How are meatballs made?

[Lonelymum]

My kids go mad for those Swedish meatballs you can buy ready cooked in supermarkets. Unfortunately, my local Tesco is quite small and I am fed up of them never having them in stock. Does anyone know how to make them? Will homemade ones taste as good as the Swedish ones? Will they stay together in balls? My belief is that homemade ones will fall apart easily which is no good to me as I put them in tomato sauce and serve them tossed with pasta.

I have a genuine Swedish recipe from a genuine Swede, LM - if I can find it, it's on a scrap of paper somewhere.

He also loves IKEA ones so I assume they'll be similar.

Hold on a sec

you bind them with egg, onion if you want, a little sweetner/sugar bayleaf while cooking.Then they dont fall apart I used to put them in a tomato sauce and cook on hob for about 40mins tunring them occasionally...will try and find recipe

Found it!

200ml milk
100ml dried breadcrumbs
mix in bowl, leave to swell "some minutes"

500g mince
1 small chopped onion
1 egg
1 tsp salt
pepper to taste

Mix together to good consistency (??) then form small balls - cold water on hands

200 degree oven 5-10 mins, or fry

There you go - as written! I have never made them yet, maybe I will finally try tonight

You are wonderful ladies.....

I take it the mince can be beef or pork or even lamb now that I think of it!

The ones in Tesco are pork and beef I think. Not sure about IKEA's, I'll have a look at the website and see if it says (they are the best!)

IKEA Janh? I thought that was a shop that sold flatpacked furniture and household items. Are you now telling me they sell food too?

beef and pork or moose , lol!

They have a shop with Swedish delicacies (it's not very big )

See!

Thanks, I have written it down and will try it out some time soon.

Strangely, my Tesco was fresh out of moose too. I really must go to a bigger and better establishment!

I use pork and beef mince together and sometimes lamb instead of pork.

This is my recipe.

2lb of mince I sometimes use less as this makes alot)
1 cup of whole milk
2 eggs
4 cloves of garlic (I would use less if its not a hit in your house)
3oz breadcrumbs
flour to coat
Parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying

• Place your mince in a large bowl. In a seperate smaller bowl soak breadcrumbs in milk. Add the eggs to the breadcrumbs mix, stirring with a wooden spoon.

• Smash the garlic. Add the herbs and garlic to the beadcrumb mix. Blend and then place contents in to a blender until fully smooth. Place this mix in with mince. Stir with spoon until fully mixed. Now form meatballs.

• Take 1 or 2 tbs of mince and roll into a ball. Place the ball in a teacup, cover with hand and shake to make a good shape. Cover with flour.

• Once you have made the meatballs, heat a deep pan and fill with oil. When the oil is hot place in meaballs and brown.

• Add your browned meatballs to the sauce of your choice and cook for about 30 mins.

I normally do a simple tomato based sauce and throw meatballs in a casserole dish.

Oh a different recipe! What to do? Nbg, yours said cover the meatballs in flour. What difference does that make? Do you do this? Also, it sounds as though your are deep fried. Would it be OK to just shallow fry them do you think?

I cover them with flour so that it keeps them formed IYSWIM.

Also I only use a little frying pan to brown them off, I don't deep fry them (don't like using lots of oil in cooking) They cook in the oven so don't see the point of frying them for long.

I have a white wine sauce recipe to go with these meatballs. I'll post that if you like. I also have a recipe for patatas bravas which go great with meatballs.

As long as it isn't spicy I would be interested in new ideas. Get bored with my usual tomato sauce although it is a great way of hiding vegetables for the children to eat.

I made some Porcupine meatballs recently! First catch your porcupine...oh stop being silly.

They were basically the same as the last recipe but you substitue some cooked rice for the breadcrumbs, and I used minced fried onion instead of garlic. shallow frying was ok, but treat them gently or they fall apart. Any ground meat will do, I used lamb. Drain well on paper towels to reduce fattiness. You can make loads and freeze them in single layers on wax paper, and just get out how many you need.

I remember having them as a kid with a brown gravy and carrot discs. Definitely I don't know if the kids would have liked them, because I froze most and ate a helping myself. I thought they were fab, but I like rice, and I am extremely bored with having the same thing every day that the toddlers like.

No not spicy.

Here it is...

