September 2017 Home Cooking DOTM: BALL SHAPED FOOD

So from another thread, here is the famous recipe for Köttbullar…

Real Swedish meatballs are very simple with no nutmeg and no allspice.

The recipe in the the Rutiga Kokboken from ICA which is the bible of Swedish cookbooks is as follows:

4 tsp breadcrumbs
2 dl water
400 gm ground meat (mix of pork & beef)
1 egg
Salt & pepper

Mix in a bowl, form balls, and fry by rolling them around to brown on all sides.

That’s it !

Skånska köttbullar are made entirely with ground pork, in Denmark they do the same pork only but call these frikadeller.

Tore Wretman, a famous cook in Sweden who used to run the Operakälleren restaurant, has a slightly more complicated recipe for Swedish meatballs as follows:

2 hg beef
1 hg veal
1 hg pork, gladly fatty
2 dl heavy cream
1 dl stale white bread
1 egg
1/2 onion finely chopped onion
Black Pepper
Salt

Soak bread in cream. Tore runs all the meat through a grinder 3-4 times, the last two times with the bread milk mixture. Heat the onion in a little butter until it softens. Add onion to meat mixture, season with salt and pepper.

He uses two spoons to form the balls, making them a little larger if for a meal, or a little smaller for the smorgasbord. They should be fried by rolling them around in a little butter, and then placed in a warm dish in a low oven.

In any case when the meatballs are done you need to make the sauce.

When the meatballs are done add a little extra butter or fat to the pan and a tablespoon of flour. Brown the flour slightly and add the juices (sky) which collects at the bottom of dish holding the meatballs to the pan together with heavy cream or whole milk scraping up any brown bits. A little soy sauce may be added to the sauce at this stage, Tore uses Japanese, but most other Swedes use something called Colorit which is a thickened soy that helps to make the sauce brown. Cook everything together until sauce thickens.

Again, really simple and no nutmeg or allspice.

Unless these are part of a smörgåsbord, the meatballs are usually served with the sauce, either boiled or mashed potatoes, lingon berries, and a fresh cucumber salad.

Finally, meatballs are NEVER served with noodles in Sweden. Helga finds this hillarious when she sees it in the US.

I grabbed this photo from their Facebook page. I bet they use a mold.

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Their food is really good, Nd all wrapped around the shtick of being spherical. Everything is freshly prepared, and.prices are reasonable. Friday I had a burrito made with their signature need and pork meatballs…they were tender and perfectly seasoned.

Maybe this week I’ll get there for brunch and see how they do the eggs.

I can’t handle this thread anymore. I’m in meatball kind of mood. I’ve got to make them this week.:man_dancing:

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Lol. Damned autocorrect.

That was supposed to be beef and pork.

Does anybody have a good recipe for Bún chả ?

Those things are friggin delicious.

That’s what I mean by Vietnamese meatballs, although beef meatballs in pho are also good.

You are right, I keep forgetting to look that up.

Meatball in Bun Cha, thit heo vien kho:

INGREDIENTS:
1kg minced pork belly
1 onion
1 bunch of chives, finely chopped
20 cl of caramel
1 spoonful of pepper
sunflower oil (or other ‘neutral’ oil)
2 tbsp nuoc mam
2 tbsp soy sauce

Finely chop the onion. Heat up onion in a wok, and brown it.

Mix in a large bowl, pork, onion and chives, season with pepper, soy sauce and nuoc mam . Roll the mixture into 5cm round balls without pressing too hard.

Heat up oven at 180ºC, cook for 15-20 minutes or until the balls turn brown.

I made them once, adding less caramel than in the recipe, the taste was fine, although they were overcooked. The original recipe ask for 35-40 minutes of cooking. I think half the time would be enough.

Do you need the recipe for Bun Cha?

Here is how they turned out

I used fatty pork mince and brown sugar and grilled them, then finished in a warm oven.

Thanks to the brown sugar they were a little tricky on the grill, had to watch carefully to avoid burning.

Served with romaine, rice noodles, Thai basil, chocolate mint, daikon and cucumber

And plenty of dipping sauce !

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Now you made me want to cook that again.

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Made some boudin balls from some boudin in the freezer. With a mayo mustard sauce. Next time, I think I will freeze the boudin in ball form. It was a little hard to work with after thawing.

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Those look so good!! <<furiously googling “boudin ball”>>

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Update…actually had a beer with the folks from the Ball Joint last night. They are super nice people, and were working with the local brewery to provide a free hot meal for folks who hadn’t had one in a few days. I never lost power so I went I support the effort, but have my place in line to others.

Anyway…they were surprised and happy to see that they’d made the pages of a small but active food board.

They also said that the balls Benedict was a long trial and error to get the eggs in the right shape…and theyre not going to tell how it works!

Totally understandable.

Viking is right, it’s just doing it in spinning boiling water, with a lot vinegar (not salt) for 3 minutes. Need some practice to be perfect. I saw 3-starred chef Anne-Sophie Pic doing it on a cook show, for her it was so easy.

A random pic from some French home cook.


I read another method, was to put the whole egg in the boiling vinegar water for 10-12 seconds, then take it out and get rid of the shell and pour the egg in the spinning liquid and with vinegar and continue cooking for at least 3 minute.

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Been a while since I made these soup kibbeh

Frozen ready for use


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I don’t know what soap kibbeh is, but that looks great.

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Had to go back and look at my post as I’m often making spelling mistakes using my phone to post but no mistake, it was soup not soap kibbeh.

Unlike the fried kibbeh these are smaller with the shell made from ground rice and very lean meat. Stuffed with ground meat and celery leaves usually. These are known as kibbeh hamda a favorite of Syrian Jews. Possibly of Iraqi origin

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Nice. If you have time please provide instructions? I would like to give it a go one day.

Yeah, another vote for soup kibbeh recipe, interested too. TIA


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Flip!

“Mama spice” is my grandmother’s Baharat spice mix

I can post later or use a common baharat spice mix

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