I had a friend over for dinner, so I wanted to cook something a bit different. It’s so easy to get too comfortable with the easy regulars – spaghetti bolognese, shepherds pie, steak and the like. So I popped on over to SORTED food to see if any of their recipes caught my eye. It took less than ten minutes before I stumbled upon the Swedish meatballs recipe.
Having felt somewhat cooped up and in need of a holiday recently, previous holidays have been at the forefront of my mind. If you’re not going on one any time soon, reminiscing about past ones seems to occur.
Is it just me?
I know I have banged on about Sweden a lot since the excursion back in March, but it’s because I fell so in love with the place! The first meal I devoured on Swedish soil was a bowl full of Swedish meatballs with mashed potato and lingonberry sauce. So when I came across a recipe, I knew I had to give it a whirl. It felt only natural.
Swedish Meatballs
I have seen frozen lingonberries available in IKEA, so I suppose it is possible to make a batch of lingonberry sauce, but I wasn’t quite organised enough for that this time around. So I settled for the closest alternative – cranberry sauce. Smells like Christmas. And we all know how much I love Christmas. Enough about Christmas. It’s getting me too excited.
This is a reasonably quick recipe, and the ingredients are all super straightforward. And, with the green of the dill, the white of the creamy jus, and the maroon of the cranberry sauce, it looks rather impressive on the plate. And festive.
I can take no credit for this recipe – it’s all down to those beauteous SORTED food boys.
Alas. Here you go. The original recipe serves this with boiled new potatoes, but I am an absolute mashed potato fiend – so that is what I went for.
Steamy Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
½ pound ground beef (minced beef)
½ pound ground pork (minced pork)
1 medium egg
1 small white onion - blitzed or finely diced
1 large handful breadcrumbs - 100 grams
1 pinch nutmeg
½ cup cooking oil - for frying
1 cup beef stock (beef broth or beef bouillon)- 1 cup double cream
3 tablespoons fresh dill - chopped
4 tablespoons cranberry sauce
1 pound potatoes - for either mashing or boiling!
Instructions
- Mix beef and pork mince, nutmeg, onion, breadcrumbs, and egg with a generous pinch of salt and pepper.
- Roll and shape the mixture into walnut-sized meatballs. Ensure that they are densely packed so that they don’t fall apart in the pan. Throwing them from hand to hand helps!
- Place the washed potatoes into a pan of cold salted water, bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Heat oil in a non-stick pan and fry the meatballs until they are brown all over.
- Add the beef stock and cream to the pan and simmer for 10 minutes to thicken the sauce and cook the meatballs through.
- Chop the dill and stir through the sauce at the last moment before serving with the drained (and mashed with butter, milk, salt, and pepper) potatoes and with a dollop of cranberry sauce on the side.
- Enjoy a meatball-infused food coma.
