the dough onto a heavily floured work counter and divide it into 15-25 equal pieces, depending on whether you are making soft or hard flatbreads.

Shape them into equal balls without incorporating any excess flour into the dough. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest for another 25 minutes.

Flour the work counter generously and roll each dough ball into a round flatbread – about 3mm in thickness if you are making soft ones, and as thin as possible for hard ones – using a randkavel (a striated rolling pin). Roll the round again, once in each direction, using a naggkavel (a knobbed rolling pin) to prick it and to prevent it turning into a pitta pocket when it is baked. Use a soft flour brush to gently remove any excess flour from the flatbread.

Insert a spjålk (baking stick) under the thin sheet of dough, slightly off centre, before carefully lifting it onto the fjäl (bread peel), inverting it in the process so that the side without flour ends up at the bottom. Once again use the brush to carefully remove any excess flour from this side of the dough. Slide it off the peel in the centre of the oven. Then, using a stick, rotate it so that it cooks evenly all round. If you are too slow doing this it will burn towards the back of the oven. Bake until bubbly and just beginning to blacken around the edges. Transfer the flatbread to a wire rack and using the soft brush, give it a third and final sweep to remove any remaining flour.

Fold and bag immediately once they have cooled if you are making soft flatbreads or leave them out on a wire rack to dry if you are making hard ones.

The Nordic Baking Book (Phaidon) by Mr Magnus Nilsson is out now