1/2 Lb. ground veal
1/2 Lb. ground beef
1/2 Lb. ground pork
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
3/4 cup liquid (Usually all milk. If you prefer you can substitute some water or chicken stock for some of the milk.)
1 egg
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 red onions, finely chopped
White pepper (white pepper does make a difference but you cant find it in Cali)
Butter
Olive oil
2 tbs flour
1 cup of chicken stock or consome
1/2 cup lingonberry preserve (currant jam will work as substitute)
3/4 pound egg noodle
In a small bowl, mix bread crumbs with the 1 cups of liquid, either all water or water and milk mixture. Let soak until crumbly but hanging together. This will take 10-15 minutes to fully absorb.
Add the hand beaten eggs to this mixture and add salt and pepper to taste.
Combine all three variety of ground meats in a bowl.
Sauté chopped onions in butter or olive oil until quite soft and then add to the three meat mixture.
Combine all ingredients and work together with your hands (there is no other way as far as I am concerned) until you have a smooth, well aerated mass.
With somewhat wet hands, roll the meat into one-inch meatballs, placing them onto a wet cutting board until you are all done.
Note: I now, with wet hands and a couple of cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, assemble a bunch of little piles of meatball mixture, that when rolled, will approximate the size of a healthy walnut. Only after I have accomplished this do I go about rolling them and lining them up well in the cookie sheets. I find that rolling in this mass production mode in two steps is much faster and easier.
Fry a few at a time in a half oil half butter mixture at medium-high temperature. Shake the pan the entire time to keep them round. Insure you don't overcrowd the pan
As Grandma would say " The best procedure by far is to do this early in the morning, keeping it in the refrigerator. With your hands somewhat wetted, roll out a thousand little 1 inch size meatballs , park them all undone on a wet cutting board, and then start frying them in melted fat, half butter-half oil, a few at a time, shaking the frying pan the whole time to keep them round and pretty. When all are done, clean the pan on whatever burned fat left, then put in a little consomme and make gravy with the regular proportions" By the way those proportions are 2 Tbs flour, 2 Tbs butter or oil and 1 cup of stock or whatever liquid.
GRAVY
As they are done remove from pan and set aside. When all are fried discard all but two tablespoons of fat. Add two tablespoons of flour and whisk until fat and flour are smoothly combined. Slowly add 1 cup of chicken stock. When fully thickened, add salt and pepper to taste and use gravy additive to achieve richer color. An alternative to adding a gravy coloring you can instead make a dark roux
Serve with egg noodles, chopped pickles and Swedish lingonberry preserve.
"I have seen more Swedish meatballs abused, complicated and ruined, so I feel it my duty to put you straight. It is one of the most versatile dishes to serve, you can have it for lunch, dinner, plain or fancy, for cocktails and buffets. You can stretch the meat forever when you feel poor, you can make it a truly elegant dish and costly when so inclined. The meat should be of fine quality, the less fat the better, but some fat is necessary, should be ground twice (no butcher in Cali will do that for you though!) and should be three kinds, beef, veal and pork for the very best taste and texture"
The recipe totals approximately 1700 calories including gravy and 1300 if you decline to include the gravy. Assuming 40 meatballs, that is approximately 40 calories per meatball including gravy and 30 without.
