Kalops.

Name: Kalops (Swedish Allspice Beef Stew)
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 2 h 15 min
Total time: 2 h 40 min
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Sweden
Ingredients: 1.2 kg beef chuck or shin, in 4 cm cubes; 6 medium yellow onions, halved and thickly sliced; 40 g butter; 2 tbsp neutral oil; 2 tbsp plain flour; 12 whole allspice berries; 3 bay leaves; 800 ml beef stock or water; 3 carrots, in thick rounds; 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, to finish; 2 tsp fine salt; 1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper; 1 kg potatoes, peeled, to serve; 250 g pickled beetroot, sliced

Swedish Allspice Beef Stew

Kalops · say it: kah-LOPS

Kalops is a beef stew built on almost nothing: beef, onion, bay leaves, water and a handful of whole allspice berries. There is no wine, no tomato, no garlic and no long list of aromatics, and the flavour comes from cooking beef and onion together long enough that the onion dissolves into the liquid and thickens it. What makes the dish read as Swedish rather than generic is the allspice — a dozen whole berries perfuming the pot with something warm and faintly clove-like that sits oddly and wonderfully against beef. Served with boiled potatoes and pickled beetroot, it is the definition of husmanskost: cheap cut, long time, few ingredients, no shortcuts available.

Jump to the recipe

Read the story

Swedish Allspice Beef Stew

Gate: Sweden
Prep: 25 min
Cook: 2 hr 15 min
Total time: 2 hr 40 min
Serves: 6
Status: Medium
Nutrition / serving · estimated: Calories 610 kcal; Protein 46 g; Carbs 42 g; Fat 27 g; Fiber 6 g; Sugar 12 g; Sodium 980 mg

Why this recipe works.

Whole allspice berries rather than ground, so the flavour builds slowly and does not turn dusty or bitter.
A genuinely large quantity of onion — it is the thickener, not a background aromatic.
Browning done in batches with a proper deglaze, so nothing that stuck to the pot is wasted.
A final splash of vinegar in the southern Swedish style, which lifts the whole pot in one move.

Tips from our kitchen.

Use chuck, shin or brisket. Lean stewing steak dries out over two hours; the connective tissue in a working cut is what turns the sauce silky.
Cut the beef into large 4 cm cubes. Smaller pieces shred into threads before the collagen has finished melting.
Dry the meat thoroughly on paper before browning. Wet beef steams and stays grey, and grey beef makes a pale, thin stew.
Twelve whole allspice berries for a kilo of beef is the working ratio — enough to be clearly present, not enough to taste medicinal.
Keep the pot at a bare shiver, not a simmer. Visible rolling bubbles tighten the meat fibres and squeeze the moisture out.
Make it a day early if you can. Kalops is markedly better on the second day, once the allspice has spread evenly through the sauce.

Substitutions.

Whole allspice berries → 1 tsp ground allspice, added in the last 30 minutes: Ground allspice loses its aroma over a long simmer and can turn slightly bitter, so add it late. Whole berries are widely sold and keep for years — worth buying properly.
Beef chuck → Beef shin, brisket, or bone-in short ribs: Shin gives the richest sauce because of its high collagen content, but needs an extra 30–45 minutes. Short ribs make a more luxurious version — remove the bones before serving.
Pickled beetroot → Pickled cucumber or a sharp cabbage salad: The pot is rich and slightly sweet from all that onion, so the plate needs acid from somewhere. Plain boiled vegetables leave it feeling heavy.

Variations.

Skånsk kalops: The southern version this recipe follows: more onion, a splash of vinegar at the end, and pickled beetroot on the plate. Some Skåne households also add a little sugar to round the sourness.
Kalops with carrots: Thick rounds of carrot added for the last 45 minutes, which sweetens the sauce and turns the stew into a one-pot meal that needs only potatoes.
Sailor's beef (sjömansbiff): A close relative in which the same beef and onion are layered with sliced potato and beer, then baked rather than simmered. Same family, different structure.

Storage & reheating.

Kalops keeps 4 days refrigerated and genuinely improves after the first night, as the allspice distributes evenly and the sauce sets to a better consistency. Reheat gently on the hob with a splash of water — never at a boil, which toughens beef that has already been cooked once. It freezes very well for 3 months; freeze it in the sauce, with the bay leaves and berries removed so their flavour does not keep intensifying. Thaw overnight in the fridge and reheat slowly, adding a little stock if the sauce has thickened too far.

Serve with

Boiled potatoes, pickled beetroot, and coarse rye bread for the sauce.

The story behind Kalops.

The name comes from English. "Kalops" is a Swedish rendering of "collops", an old English and Scots word for slices or cuts of meat, and it entered Swedish cooking vocabulary in the eighteenth century when English culinary terms and cookbooks carried influence across northern Europe. The dish that grew under the name is thoroughly local, though: no English collops recipe leans on allspice the way this one does, and the Swedish version turned a generic braise into something specific.

Allspice — kryddpeppar, literally "spice pepper" — is the pivot. It arrived in Europe from the Caribbean and found an unusually enthusiastic home in Sweden, where it went into herring pickles, sausages, meatballs, cured fish brines and, above all, kalops. Left whole rather than ground, the berries release their aroma slowly across two hours of simmering, which is why the recipe calls for them intact and why fishing them out before serving is a matter of household preference rather than rule. Some cooks tie them in muslin; plenty of Swedish grandmothers simply let people find them and push them to the side of the plate.

Kalops belongs to the same weekly rotation as pea soup and meatballs, and like most husmanskost it was designed around what a Swedish farm household actually had: a tough cut from an older animal, a sack of onions that kept all winter, bay and allspice from the pantry jar, and time. The southern province of Skåne makes a particular claim on it — skånsk kalops is the version people name — and there the stew is more likely to come with pickled beetroot and, in some homes, a splash of vinegar stirred in at the end to sharpen the sauce. The recipe below is that version, because the sourness is what keeps a rich brown stew from feeling flat.

Questions, answered.

What does allspice taste like and why is it in a beef stew?

Allspice is a single dried berry that tastes like a combination of clove, cinnamon and nutmeg with a peppery edge — hence the name. In Sweden it is a savoury spice rather than a baking one, used in herring pickles, sausages and meatballs, and in kalops it gives the sauce a warm, faintly clove-like note that is the dish's signature.

What cut of beef should I use for kalops?

A tough, well-worked cut with plenty of connective tissue: chuck, shin, brisket or short rib. These need two hours or more but repay it with a sauce that is naturally glossy from melted collagen. Lean cuts such as sirloin or round go dry and stringy no matter how carefully you cook them.

Why is my stew watery instead of thick?

Kalops thickens mainly from dissolved onion and melted collagen rather than from flour, so it needs both time and enough onion — the recipe uses roughly one onion per 200 g of beef for a reason. If it is still thin at the end, lift the meat out and reduce the liquid hard for ten minutes, or stir in a teaspoon of flour mashed into butter.

Do I remove the allspice berries before serving?

That is up to you. Many Swedish homes leave them in and diners simply push them aside, which is entirely normal. If you would rather not bite into one, tie the berries and bay leaves in a square of muslin at the start and lift the bundle out before serving.

Can I make kalops in a slow cooker or pressure cooker?

Yes to both. Brown the meat and onions in a pan first regardless — that colour is flavour you cannot get any other way. Then give it 6–7 hours on low in a slow cooker, or 35 minutes at high pressure with a natural release. Reduce the liquid by about a quarter for either method, since neither loses much to evaporation.

All recipes →