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If you are looking for an authentic Swedish meatballs recipe, you’ve found one. This is my grandmother’s recipe for Swedish meatballs, also known as köttbullar, are so good they should be a controlled substance.
I never knew my grandmother so I can’t remember her ever making Swedish meatballs, but I do have several strong memories of mom making these little balls of yum long ago, in the 1970s. Of course we ate Swedish meatballs in the Seventies — everyone did. They were right next to the fondue.
But even this was simply withdrawal symptoms of the Swedish meatballs’ heyday a decade earlier. Can’t you just see the chafing dish, the Sterno and the meatballs nestled in that slowly congealing-yet-somehow-irresistible gravy? Groovy baby, yeah!
Yet of all the crazy throwback foods of that much-maligned decade, Swedish meatballs are high on the list for preservation. If you’ve eaten well-made ones, can any among you honestly say you have not stuffed yourself on them? What the heck is it about these meatballs?
Sure, they a lot smaller than Italian meatballs, or at least Italian American meatballs, so they go down real easy, one after the other… I’ve eaten several dozen at a sitting before, only to feel later like an anaconda that swallowed a cow made of butter.
Butter. Maybe that’s it? Every authentic Swedish meatballs recipe calls for obscene amounts of butter.
The gravy is part drippings from frying the meatballs in butter, flour, stock and, in some cases, lingonberry or cranberry syrup or jelly. Still, I’ve eaten lots of rich things before without succumbing to gluttony.
Maybe it is a Swedish meatball’s size. Small. Bite-sized, to be exact. Dangerous. My Italian meatballs are big, honking brontosaurus balls; you need at least three bites to get one down. These little Swedish meatballs are just a tablespoon.
That’s not so much. Maybe I’ll have just one more…
What follows is my Swedish meatball recipe, adapted from one given to my mother from her mother, who was a Massachusetts Swede. They call these meatballs Svenska Köttbullar, and they are traditionally served with a lingonberry or cranberry sauce. In Scandinavia, the meatballs are sometimes made with reindeer, so venison is a natural. You could use any red meat.
Venison Swedish Meatballs
Ingredients
- 4 slices stale bread, crusts removed
- 2/3 cup milk
- 3 pounds venison or beef
- 1 pound pork fat
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons Kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon caraway seeds
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 grated yellow onion
- Flour
- 1 quart beef stock or venison stock
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup lingonberry jelly
- Salt
- Butter or oil for frying
Instructions
- If you are not using pre-ground meat, chill the venison and pork fat until it is almost freezing by sticking it in the freezer for an hour. Cut both the meat and fat into chunks that will fit into your grinder. Grind through your fine die in a meat grinder. If you do not have a meat grinder, you can use a food processor, set on pulse. Don’t crowd the processor and chop the meat in pulses until you get something that looks like ground meat — it will not be as good as with a grinder, but it is easier than hand-mincing everything, which is also an option. Put the meat in the fridge.
- Pour the milk into a pot and set it on low heat. Cut the crusts off the stale bread and break it into pieces. Add the pieces to the pot. They will begin to absorb the milk. Turn off the heat and mash everything into a paste. Let it cool to room temperature.
- In the meat bowl, add the grated onion, salt and spices. Crack the eggs into the bowl, then pour the bread-milk mixture in. With clean hands, gently mix everything together. Do not knead it like bread, and do not squeeze things together. Just gently work the mixture: Think cake, not bread. When it is mostly combined — you need not get everything perfect — grab a tablespoon and scoop up some. Roll it into a little ball with your palms.
- Gently roll the meatballs in the flour; you’ll probably need about a cup. You may need to re-shape them before putting them onto a cookie sheet lined with wax or parchment paper.
- When the meatballs are all made, get a large pan ready; I use a big cast-iron frying pan. Fill it with a little less than 1/4 inch of oil. I use canola oil with a little butter tossed in for flavor. Bring it up to temperature over medium-high heat. When a drop of flour flicked in the oil immediately sizzles away, drop the heat to medium and add the meatballs. Do not crowd them.
