Swedish Meatballs

I noticed I post a lot of recipes with sweets or baked goods. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe because sweet things and baked goods are usually much prettier. Who knows? Well, this is a modification of a Martha Stewart recipe, which wasn't quite good enough in my opinion. So I changed a few things around and made it better (again, in my opinion).

Swedish Meatballs

For the meatballs:
1/2 lb. ground beef
1/2 lb. ground pork
3/4 c. onion (chopped)
1/2 c. sour cream
1 lg. egg
3 tbsp bread crumbs (plain, dried)

1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
1 tbsp oil (canola, vegetable, olive, don't care)

For the sauce:
3 tbsp dry red wine
3 tbsp flour
1 can beef stock
3/4 c. sour cream
fresh ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c. flat-leaf parsley (chopped fine)

1. In a large bowl, mix together the onion, sour cream, egg, bread crumbs, and spices. Add the ground meat and combine thoroughly. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Heat the oil in a large pan over med.-high heat. Form the meat into about 1-in. balls, and place each into the pan. You'll probably have to do this in two batches. Brown the meatballs on at least two sides. These things are delicate little bastards so I do my best. Don't panic if they start to come apart or look a little lopsided. They will be fine.

3. After each meatball is sufficiently browned, place on a greased sheet pan. After all the meatballs have been browned, finish them off in the oven, cooking about 15-20 mins. I suggest breaking one apart to make sure they're cooked through completely before removing from the oven.

4. Now it's time to make the sauce: using the same pan you cooked the meatballs in, drain what's left in the pan except for about 1 tbsp of the drippings. Add the wine, and sprinkle the flour in the pan. Cook for 2 mins. Add the stock, and simmer for 5 mins. Whisk in the sour cream, nutmeg, and salt - cook another 5 mins over low heat. Stir in the chopped parsley.

5. It might be a little white trash of me, but, I like to serve Swedish meatballs the frozen dinner way (seriously): atop a bed of cooked egg noodles, sprinkled with more chopped parsley and maybe a bit of parmesan cheese and cracked pepper. I mean doesn't Marie Callendar know what's best, anyway?


Yields: approximately 4 servings.