Anyone up for frikadeller ?

Cooking Discussions Recipes
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Here’s my recipe for frikadeller.
The origin of frikadeller is northern Germany and Denmark.

Ingredients
500 gram minced/ground pork & veal - I never use 100% pork for frikadeller and of course you should never use beef in frikadeller, this is not a classic meatball.
10 gram salt
2 eggs
1 dl whole milk
1 large onion
A large cup of stout beer
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons oatmeal
0,5 teaspoon nutmeg
Lots of black pepper
100 gram butter

How I do it:

Stir the minced meat tough with the salt and let it rest for 5 minutes at room temperature. I do it by hand with a special tool for minced meat and dough, but you can also just use a machine. I get a better feel for the minced meat by doing it by hand. It’ll make you sweat a bit.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that the salt comes in as the first and only ingredient, and the minced meat must then be stirred tough with the salt. The minced meat binds better and will more easily absorb the other ingredients, which are added later in the process.

A Minced meat that is stirred tough with salt as the first and only ingredient will need less flour later in the process and therefore provide a better and more tasty meatball with less flour flavor.

Finely chop the onion with a knife, do not grate it, it gives a sweaty onion taste.

Then mix the onion and pepper in the minced meat. It is important that the onion comes in as the first ingredient AFTER the minced meat has been stirred tough with the salt. This gives a better absorption into the meat.

Now let the minced meat with salt, pepper and onion rest for 5 minutes in the bowl on the kitchen table.

Now add the rest of the ingredients, preferably with the flour at the very end of the process.
If you feel you need less flour than the recipe says, follow your instinct not the recipe. I can feel the amount of flour needed by hand stirring the minced meat.

Now let the mix rest for 1-2 hours in the fridge with plastic film on.

Fry the frikadeller in 1-2 mm rapeseed oil.
I start by making them directly in the pan using two large spoons or one spoon and my hand.
I place the first one a 12 o’clock then the next at 2 o’clock and so forth.

I fry them low and slow. Medium heat and patience.
Just before turning the frikadeller the first time, I’ll add the 100 gram butter in small cubes in the pan.
The fat in the pan should now go ⅓ up the frikadeller.

Now it’s time to turn them the first time.
Keep the temperature at medium heat.

Now butter baste the frikadeller with the fat in the pan and continue to butter baste them throughout the rest of the cooking time once every 4-5 minutes.

How long the frikadeller needs in the pan will vary depending on the pan, the stovetop and how dark you like your frikadeller, but I typically give my frikadeller 30-40 minutes at medium to medium-low heat total.
I want a nice dark almost black crust on my frikadeller.

Cheers, Claus

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Define stirred tough.

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Reading the context, I’m sure it’s a typo and Claus intended “through”

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I thought maybe it was a European term.
I kinda liked the sound.

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In danish we have both terms, stirred through and stirred tough.

When talking about a minced meat mixture stirred with salt, we use the term ‘stirred tough’.
The salt goes into the minced meat and makes it tough to stir in. As soon as it starts to be tough to stir in, the salt is now incorporated into the minced meat.

I hope this explains the term ‘stirred tough’

Stirred tough is a level above stirred through.

It takes me approximately 4-5 minutes stirring by hand to get the minced meat and salt to a level where I’d say it’s stirred tough.

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Sounds delicious.

I use a two tined carving fork for “stirring tough”. Works a charm to break up and incorporate ingredients in things like meatloaf.

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I do own a stand mixer, but I always mix my minced meat mixture for frikadeller by hand using a Danish dough whisk like this one:

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It gives you a far better feel for when the mixture needs more flour to make it more firm or more milk to soften it up.

Basically you make the mixture more firm with flour and oatmeal and softer with milk, beer and eggs.

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That’s so fascinating. Where I grew up in Germany (the Rhineland), “frikadellen” are basically meat patties with egg, bread & milk added. It’s a cheap meal my mother (who was born in northern Germany) would make often. She just used her hands to mix it all up, tho.

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Fairly similar to British rissoles and faggots.

The latter usually made with pork, the former with beef or lamb.

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This is good stuff Claus, eating right now :slight_smile:
Bare today, with beer - tomorrow probably with red potatoes. What do you like to eat with these?

