ALLCAPS COOKBOOK PRESENTS: Absolutely Perfect Swinnish Meatballs (Patreon)

I FRICKING LOVE Swedish meatballs.

But I have never been able to make them to my own satisfaction. I’ve never even been to an IKEA in my life, I’m not EVEN TALKING about those, just the soft awesome meatballs in the rich brown sauce—and it’s the sauce that I’ve never really gotten right.

And then a few years ago, I was in Finland for Finncon and I ordered Finnish meatballs, which were mostly like Swedish but slightly different and served over crispy slabs of pup chips (fries for us Americans). It was so warm and filling and comforting and exactly what I wanted in the moment with friends and conversation and a good red beer (my favorite) that I was even more disappointed with my inability to reproduce it at home.

Well, when you tell Twitter you’re disappointed in yourself, Twitter tends to try to help. So last month, armed with a base recipe and tips from 6 or 7 of my Swedish and Finnish friends (hence I dub these "Swinnish"), I pulled together a recipe that is almost (it’s not quite the same, can never be country to country and there really are just so many variations on this concept it beggars the mind) perfect.

Obviously the key was booze in the sauce and I can’t fully understand how I could miss that. I’M NOT NEW AT LIFE.

Now, if you follow me on Twitter you know I SUFFERED FOR THIS RECIPE. I burnt my forefinger up to the knuckle and it hurts like a goddamned meatball. I can’t say it made the recipe better, but I can’t say it DIDN’T. (It didn’t, don’t burn yourself.)

I have been reliably informed by outside sources that these are in fact amazing and it’s only my pickiness and self-judgment that’s making me say they’re only almost perfect.

YOU BE THE JUDGE BUT WHEN JUDGING DO NOT FORGET THE LINGONBERRY JAM.

BUT!

OMG PLOT TWIST!

When I originally did all this, I made too many meatballs so I tossed the extra into the freezer to make a new batch later. AND THEN I forgot about it, and this recipe, for four weeks. And also forgot how I made the sauce when I wrote all those other paragraphs up there. My brain is a ’79 Datsun, my friends.

But last night, I remembered! And I dug them out and made them again and made the sauce again and tweaked a few things and HOLY SAINTS ON HIGH AND ALL THEIR TRUMPETS AND GOOD LIGHTING AND SHIT.

Reader: it was perfect.

It tasted exactly like I remembered it tasting back in Finland. It was everything I ever hoped. I fucking NAILED IT. So hard I said NAILED IT very loud to no one when I took the first bite. These were profanity-inducingly good. I'm not sure my little tweaks were 100% authentic, but the taste was RIGHT, so I'm not overly fussed.

I like it served over roasted potatoes, but you do you, boo.

So before I get into the recipe, I want to give you my biggest tip for making anything taste more like it does in restaurants. And I’m serious here. It’s such a, dare I say, kitchen hack, that I’m gonna bold it so you KNOW IT’S BIG NEWS.

Make the meat ahead of time, freeze it for awhile, then thaw it out.

If there’s a sauce, let it get cold in the pan, grow a skin, then quickly reheat it and stir together before serving.

In most restaurants, meat sits in the freezer and sauce sits in the pot for quite awhile before being cooked/reheated and served. Your food will genuinely taste more like you remember it tasting at that one place if you do the same (keeping safety in mind).

LET’S GET READY TO MEATBAAAAAAALL!

Ingredients

Meatball Party:

1 cup breadcrumbs (storebought or make your own, who cares, it’s slightly yummier if you make your own but meh. How to make your own? Let nice bread get stale, grind in food processor)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon + 1 tablespoons butter

1 small onion, minced very fine (I just ANNIHILATED it in the food processor so that the final texture would be completely smooth)

1/2 lb ground beef

1/2 pound ground pork

1 egg

1 tablespoon brown sugar (maybe a smidge less)

1 teaspoon salt

Spice Mix (make each of these a rounded 1/4 teaspoon, then mix together and take a generous pinch of the mix and put it aside for the sauce later)

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/2 cup beef stock

ZOMG Sauce:

1/4 cup brandy + enough extra to deglaze the pan

2 cups beef stock + 1/2 reserve in case you need to loosen the gravy

1 teaspoon dijon or other brown mustard

Pinch of meatball spice mix

Teensiest tiniest pinch (I’m talking less than 1/8 teaspoon, just a weeee pinch) cloves

1/2 teaspoon white pepper

2-3 tablespoons flour (maybe more depending on how thick you want your gravy)

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon sherry vinegar

A generous spoonful of lingonberry jam for each plate

SWEDISH CHEF SAYS GO LIKE THIS

Preheat oven to 350/175C

Pour breadcrumbs into a bowl, add 1/2 cup heavy cream, give it a quick stir and set aside to absorbaloff. While that’s happening, melt teaspoon of butter in a cast iron or other oven-safe large skillet and fry annihilated onion on medium heat until it starts to turn brown. Remove onion to a mixing bowl, let cool slightly, then add meat, egg, spices, brown sugar, and then lightly stir in the milk and breadcrumbs goop. Combine well but don’t over mix.

Make smallish meatballs, about a tablespoon and a half each. Make them all ahead of time—you can easily freeze half and unlock the Authentic Restaurant Achievement, this makes quite a lot. Melt a tablespoon of butter in the pan on medium-low heat, then add the meatballs and brown on top and bottom—fair warning, these brown fast, so keep the heat low and don’t expect much longer than a couple of minutes per side. These will continue to brown in the oven, so you don’t want them dark brown here, just a light marshmallowy crisp. Turn off heat and (optional) pour a little beef stock into the bottom of the pan, no more than half a cup.

Slide pan directly from stove into oven and bake for 20 minutes, shaking the pan halfway through to turn them over and get all sides cooked evenly.

Remove finished meatballs from the oven, take them out of the pan and put in a covered bowl while you make the sauce.

Deglaze the pan with a couple of glugs of brandy. Be careful not to burn yourself on the skillet handle. If you’re brave and want to light the brandy on fire to caramelize, knock yourself out, I always do. But be careful, I am not your mother but I care about you.

Pour in two cups of beef broth and 1/4 cup brandy and let come to a simmer, then reduce for five minutes or so. Add mustard and spices. Sift in flour (you may need more than 3 tablespoons, this is a gravy so there is a certain amount of improvising flour to fat to liquid ratios to get the consistency you prefer) and whisk briskly to make a nice roux. Now, the longer you can roux, the better this will taste, so let it cook down and thicken and brown on low heat for a good while, ten minutes or so. Add more broth and brandy if the sauce is getting too thick or lumpy, more flour if it looks too thin. Dribble in heavy cream, let simmer for another minute, then turn off heat, add sherry vinegar, stir, add the meatballs into the sauce and ladle it over them so it’s all nice and smothered—then walk away for half an hour. Let it grow a skin and get cold. If you’re roasting potatoes this is perfect for finishing those up.

Now turn the heat back on, stir the skin into the sauce, let it come to a simmer, then turn the heat off and serve meatballs over potatoes or the carb of your choice, with a dollop of lingonberry jam on the side (this is so key, there’s nothing like it, and it makes the dish).

Join me in the deep inner peace that can only be brought to you by eating way too many meatballs.