Swedish Meatballs

I've had versions of this dish over the years generally as an hors d'oeuvres at a cheap happy hour buffet somewhere, along with miniature egg rolls and those little cocktail sausages in barbecue sauce.  They were prefabricated and plastic, and just damned awful if not good for soaking up alcohol.  This recipe is nothing like that.  This is true, classic Swedish comfort food.

According to the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, the recipe for this dish first appeared in a European cookbook published in the late eighteenth century, after being made popular by word of mouth, no doubt.  It was brought to this country by Swedish immigrants and was considered a trendy dish in the 1950s and '60s.  Traditionally, the meatballs are made from ground pork or beef in a brown cream sauce, served with boiled potatoes and accompanied by lingonberry preserves. I served neither of those.  First, my neighborhood grocery store seems totally out of lingonberries and secondly, I think buttered noodles is a far better accompaniment. If you insist on potatoes, I would go with red potatoes, skins on and rough mashed with a little butter and cream.  Rice, too, would work just fine albeit less customary. The last time I made this dish, I served it with a traditional German/Bavarian egg noodle called Spaetzle.  That worked beautifully.

I don't know who "Chef John" is, but he posted a recipe for Swedish Meatballs in allrecipes.com which serves as the basis for my recipe here.  According to some of the comments after his post, this apparently is an authentic recipe to what you would get if dining from a traditional Swedish Smorgasbord in, say, Stockholm, with the exception of the Worcestershire Sauce, Kitchen Bouquet and cayenne pepper.  I was more interested in flavor than I was tradition, so I left them in.  I also used beef stock, not beef broth, which is what Chef John used, and I substituted Splenda for sugar.

I did not use beef in my version here, but instead used 50/50 ground veal and ground pork.  You can certainly use either or only one of these, or all three for that matter.

Ingredients
For the Meatballs
1 lb ground veal
1 lb ground pork
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
2 large eggs, beaten
1-1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup plain breadcrumbs (like, Progresso)
3/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
non-stick cooking spray (like, Pam)
1/2 cup fresh or freeze-dried parsley 

Ingredients
For the Gravy
5 tbsp butter
5 tbsp all-purpose flour, plus more dissolved in warm water if needed
3-1/4 cup beef stock (like Kitchen Basics)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 packet Splenda
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
3 heaping tbsp beef base (like, Better Than Bouillon Roasted Beef Base)
2 tbsp Kitchen Bouquet
salt & pepper to taste

The Recipes
First, make the meatballs:
Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat with the olive oil and then saute the onion until translucent and just starting to brown, 4-6 minutes.

Transfer the onions to a mixing bowl and allow to cool a bit.  Add the milk, eggs, salt, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice and cayenne pepper and stir to combine.  Then add the breadcrumbs and combine all ingredients well.

Mix the pork and veal into the breadcrumb mixture and blend all ingredients thoroughly so everything is evenly distributed.  Your hands are the best tools for this.

Cover and put the mixture in the refrigerator for an hour to firm up.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.  With wet hands, roll 2-3 tablespoons of the meat mixture into golf ball sized meatballs and lay out in a single layer on a sheet pan or cookie sheet lined with foil and sprayed with the non-stick cooking spray. This recipe and size of meatball will give you somewhere around two dozen. Note that if you are making Swedish Meatballs as an hors d'ouvre for a cocktail buffet (to be kept warm in a chafing dish), make your meatballs slightly smaller for a single bite.

Bake the meatballs until browned, about 45 minutes, turning them over midway through.

While the meatballs are baking, prepare the gravy:
Melt the butter over medium high heat in a large sauce pan, then add the flour.  Using a whisk, stir to combine making a roux.  Keep stirring until the roux takes on a slight brown color, about five minutes. Slowly whisk in the beef stock and bring to a simmer.  Add the cream, Splenda, beef base, Kitchen Bouquet and the Worcestershire sauce, and simmer until the sauce thickens and easily coats the back of the spoon, about 7 minutes. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.  If your gravy is not becoming thick enough, just combine a little more flour in a little water until thoroughly dissolved, called a slurry in culinary parlance, and then whisk it into the gravy.  If you do this, however, be sure to bring the sauce back to a simmer and cook for another minute or two.  Once you have the consistency you want, cover and allow the sauce to gently simmer for thirty minutes, stirring occasionally.

Finally, finish the dish:
Take the meatballs out of the oven and add them to the gravy.  Allow everything to simmer together for another fifteen minutes.  Serve over noodles and when plated, finish the dish with the chopped parsley.