Mom's Swedish Style Meatballs

HeatherFeather's Note:

This is a recipe I remember my mother making for dinner parties when I was very young. I loved to sneak in and sample a few when she wasn't looking. Mom served this with rice as a main dish. This has a very different sauce from other Swedish meatball recipes I have since tasted -so I am not sure if these are authentically Swedish or not. I just know that they are rich and tasty and there were never any leftovers. I snagged this from Mom's recipe collection. This makes about 30 medium sized meatballs.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 45 mins
• Prep Time: 45 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Serves: 6-7

Yield: 30.0 meatballs

• 3/4 lb lean ground beef
• 1/2 lb lean ground veal
• 1/4 lb ground lean pork
• 1 1/2 cups soft breadcrumbs (1-2 large stale roll freshly ground up)
• 1 cup light cream or 1 cup half-and-half
• 1/2 cup onion, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 dash black pepper, to taste
• 1 dash ground ginger, to taste
• 1 dash ground nutmeg, to taste
• 1 -2 tablespoon unsalted butter

Gravy

• 2 tablespoonst unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 beef bouillon cube
• 1 1/4 cups boiling water
• 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee powder

Directions:

1. Soak breadcrumbs in cream 5 minutes,or until very soggy.
2. Meanwhile, in a small skillet, melt 2 tsp butter and sauté onion until soft and tender.
3. Combine meats well (if you can't get each type, that's ok- just end up with 1 1/2 pounds ground meat total).
4. Add soaked bread crumbs mixture, sautéed onion, egg, parsley, salt, pepper, and spices to taste to the meat mixture.
5. Mix well until combined.
6. Cover and chill meat mixture for 30 minutes to firm up.
7. Form about thirty 1 1/2" size meatballs (using a meatball scoop).
8. Brown meatballs in 1-2 Tbsp butter in a very large deep sided skillet until browned on all sides, but not cooked all the way through yet; then remove from skillet using a slotted spoon and set aside in a covered dish to keep warm.
9. Combine boiling water,coffee powder and crumbled bouillon cube together until blended.
10. In the hot drippings from the pan, add 2 Tbsp butter and stir until melted.
11. Whisk in 2 Tbsp flour, sprinkling in the flour gradually so it doesn't clump and whisking vigorously until blended.
12. Whisk in the coffee mixture and cook and stir until gravy thickens and bubbles, over medium or medium-high heat.
13. Add meatballs to the pan, cover,lower heat to medium low, and let meatballs cook in the gravy until fully cooked (approx 30-40 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Reviews

[chia]

tres' retro. i think i made the exact reicpe from my mc calls cookbook in 1974, but i like the addition of a teaspoon of coffe. i did add the dash of allspice, that i remebrered well.. this brought back memories of my youth, thanks heather

[FrenchBunny]

First let me say how wonderful these meatballs were. I don't care if they were Swedish or not they were delicious !!! I was going to only make half the meatball mixture and the full amount of gravy for it. But I found the mixture was way to wet with that amount of breadcrumbs and cream so I had added in the rest of the meat and went with a full batch without adding in any more cream or breadcrumbs. I had added in about a tsp of basil, oregano and Italian seasonings with the parsley. I didn't have a skillet large enough for that many meatballs at one time so I had used a dutch oven to saute them in after I had browned them in batches. The flavor of these meatballs were just so moist and tasty and the gravy was WOW....I should of doubled the gravy it was that delicious and I wished there was more to scoop up with the mashed potatoes. But it was reduced after the simmering, so wasn't too much gravy....But all these flavors combined were so good. Other than the bread crumb and cream mixture should of been half of what recipe says....these were fantastic. Thanks for sharing your wonderful recipe HeatherFeather we loved them. Also they freeze absolutely great.
Update: Just wanted to say how great these taste over Israel Couscous !! I just love them.