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These flat meatballs have different regional names in Germany. In Vienna they call them “Butterschnitzel” (?!!). In Germany one eats Frikadellen with potatoes and a green leafy salad. Can be any of the following preps:

  • Simple boiled parsleyed potatoes
  • Potato salad (a lot like southern German style, or Viennese style that’s usually served with Wiener Schnitzel.). NOT “Russian potato salad”, which is a thick mess of indistinguishable starches in mayo.
  • Cooked potatoes slices fried in butter or Speck fat.

I think it’s probably the same in Denmark.

Oh, and don’t forget to wash it down with a (German) beer (unless you don’t drink).

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I was just eating these now again and came to write here. Tasting real good today, now I can (even) more clearly taste the stout in these as there is no stout or light lager in me otherwise. So a double edged sword, the beer :wink:

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Really glad you liked them, Pertti !

What pan did you use - the Fissler OP frying pan ?

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My late Mutti, from Nürnberg, used ground chuck, bread, egg, milk, cabbage, and onion in her frikadellen. I grew up on them. I’ve tweaked the recipe - not that either of ours ever uses measurements. Hers were very good, mine are better; she agreed. . Everybody tweaks their meat loaf mix so that part is up to you, but you will need to leave the onion in very thin rings. Use a mandoline if you have one and if your mix includes bell pepper, thin rings of that, too. Eyeball an amount of shredded cabbage that equals the amount of mandolined vegetable(s). Wilt the cabbage in any way you prefer: boiling water, frying pan, microwave, freezer. I keep shredded cabbage in the freezer. Once it’s at room temperature, add it to your meatloaf mix. This looks like way too much veg but the long strands serve as a matrix which holds it together. Lightly oil a nonstick skillet and preheat on medium while you form the meat mixture into portion-sized patties or logs. Saute patiently until the underside is deep brown. Don’t move them until it is, so they don’t fall apart. Flip and brown the other side. One flip should be all you need for patties, but if you are doing logs, you can roll them a quarter of the way, three times. I prefer logs, although they look like something a Great Dane left on the sideawalk. They cook faster and leftovers are ideal on a hot dog bun, hot or cold. Frikadellen stretch a pound of meat into six generous portions, and the extra vegetables are healthy. The cabbage sort of melts into moist umami goodness, looking like onion. You can bake the mixture as meatloaf but that takes longer. Also using the skillet, your fond and drippings are right there, ready to become a roux, then gravy. I can coax a lot of gravy out of a pound of meat by adding Gravy Master/Kitchen Bouquet, part of a packet of dry onion soup mix, a splash of red wine, half a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, and milk.

Hardly “echt”, but it’s the taste that counts!

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I’d gladly sit at your dinner table to try those SUPERLECKER sounding frikadellen :smiling_face_with_three_hearts::yum:

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Yes it was very good. I used the Silga 28cm thick bottom double handle rondeau.

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That’s interesting to me. When making Greek meatballs, you keep things very loose, and don’t stir tough, so the texture stays very loose, and the meatball doesn’t end up tough or dense.

I’ve only had Frikadelle in Berlin, and I have no idea if they were stirred tough.

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I eat several things together with frikaldeller.

Sauteed pasta & vegetables (Pasta first boiled of course).
Rice & vegetables.
Some kind of potatoe - hasselbach, fondant or even just roasted potatoes.

I also sometimes buy a super rich rye bread and then make my beloved sauce tartare and just eat that with 3-4 frikadeller.

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The idea behind stirring the minced meat tough with the salt first is an idea you see almost 100% of all profesional chefs in Denmark do.

The reason behind is, that a minced meat stirred tough with the salt will actually make a more juicy and tender frikadelle and not the opposite.

The more salt you can get the minced meat to absorb, the less flour you will need later on in the process and the more easily the minced meat will be able to absorb the other ingredients you add later on.
All in all, if you don’t do the salt trick at the very start of the process, your frikadeller will taste more of flour and they will have a tendency to fall a part.
It’s a balance - you don’t want a rock hard frikadelle, but you also don’t want a frikaldelle, that falls a part.

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Hi Claus, many thanks for your frikadeller recipe! I like how you seem to have perfected the art of making them, what with the detailed instructions. I’ll definitely try your recipe and will report back.

By the way in the Netherlands, ‘frikadellen’ is one of our national dishes - but it’s entirely different from yours.

For us it’s a cheap snack, to be bought at cheap road side snack cars, or eaten at home while drinking beer and watching football. It’s just a thin sausage shaped snack made with ground meats - legend has it that horse meat is sometimes used - and then deep fried. https://dutchreview.com/culture/frikandel/

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