Swedish Meatballs Svenska Kottbullar Recipes

SWEDISH MEATBALLS (SVENSKA KOTTBULLAR)

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Place the bread crumbs into a small bowl, and mix in the cream. Allow to stand until crumbs absorb the cream, about 10 minutes. While the bread is soaking, melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the onion until it turns light brown, about 10 minutes. Place onion into a mixing bowl; mix with the ground beef, ground pork, egg, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. Lightly mix in the bread crumbs and cream.
• Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Pinch off about 1 1/2 tablespoon of the meat mixture per meatball, and form into balls. Place the meatballs into the skillet, and cook just until the outsides are brown, about 5 minutes, turning the meatballs often. Insides of the meatballs will still be pink. Place browned meatballs into a baking dish, pour in chicken broth, and cover with foil.
• Bake in the preheated oven until the meatballs are tender, about 40 minutes. Remove meatballs to a serving dish.
• To make brown gravy, pour pan drippings into a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk the flour into the pan drippings until smooth, and gradually whisk in enough beef broth to total about 2 1/2 cups of liquid. Bring the gravy to a simmer, whisking constantly until thick, about 5 minutes. Just before serving, whisk in the sour cream. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve the gravy with the meatballs.

SWEDISH MEATBALLS (SVENSKA KOTTBULLAR)

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350ºF.
• Place the bread crumbs into a small bowl, and mix in the cream. Allow to stand until crumbs absorb the cream, about 10 minutes. While the bread is soaking, melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the onion until it turns light brown, about 10 minutes. Place onion into a mixing bowl; mix with the ground beef, ground pork, egg, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. Lightly mix in the bread crumbs and cream.
• Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Pinch off about 1 1/2 tablespoon of the meat mixture per meatball, and form into balls. Place the meatballs into the skillet, and cook just until the outsides are brown, about 5 minutes, turning the meatballs into a baking dish, pour in chicken broth, and cover with foil.
• Bake in the preheated oven until the meatballs are tender, about 40 minutes. Remove meatballs to a serving dish.
• To make brown gravy, pour pan drippings into a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk the flour into the pan drippings until smooth, and gradually whisk in enough beef broth to total about 2 1/2 cups of liquid. Bring the gravy to a simmer, whisking constantly until thick, about 5 minutes. Just before serving, whisk in the sour cream. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve the gravy with the meatballs.

SWEDISH MEATBALLS (KOTTBULLAR)

Steps:

• Fry the onion light yellow in a little butter.
• Soak the breadcrumbs in the liquid.
• Mix everything well and add spices to taste.
• Make 1- to 1 1/2-inch meatballs with the help of two wet spoons.
• Put them on a plate coated with a little flour and fry them slowly on all sides in lots of butter (putting the meatballs in the freezer for a while before frying makes them firmer).
• Place the meatballs on a hot plate, fry the flour in the remaining fat and pour in the stock and the cream.
• Boil for a few minutes.
• Add soy, salt and pepper to taste and pour the hot sauce over the meatballs.
• Serve hot with mashed potates, pickled cucumber and preserved lingonberry or cranberry.

KOTTBULLAR

Steps:

• Put the breadcrumbs in a large bowl and add 4 tablespoons of milk. Leave the breadcrumbs to absorb the milk for about 5 minutes.
• Add the ground meat, grated onion, egg, allspice salt and white pepper to the bowl. Mix until everything is combined.
• Take a tablespoon of the mixture and roll it until it is round. Rinse your hands in cold water if the mixture is too sticky. Repeat until you have used up all the mixture, by which time you should have between 25 and 30 meatballs.
• Heat a tablespoon of butter in a frying pan over a medium high heat.
• Fry half the meatballs, shaking the pan frequently as you add them.
• When they are browned, turn down the heat and cook for 10 more minutes.
• Remove the meatballs from the pan and keep warm.
• Add another tablespoon of butter and fry the remaining meatballs in the same way.
• When the meatballs are cooked, remove them from the pan.
• Add the stock and cornstarch mixture to the pan.
• Stir thoroughly and then simmer for 5 minutes.
• Add the soy sauce, salt, black pepper and cream. Heat for a couple more minutes, stirring continuously.
• Serve the meatballs with lingonberries or lingonberry jam, mashed potatoes, pressed cucumber and a light coating of the creamy gravy sauce.

SWEDISH MEATBALLS (OR KOTTBULLAR)

Steps:

• First and before you get the meat out of the fridge, get everything ready (you don't want ground meat out of the fridge for longer than necessary).
• Start with the onion. Chop it very finely, season it lightly with salt, and gently cook it on low heat in a non stick skillet with a Tbsp of oil and 1/2 a Tbsp of butter until just golden. (Don't let it burn, it will turn bitter !) Let it cool, and reserve.
• Make the breadcrumbs, and soak them in 1/4 of a cup of cream. Start adding the cream slowly, you don't want it dripping wet, just soaked, and the quantity of cream to add might depend on how moist your bread already is. Reserve.
• Beat and season the egg, reserve.
• Once this is done, get the ground meats out of the fridge and combine them (beef and pork) with the soaked bread, the beaten egg, the cooked and cooled onion, the nutmeg, and the allspice. Incorporate everything well, and salt and pepper to taste. Then cover and put back in the fridge for about half an hour. Don't overmix or the meatballs will be tough.
• After half an hour, take your meat mixture out of the fridge and start to shape your meatballs (I make mine bite size, they cook faster and its easier to eat), and fry them until golden brown in a cast iron casserole (cast iron because it keeps the heat very well) in the rest of the canola oil with 2 Tbsp of butter for the taste. Once golden brown on all sides, Put them on paper towels in a tray and reserve.
• In the same cast iron casserole, throw out most of the fat, and then saute the mushrooms on medium heat in what's left. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, and a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce. Once the mushrooms are cooked, deglaze the skillet with 1 cup of beef stock and scrape all the brown bits from the bottom of the casserole. Be careful with the salt at this stage, because the beef broth is already salted. You can always adjust the salt later.
• Turn the heat to low and then slowly add the can of Campbell's mushroom soup, and the heavy cream (1 cup).
• Once the mushroom sauce is nice and bubbly, add the meatballs back in, and let reduce on low for 30 to 40 minutes, until the sauce has reduced a third to a half (depending on how thick you want the sauce to be), and the meatballs are cooked through and the flavors have all combined.
• Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
• Serve on top of fresh mash potatoes, or buttered noodles.
• I have added pictures of several stages of the dish to help you out.
• NOTE : leftovers freeze beautifully. It's also a great dish to prepare a day ahead of time, because its even better reheated the next day. Just make sure you don't reduce the sauce too much when you cook it if you know you are going to serve it the next day, the sauce will finish to reduce as you reheat it (on low).

KOTTBULLAR (SWEDISH MEATBALLS)

Steps:

• Combine onion, egg, mustard and meat. Mix together, season with salt and pepper. If too liquid, add breadcrumbs until a ball will hold together.
• Roll into 1 inch meatballs and roll in breadcrumbs. Let rest 5 minutes.
• Melt butter in a skillet and fry meatballs at medium temperature until lightly brown. Remove meatballs and reserve.
• Add cream to skillet. Add pepper to taste and enough chicken stock to make a a nice creamy gravy. Add meatballs and cook until heated through.
• Serve meatballs and the cream sauce together with mashed or boiled potatoes.