Serves: Makes ~20 meatballs
Approx cost: €3.00
Approx calories (per serving):
Approx preparation and cooking time: 40 minutes
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #0B0B61;”]Hi again everyone and welcome back to my little “Christmas run-down” – a dish a day from the 19th until Christmas. Today I’ll be cooking up some meatballs – a common sight on the Swedish Julbord, or “Christmas Table” along with some of the other things you’ll see here over the next few days. To make these meatballs a bit more festive we decided to add some spices – nutmeg, ginger, and naturally cinnamon made for some excellent seasonal flavours and I’m thinking a bit of clove and/or cardamom would also be delicious. For the meat, we used minced beef – many people use a mixture of pork and beef mince, which makes for an excellent meatball. Unfortunately, mince pork isn’t something you see much in France. They sell sausage meat but that’s just not the same – full of added salt, nitrates, preservatives and much higher fat content. If you can get it though, I recommend giving it a shot with half/half though.
Stay tuned for the rest of my posts this week – I hope I can give you a, albeit brief, culinary tour of some of the highlights of English and Swedish Christmases. You’ll have to forgive me if my posts are a little short during this time too. I’m preparing for my vacation (I leave a week today!), so not only do I have seemingly so many things to prepare for Christmas itself, but also for my trip. I’ll be sure to repent for my brevity at a later date with, hopefully, some nice photos of my vacation. Until tomorrow – have a great day everyone! 🙂
Ingredients
- ~350g Minced Beef
- ~ 0.5 decilitres Cream
- 1 Onion
- 1 Egg
- 2 slices of White Bread, crusts removed
- 1 tsp Ground Ginger
- 1 tsp Ground Nutmeg
- 1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- Little oil for frying
Instructions
- Start off by toasting the bread before tearing into pieces and placing inside a food processor. Blitz until the bread is well chopped, and then peel and cut the onion into quarters. Add in the onion to the breadcrumbs and continue to blend until the onion is completely pulverised. Pour in the cream, the egg, the spices, salt and pepper and the meat and continue to chop until you have formed quite a smooth paste.
- Transfer the mixture to a bowl and then start rolling the meatballs. I find it’s easiest if you prepare a plate which has some oil poured into the bottom of it. You can place the meatballs in here prior to cooking and they will not stick to anything. When you’re ready, pinch off pieces from the beef mixture a bit smaller than the size of a golf ball. Compact the balls in your hand and roll them quickly into firm balls, before placing onto the oiled plate. Continue until all the beef mixture is gone.
- Preheat your oven to ~160 degrees Celsius and then heat a frying pan on the stove on medium-high heat and pour a little oil into the pan. When hot, place the meatballs into the frying pan, about 8 – 10 at a time and fry for about 5 minutes, agitating the pan regularly to roll them around, ensuring they don’t get too flat on one side.
- After this time, transfer them to an oven-safe dish and cook for about 20 minutes in the pre-heated oven to ensure they are cooked through. Depending on the fat content of the minced beef used, you may need to drain away quite some fat at the end of cooking. If making a few hours in advance, you can cook them in the frying pan first and delay the oven-cooking until just before serving. Enjoy 🙂
OOOhh, I like! I want! The only time I've had this (and still can) is at Ikea. The serve them with some red berry sauce … yummers! I could never replicate those … til now. Thank you for making this, Charles.
Thanks Ping – these are a bit differenty, as they have some yummy spices inside – if you want the basic ones then just forget the cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. If you have a chance to find it, the jam you need to buy is called "Lingonsylt" or "Lingonberry Jam" 🙂 I wish I'd taken a photo from when my wife had rolled the balls! Her skills at meatball creation are much better than mine 🙂
The minute I see this, it's IKEA!:p
Haha Christy – I assure you the meatballs are home-made, although I did get the little flag from IKEA 😀 😀
Ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon??? And cream??? I absolutely must try making these balls! (But if I understood well normally they do not contain these spices?) They look delicious and of course seeing the Swedish flag I think of IKEA too (they put flags into their food 😉 ) I think I love the simplicity of Swedish cuisine. It will take time, but I will start making Swedish dishes soon. Thank you for the inspiration.
Thanks Sissi – you're right… they normally do not contain these spices at all… just some salt, maybe a bit of pepper. The addition of the spices this time is to make them a bit more festive. They're a very integral part of the Swedish Christmas table so it's nice to change them a bit for the special occasion 🙂
Indeed, the flag came from IKEA – I had some meatballs there on Thursday night 😀
There are some Swedish cakes I really want to try and make myself – of course, I will need to wait until I'm back from my vacation (and for that I need to actually leave for the vacation first :D)
Wow so full of flavor and spices! I'm so intrigued on how they will taste. I love learning of new food traditions from other cultures. I just may surpprise my kids with a non Italian Xmas one year! I'm excited for your futur posts!
Hi Linda – I might just try that tradition which you mentioned myself next year – what was it… the "seven fishes meal" or something? Sounds wonderful! Definitely a change to the starchy, fatty English or Swedish style festive fayre!
Ah, love Swedish meatballs (especially ones that don't come from the cafeteria at IKEA!! LOL). They're just so satisfying and delicious and you can accompany them with virtually anything – great versatility. Would I be crazy to add some water chestnuts to the mix?
