Palt

Palt

Palt with butter and lingonberry jam
Place of origin	Sweden
Variations	Blodpalt, pitepalt

Palt is a traditional Swedish meat-filled 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.

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.