Traditional köttbullar: Swedish meatballs in cream sauce with mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam

In 2018, Sweden's official Twitter account caused a stir by admitting that the national meatballs came from Turkey, brought by King Charles XII in the 18th century. Historians still argue, but the recipe as the world knows it, small, tender, seasoned with allspice and covered in cream sauce, is Swedish in every way.

Köttbullar is the Thursday school lunch, the Christmas table dish and the cafeteria dish of a famous furniture store that took them to the whole planet. The homemade version is better than any of them: mixed beef and pork, bread softened in milk to keep them tender, grated onion and a good dose of allspice and white pepper.

The sauce, gräddsås, is made in the same skillet, with the meatball drippings, flour, stock and cream. The mashed potatoes, the lingonberry jam, tart and slightly sweet, and the pickled cucumber complete the trinity. Without lingonberry, cranberry or redcurrant jam comes close.

Recipe card

• Origin: Sweden
• Category: Main course, meatballs
• Difficulty: Easy
• Preparation time: 30 minutes
• Cooking time: 30 minutes
• Yield: 4 servings (about 40 meatballs)

Ingredients — meatballs

• 300 g ground beef
• 300 g ground pork
• 1 small onion, finely grated
• 3/4 cup crustless white bread, crumbled (or breadcrumbs)
• 150 ml milk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
• 40 g butter for frying

Ingredients — sauce and sides

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 400 ml beef stock
• 150 ml heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Mashed potatoes for 4
• Lingonberry (or cranberry) jam
• Sliced pickled cucumber

Method

1. Mix the crumbled bread with the milk and let it absorb for 10 minutes.
2. Sauté the grated onion in a tablespoon of butter for 3 minutes, until soft, and let cool.
3. In a bowl, combine the meats, the bread with milk, the onion, egg, salt and the peppers and mix by hand until homogeneous, without overworking.
4. With wet hands, roll 3 cm balls, the size of a walnut.
5. Heat the butter in a wide skillet and fry the meatballs in batches over medium heat, rolling them to brown evenly, for about 8 minutes. Set aside.
6. In the same skillet, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter, add the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring.
7. Add the stock little by little, whisking, then the cream and the soy sauce, and cook until thickened. Season.
8. Return the meatballs to the sauce, heat for 3 minutes and serve over the mashed potatoes, with the jam and pickles on the side.

Tips and variations

• Fry a test meatball and taste the seasoning before rolling them all.
• Small meatballs cook evenly and are the Swedish standard: do not make big balls.
• They can be baked at 200 °C (400 °F) for 15 minutes for a lighter version.
• Freeze raw or fried; the sauce is made fresh.
• On the Swedish Christmas table, they are served without sauce, just with mustard.
• Without lingonberry, cranberry jam is the most faithful substitute; guava paste is not.
• A pinch of nutmeg in the sauce is the touch of many families.

Golden meatballs, cream sauce, mash and red jam: it is the dish every Swedish child asks for and every adult keeps asking for.