- You want the oil to come up halfway on the meatballs. Add a little oil if need be; don’t worry, you can reuse it. Fry on medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. You are looking for golden brown. Turn only once. The other side will need 2 to 4 minutes. When cooked, set the meatballs on a paper towel or wire rack to drain. They can be used right away or cooled and then refrigerated for a week, or frozen for several months.
THE SAUCE
- Once the meatballs are cooked, drain all but about 3 or 4 tablespoons of butter/oil from the pan. Over medium heat, add an equal amount of the flour left over from dusting the meatballs. Stir to make a roux and cook slowly until it turns a nice golden brown. Think coffee with cream.
- Add the stock gradually and turn the heat up to medium-high. Stir well to combine and add more stock or some water if need be — you want this thicker than water, thinner than Thanksgiving gravy. Taste for salt and add if needed. Add the lingonberry or highbush cranberry jelly to the pan. Let it melt and then mix it in gently.
- Put the meatballs in the pan, coat all the meatballs with the sauce, cover and cook for 10 minutes over medium-low heat. Add the cream and just warm through, maybe 3 or 4 minutes. Serve over mashed potatoes or with German egg noodles.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Loved the story,and I look forward to trying the meatballs–the recipe and photos looks delish. I reckon I’ll have to substitute venison (that’s what I have) for the moose, unless I can get my cousin to send moose meat to Texas from Alaska.
The photography is, as always, gorgeous. My question is for Holly–where did you get that fabulous serving piece in which the meatballs were displayed? I LOVE it…and must have one. Thanks!!
What a great post! A fantastic recipe and utterly mouth-watering photography. Please tell Holly that the photography here just gets better and better. Lighting, depth-of-field, composition; wow, she’s got it all goin’ on with that camera. And I’ve got to say, you’ve done some really fascinating stuff since you hurt your foot. Maybe we should give Elise a contract to stop by and whack your other foot (just kidding).
Oh, yeah. My grandma was Swedish, too, and we had these balls on rare occasion. When I make them now, they are good, but not half as good as I remember. Maybe it’s the moose that I need….
The members of ABBA should be so lucky as to have such elegantly presented meatballs. Nice work!
Well, the black currant jelly just adds something sweet to the sauce, and we wouldn’t put the lingonberries in the gravy…
Thin slices of sweet and sour cucumber is another common addition to this dish.
Sarah: Thanks for the kind words, I am sure elk meatballs would be just as good!
SBW: The IKEA meatballs were better than my first try at Swedish meatballs, not this one. This one blew them away…
Stephen: “You could sell that.” I might have to steal that line.
Tina: Squirrel Kiev? Moose Borscht? Niiiice…. Oh, and as for the caraway, go ahead and leave them out, it won’t hurt anything.
K: Good to hear from a Swede and get another recipe. Lingoberry and black currants in the same dish, huh? Interesting. You are right about the onions, though. I left them out by accident, but it was a happy accident.
Josh: I like the Stephen Hawking idea. I can hear his computer “voice” say, “Dumbass.” LOL.
Nathan: Yes, add fat. Preferably pork fat. You could add ground pork, so long as it is fatty. And the sour cream goes in right at the end — it is stirred in and just barely heated through. And if you don’t have sour cream, regular heavy cream is different but also good.
NHbow Gal: Yep, maybe I will put in for the moose lottery in Maine this year.
I have to agree with Sarah that Moose is our favorite red meat. We have fond memories of unbelievably delicious tacos made with the moose my husband and a friend got a few years back. Time to enter the moose license lottery again. Wonderful, and inspiring post Hank!
Awesome! I’ve got my Valentine’s dinner figured out. A couple questions on the recipe…I plan to use venison, I butcher my own and it’s as close to 100% lean as you can get. Do I need to add more fat, bread or anything to keep them together? Or should I sub in some ground beef? Also, maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see the sour cream in the directions. I figured it goes in with the lingon berry jam? Thanks
Hank, those look great. However, I think you should have a link on the kottbuller with an audio of how to pronounce it. I was thinking either just you, saying something like, “kottbuller, dumb@$$!”, but I think getting Stephen Hawking to do the audio pronunciation would be better. Probably with the “dumb@$$” part with it, too…
Thanks re the photos, everyone! Photographing a brown-on-brown food always fills me with dread, but this assignment was a good excuse to trot out the new plateware. Have I mentioned that being Hank’s photographer has been an excellent excuse for my addiction to cute little bowls and plates?