Patatas Bravas - about 4 to 6 servings

500g of potatoes, cut in to 1-2cm cubes
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp salt

Sauce

1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove of garlic
1 small red chilli (optional)
4 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped (I use tinned, 2 cans I think)
half tsp paprika
1 tbsp of herbs (sage)

• Bring a pan of water to boil (add salt if you wish), add potatoes, bring back to boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 mins or just tender. Drain and leave to dry in colander.

• Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat, add potato cubes and fry until golden brown and crisp (15 mins)

• Sauce
  Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a small pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, chilli (if using) and fry for 1 min. Add chopped tomatoes and paprika and continue to cook for 5 mins until the tomatoes are softened but still have shape. Season to taste then add herbs. Remove from heat.

• Sprinkle some salt over potatoes and pour over sauce.

If you use tinned toms, forget the oil just throw them in a pan then add your garlic and paprika. Pretty simple really.

Or you could do spanish omlette...

2 big potatoes, peeled and cubed (maybe more if your cooking for whole family) and boiled until tender
6 eggs
4 tbsp oil
1 onion
Salt and pepper

*In a bowl stir together potatoes and eggs and season with salt and pepper. In a pan (no smaller than 10") heat oil until smoking, add onions, cook until tender. Then throw in your potatoes and eggs. Cook until the eggs are done.

Also this is another Tom sauce, Jamie Olivers I think.

3 tbsp oil
3 small onions, peeled and chopped
2 red peppers,chopped
3 courgettes, grated
3 carrots, grated
3 stalks of celery, chopped
1 large pinch of dried oregano
x6 400g tins chopped toms
2-3 garlic cloves

• Heat enough oil to cover bottom of the pan and fry onion, celery, peppers, courgettes, carrot and garlic for 5-10 mins

• Then add the oregano and toms and season. Simer for about 30 mins.

• Liquidise until smooth. Freeze the remainder (there is quite alot)

Thanks Nbg. Jamie Oliver's sounds rather like mine (minus celery which I detest) but I will give yours a go.

From the IKEA cookbook! Copied verbatum (sp?) so enjoy the weird english. Am taking it for granted that farce is what translated instead of mixture, read on to see what I mean..

Makes 30-40 "Kottbullar"

250g minced beef
250g minced pork
1 egg
2 1/2 tbsp onion chopped fine
1/2 dl unsweetened rusk flour
2 cold boiled potatoes
4-5 tbsp butter, margarine or oil
salt, white pepper (allspice)

Heat onion until golden in a couple of tbsp of lightly browned butter, mash potatoes and moisten the rusk flour in a little water. Mix all the ingredients into a smooth farce (!!!) of the right consistency and flavour generously with salt, white pepper (and optional allspice finely crushed.)
Using a pair of spoons rinsed in water, shape the farce (ahem) into relatively large, round balls and transfer to a floured chopping board, fry them then quite slowly in plenty of butter.

So there you go, genuine meatballs. Haven't tried this recipe admittedly as I have a turkey meatball recipe that the family enjoy, if you want that recipe I'd be happy to share - there is no mention of farce in it!

1dl = 100ml for the non-Swedes (my friend's recipe had dl's in, I had to ask for a translation. It means a decilitre or something, 10th of a litre anyway; so ½dl = 50ml )

Thanks for the "interesting" Swedish recipe TwoIfBySea. You would think someone in Sweden could have provided a more modern translation given how well most Swedes speak English! Actually, I have come across the word farce in this context, it means stuffing or something. Still don't see how it fits this recipe though!

Incidentally, I meant to ask Janh yesterday, how can you have 100ml of something that is not a liquid, eg breadcrumbs? Does that I mean I put breadcrumbs in my measuring jug until they reach the 100ml mark? and if so, how tightly packed?

It's like "cups" in America, lm - they measure the oddest things in cups (and butter in "sticks" sometimes, it comes packed in 4 x 4oz sticks).

I would put them loosely in a measuring jug, or if you have a 100ml scoop use that. It doesn't have to be completely accurate.

Thanks.

I am familiar with the use of cups as the Australians do that too (dh is Australian) and MIL helpfully gave me a set of Australian cups so I could use her Australian recipe books. TBH, they get used about once every two years!

Don't forget Australian tablespoons are 20mls, that's 5mls extra. I've been scuppered like this before