These meatballs can be served as an appetizer without sauce or, as this recipe is written, as an entrée. Swedish meatballs are typically served with mashed potatoes, lingonberry preserves, and pickled cucumbers. In Norway, these are called frikadeller.
Ingredients
For Making the Meatball Mixture
- 1.5 lbs Beef Chuck, lean and cut into 1-inch strips
- 1.5 lbs Veal Stew Meat or Veal Clod, cut into 1-inch strips
- 1.5 lbs Pork Butt, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1-inch strips
- 1 lb Red Onion, chopped
- 4 Eggs, beaten
- ¾ cup Heavy Cream
- ¼ cup Vegetable Oil
- 2.5 Tbsp Salt
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- 4 oz Honey
- 2 cups Bread Crumbs, dry and ground fine Salt and Black Pepper, to taste
For Sautéing the Meatballs
- 6 oz Clarified Butter
For Making the Pan Cream Sauce
- 3 cups Chicken Stock
- 4 cups Heavy Cream
- Salt, to taste
How to Make It
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For Making the Meatball Mixture
- Sanitize and chill medium and fine grinding plates, blade, and housing for meat grinder.
- Pass the strips of beef, veal, and pork through the grinder using a medium plate; collect the meat in a stainless steel mixing bowl sitting on ice.
- Add the onion to the meat mixture and mix well.
- Disassemble the grinder and replace the medium plate with a finer plate; reassemble the grinder and pass the mixture through the finer plate, again collecting the meat in a mixing bowl sitting on ice.
- In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, heavy cream, and vegetable oil; whisk to combine, and then set aside.
- Add the salt, black pepper, and bread crumbs to the meat and onion mixture, and mix to combine.
- Pour the egg/cream/oil mixture into the meat mixture; using freshly cleaned and sanitized hands or latex gloves, stir the mixture very well for a couple of minutes to distribute everything evenly.
- Sample the mixture by panfrying a small amount in a little clarified butter. Adjust seasoning with salt and black pepper, if necessary.
- Once seasoning is adjusted, set the mixture in the refrigerator and allow it to sit for at least an hour (ideally, it should sit for a day). For Sauteing the Meatballs
- Form the meatballs by measuring them to 1.5–1.75 oz each and rolling them in the palm of your hands (sanitized or wearing latex gloves); set aside formed meatballs on a sheet pan.
- Heat a small amount of the clarified butter in a sauté pan over a medium flame until it is rippling and hot.
- Add a few of the meatballs to the pan (don’t add too many at a time, or the pan will cool too much!) and sauté, turning the meatballs as they caramelize in order to brown as much of the surface of the meatballs as possible (watch the pan closely—you do not want to burn anything in the bottom of the pan, because you will use the pan later to prepare a sauce).
- As the meatballs are done, set them aside—in another pan—and continue, or use more sauté pans (and divide the sauce ingredients accordingly). For Making the Pan Cream Sauce
- Once all of the meatballs have been sautéed, pour the excess grease from the pans and deglaze with chicken stock, scraping the pans with a wooden spoon. Reduce the chicken stock by three quarters.
- Once the chicken stock has been reduced, temper in the cream; when it has come to a simmer and reduced slightly itself (and thus has become thick enough to coat the meatballs in consistency), season the sauce with salt and serve with the meatballs. (If the meatballs did not cook throughout when sautéing, finish cooking them in the sauce.)
