National Dishes of the World

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Swedish meatballs
Photo: Horacio Cambeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Swedish meatballs

köttbullar

Small, tender meatballs in cream gravy with mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and quick-pickled cucumber.

Eaten in: Sweden

Prep
30 min
Cooking
30 min
Total
1 h
Servings
4

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About the dish

Köttbullar are Sweden’s best-known home-cooked dish, one that every Swedish child grows up eating. A mixture of minced beef and pork is bound with breadcrumbs soaked in milk, egg and finely chopped onion, seasoned with allspice or white pepper and rolled into small balls that are fried in butter. They are served with smooth mashed or boiled potatoes, a creamy gravy made from stock and cream, lingonberry jam and pressgurka, thinly sliced cucumber in a sweet-and-sour brine. Small meatballs are also a fixture of the festive smörgåsbord at Christmas and Midsummer.

Main ingredients

  • minced beef
  • minced pork
  • onion
  • breadcrumbs
  • cream
  • lingonberries
  • potatoes

Recipe

Swedish meatballs

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/swedish-meatballs

Ingredients

4 servings

4 servings

Method

  1. Slice the cucumber very thinly, cover with the vinegar, sugar and water mixed with a pinch of salt and leave while you cook.

  2. Mix both meats with the soaked breadcrumbs, egg, onion, allspice, salt and pepper and work until smooth.

  3. With wet hands, roll into balls the size of a walnut.

  4. Fry the meatballs in batches in butter over a medium heat, shaking the pan, for 8–10 minutes until browned and cooked through. Set aside.

  5. Boil the potatoes and mash them with butter and warm milk until smooth.

  6. Stir the flour into the fat left in the pan and cook for a minute, then add the stock, cream and soy sauce and simmer, stirring, until the gravy thickens. Return the meatballs and heat them through.

  7. Serve with the mash, lingonberry jam and drained cucumber.

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