Name: Flying Jacob (Flygande Jakob)
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 30 min
Ingredients: 400 g chicken breast; 1 tbsp oil; 150 g bacon bits; Salt and pepper to taste; 2 bananas; 250 ml double cream; 100 ml sweet chili sauce; 1 tbsp crispy chili oil; 300 g basmati rice; 100 g salted peanuts

Flying Jacob or Flygande Jacob is a dish from the Swedish cuisine. The recipe was invented by Ove Jacobsson, who worked in aviation as an air freight worker, which is how the dish got it’s name. The story goes that Ove was asked to make a dish for the community center in Stockholm. He got to work with the ingredients in his fridge and came up with this – somewhat strange – combination.

Flying Jacob

His neighbor worked for a Swedish food magazine and published the original recipe, making it a well-known comfort food Swedish dish. Not everyone likes it, and some sources even call it one of Sweden’s worst dishes. It is definitely an unusual dish, but I thought it was great.

I went to Sweden in June of ’24 and while we didn’t actually eat this dish there (it’s more of a home cooked meal than a restaurant dish) my friend Alex, who recently moved to Sweden, mentioned it to me and I just had to try it for myself! I’ll be making a couple more Swedish dishes in the months to come (this kanelbullar recipe was the first one! And what about Swedish meatballs!)

What is in Flygande Jakob?

It is basically a very simple dish and contains the following ingredients (see the recipe card for the full recipe!)

Chicken breasts – you can also use chicken thigh if you want
sweet bananas – how many bananas you use is up to you. I used two here
smoky bacon
heavy cream – you can substitute heavy cream for a lighter version.
sweet chilli sauce
crispy chili oil – this is an addition of mine. It’s not original, but delicious! You can also substitute this for chilli ketchup or another spicy ketchup you like
peanuts – salted peanuts

Making the Casserole

The flying jacob casserole is very easy to make. You cut the chicken into smaller pieces and sautée in a frying pan until they are golden and brown. You do the same with the bacon and add both to an ovenproof dish. Then spread the banana slices on top. Mix the double cream with the chili sauce and crispy chili oil. Stir well and pour over the chicken.

Put the Flying Jacob in the oven and let it heat up for about 20 minutes. I thought the liquid was a little too much for my taste. It was fine on its own and certainly combined with the white rice, but if you want it a little thicker, you can add some cornstarch.

Variations

The dish as I have described it below is fairly traditional – apart from the crispy chili oil – but you can of course add a few things to make it a bit healthier. After all, this is pretty much a calorie bomb. Nothing wrong with that but if you want it lighter there are definitely a couple of changes you can make to the dish.

As mentioned above, you can replace the double cream for a lighter version, and you could leave out the peanuts (I wouldn’t though as they are essential to the end result) or you could omit the bacon. In any case for next time I will definitely be adding some vegetables in. I think some broccoli would work really well.

But let’s face it; you won’t be making this Flying Jacob every week probably and it’s fine to have this unique dish and enjoy it in all it’s weirdness. I loved it! But peanuts and banana are good friends so to me the rest of the ingredients aren’t weird at all.