Tonight, I brought out the old trusty fiddle, as it were, and played a familiar tune. Swedish Meatballs, the dish I ate every year for my birthday until I was around seventeen or so. Some of you might recall that my results lately have been somewhat lackluster, but I was very pleased with this go around.
So, here’s the recipe, as it now stands: (like all recipes that get brought out again and again, it undergoes changes here and there every time it’s made)
Ingredients: (if you have access to organic foods in your area, I highly reccomend their use. Not only because they tend to have a more advantageous affect on our fellow living things, but because the taste changes dramatically. This dish is good with just any old brands, but with organic ingredients, it becomes transcendent.)
2 packages of ground pork sausage. Make sure it has a high fat content; this won’t work if it’s lean meat. In the words of Alton Brown, I said it was good. I didn’t say it was fat free.
3/4 cup bread crumbs. I reccomend bread crumbs with Italian seasoning.
1/2 cup of milk. This time I used raw cow’s milk, though I’ve used raw goat’s milk too.
1 egg.
3 cups beef broth.
16 ounces of sour cream.
1/4 tbsp all purpose flour.
1 tbsp corn starch.
paprika.
salt.
canola oil.
1 tbsp butter.
You will also need a muffin tin, mini if you have it, for baking the meatballs.
Fill the biggest pasta pot you have full with water. You want more water than you might think! One gallon to every pound of pasta is reccomended. Add salt!
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees on the Bake setting.
Take a large, deep skillet and warm it over medium heat. Add the oil; i just eyeball it, but I estimate I use about three tablespoons of the stuff. Add the butter and melt.
While the butter is melting, mix the meat, egg, milk, breadcrumbs, and some pepper together thouroughly. It’s important that everything be evenly distributed! This is where you get your hands messy. Don’t even try and keep clean with this one. Get in there and knead like you mean it.
Form the mixture into balls large enough that, when placed in the muffin tin, they don’t fit all the way down inside. The goal is to keep the meatball from touching the bottom of the cup.
Brown each meatball on all sides in the butter and oil. DO NOT COOK! All you want is a bit of a crust. After you get a nice, attractive browning on the ball, remove it and put it in the muffin tray. Repeat until all your meatball mix is used up.
Place the meatballs in your preheated oven for roughly fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, you can remove the tray and split one of the meatballs to judge whether they need a longer cooking time. Fire up the burner under your pasta pot.
While the meatballs are baking, add the flour to the drippings in the skillet, and whisk thouroughly. Dust the bottom of the pan with paprika, allowing the spice to char somewhat. Add the beef broth, whisking thouroughly, then add the sour cream. A little more pepper never hurt anyone either.
Let the sauce simmer for about ten minutes, being sure to stir every now and again. Mix the cornstarch with a little beef broth or cold water and add to the sauce. Allow it to boil, but remove the sauce from the heat after one minute!
Pull the noodles two minutes earlier than usual. In other words: Al dente, or the state of being springy to the tooth yet soft enough that you don’t get starch on your teeth, should be about two minutes away when you drain the pasta.
Shake the water off, but not too vigourously. You want a little water to help the sauce adhere. Immediately throw the noodles in with the sauce, and fold them in. The pasta will absorb a good amount of the sauce, leaving you with a succulent plate of tangible indulgence.
So there you have it. For now I am satisfied with the latest tweaks to the recipe that has accompanied me through life. All I ask is that you make it with care, and try and share it with someone(s) you love.
*I apologize for the spelling errors. It’s late.