And yes, these were total crack. I think what I really said when I ate them, after my eyes rolled back in my head for a few minutes, was “Holy $@#$# !@#% $%& **^&%!” But that doesn’t sound as good as some cheesy old ’70s lyrics, does it?
I have spent days trying to take pictures of meatballs… so I first must say Kudos for the great photos and then the recipe… OMG… fabulous and perfect for a winters night… my mom made them when I was a kid and I just about forgot about them… thanks for the memories, and the recipe.
Correction: I have _never_ had reindeer meatballs.
Being a Swede from Sweden, I have had a meatballs made with reindeer. The classical recipe (by late Tore Wretman) calls for 2 parts beef, 1 part veal, and 1 part pork. No spices but white pepper and salt. Fried onion, bread crumbs, cream, egg. No flour. To be fried in butter. Best served with “rårörda” (raw-stired?) lingonberries (not cooked, just stired with sugar) and cream gravy (sometimes with added black currant jelly).
Having read all the bizarre recipes following your links, I just wanted to add one that more resembles the meatballs we eat here in Sweden, even though there is great variation here as well.
Absolutely loved the Rockey & Bullwinkle reference! Boris and Natasha would have loved a dinner combo of squirrel kiev with moose based borscht to start. Of course, now I’ve got to make swedish meatballs. It just so happens that I was at IKEA yesterday (no, I did not buy meatballs) and bought a jar of lingonberry preserves. On it’s own, I’m not really a fan, but made into a sauce for meatballs, it may actually be interesting. I usually use nutmeg instead of allspice, but I think I’ll give it a try; I do have to take exception to the idea of caraway seeds, though. Can’t stand them in anything, not even rye bread, so they’re out!
OK – so now I am going to have to go and make Swedish Meatballs a la Hank! They sound delicious and wish I could have been there to enjoy them with you! Recently had a hankering for meatloaf so made that with pizza sauce and beef meat from a farm in ME. It tastes great! Bet it would be even better with Bullwinkle Meat! Loved Holly’s photos too. She does super work!
Hank, love the presentation….Swedish Meatballs would make for a good cocktail party nosh too!
Thanks for the link-luv, I wait your Venison Stifado (sounds delish).
laughed out LOUD at Rocky and Bullwinkle, which I knew was coming when I read you were waiting to hunt squirrel before doing the moose.
I’ve been lurking around here and on Holly’s site for awhile. Time to stick my head up. Having done all the cooking for this household for the last 30 years, and being a hunter, I love your site. In the course of culinary flights of fancy often I crash and burn. But, there are plenty of times when through sheer perserverance and dumb blind luck something clicks extraordinarily. When it does I always say “HOLY SHIT!” Usually accompanied by the further descriptive, “You could sell that.” When I read that ” Holy Crap!” of yours, I reflexisvely spit a pomegranate kernel straight into the cup of coffee sitting on my desk. Needless to say, pomegranate infused java ain’t going on the menu. Thanks for the laugh.
‘the IKEA ones were better’
WTF Hank! I’d swallow pretty much anything I’ve seen you cook up, but I wont swallow that. NO WAY. My son is mad for ikea meatballs (he loves to see his food come in a packet Grrrr) so I’ve eaten shed loads of them and really mate, they’re not all that.
SBW
Those sound amazing! As the daughter of a hunter (who lived in Alaska for ten years) moose is probably my favorite red meat, elk coming in second. YUM! I have a freezer full of elk so may have to try these out . . . my son (almost three) loves anything in meatball form so these would be perfect!
Thank you!
Best,
Sarah
PS – I think this is my first comment. Discovered you last week when Ruhlman linked to one of your recipes on Twitter. I feel like I’ve met a long-lost brother. You remind me of my dad, and my husband. Both hunters, gardeners, fishermen and I’m the gourmet cook of the bunch. I’m enjoying perusing your blog! Keep it up!