Hey now, IKEA cafeteria food is great! 😀 Ok, it's not the best, but you get what you pay for and in a place where things are so expensive as France, a place where you can get a plate of hot food, a dessert, a bread roll and a drink AND coffee for about €6 is pretty darn good!
Water chestnuts? ha… well, that's something I never heard of – I love those little crunchy things so they might be a nice addition!
Charles, I LOVE the spices you used to make them festive! How great these must be! Also I wanted to let you know that I’ve selected you for the Versatile Blogger Award. You can find out about why I selected you and what you need to do in my link below.
http://zestybeandog.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/vers…
Thanks Jen – they're indeed nicely festive spices 🙂 Thanks so much for nominating me! It's so kind of you 🙂
Swedish meatballs! I totally think of the Swedish Chef from the Muppets when I see Swedish meatballs. These do sound good, although I confess that meatballs are not my favorite. Leftover childhood scars. LOL. Maybe I should give them another go as an adult. 😉 Can't wait to see pics from your trip!!
Bork Bork! 😀 They're nice – though I do wish my wife had rolled this particular batch! She's very good at making them a round, uniform size! 🙂 You should have a crack at these – Serve them up to Mr. N. and Miss. A 🙂
My mother's meatballs usually contained equal parts pork and beef and just salt and pepper for seasoning. I don't think she'd care for the ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg but it sounds like it would be an interesting flavour combination. 🙂
Hi A_Boleyn – Yeah… half/half pork and beef makes a wonderful mix – really tasty and succulent. Problem is finding ground pork here 🙁 I agree… I wouldn't like my meatballs like this all the time, but around Christmas time it's nice – the spices didn't come through very strongly either, which was nice!
I learned so much from this post. If you mention Swedish meatballs in the US, I think most people would think of them as being served in a white cream sauce. Second, I thought IKEA was only furniture, etc. not food.
Hehe, always nice to know I've "learned" something to someone 🙂 IKEA is indeed mainly furniture, but they usually have a cafeteria in their stores, as well as a a small grocery store where they sell Swedish products – fish, smoked reindeer, potato chips, bread, certain cakes, elk-shaped pasta, Swedish beers, pickled herring and candies, as well as seasonal favourites like trays of frozen crayfish in August, and Christmas hams in december 🙂
I couldn't comment on your previous post for some reason, so I'm glad I'm able to do so on this post. These meatballs sound fabulous and really do remind me of Christmas. We go to a family friends house every Christmas Eve and one guest always brings these amazing meatballs…I'm really hoping they'll be there this year! So exciting about your trip. Can't wait to see photos!!
Hi Caroline – yeah, I had some problems replying myself. My site was bouncing up and down like a yo-yo it seems. Seems resolved now 🙂 I'm jealous of the meatballs you'll get to have! I hope you have a good time 🙂
Those are quite tasty looking little morsels.
Indeed they <del>are</del> were! 🙂
Ahhh this is something I like a lot) thanks for the recipe! But hmmm…. What about the lingonberry sauce? )
I will definitely try those, I am much better with cooking meat than u know, baking stuff…) Thinking of making those for the New year eve dinner.
Thanks Marianna – To be honest, I normally only eat the lingonberry jam with "regular" meatballs, when eating with the brown sauce. Nothing stopping you serving some up though! Let me know if you try them!!
Haha first reaction was IKEA meatballs! My kids love those mini size meatballs and I love shopping there so I use those meat balls as a bait (or should I say a prize?). Homemade version look a lot more nicer and yummy!
Thanks Nami – It's really too bad I didn't post my wife's ones which she made. They were many times better and more pretty than the ones I tried to roll together. Oh well 🙂
I love Swedish meatballs, Charles, and (dare I say?) even the one's at Ikea, although I haven't had them in ages (now that's a cheap lunch!). I'm quite intrigued with the combo of spices in this recipe. I suppose you could bake them instead of frying for a slightly healthier version. I love the little flag in your final picture. Did you serve them with the Linganberry sauce and gravy?
Hi Eva – yeah, even the "un-homemade" ones are pretty good, at IKEA 😀 The spices make them very festive. Not something I'd want all the time – I like regular meatballs – but at this time of year it's lovely. Normally we'd serve the lingonberry jam too with them, but didn't actually have any this year. My local IKEA had none, and I didn't have a chance to go to the really large store, so just good old plain meatballs this time 🙂
How did I miss this post.. oh how I love meatballs and these swedish meatballs just look so yummy and delicious. Yeah, I can definitely enjoy these on a lazy day. Amazing
Hi Kay – just need some mashed potato, bit of Swedish brown sauce and a plate of these and a good movie and you're good to go 🙂
They’re so delicious! I also make a sauce: I put some cream in the butter/oil where I fried them, then I add some broth and 2 teaspoons of flour and I mix on medium heat until melted. Yummy!
Or I also put mustard on them, with boiled potatoes and blueberry’s jam as outsider! 😀
Oh yeah, mustard with them is delicious, and something so simple as boiled potatoes makes a wonderful side. Love the sauce idea. I make a brown sauce from time to time, although don’t think to use the same pan as the meatballs 🙂
Thanks for dropping by, happy new year!