Swedish Meatballs with Sauce

Yum
My husband is one hundred percent Swedish. He loves to make Swedish meatballs for the holiday gathering we host toward year end or throughout the year when he gets a craving for these tasty little balls of beef. We made over 300 meatballs for the gathering using about 3 1/2 pounds of ground chuck. This recipe using a pound of beef so should yield around 80-100 meatballs depending on the size you roll them.

We used a one ounce scoop:

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 1 medium onion - finely diced
• 2 eggs - lightly whisked
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tbsp. mustard
• 1 tbsp. all spice
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 3-4 slices white bread or left over Italian bread - dried
• cooking spray
• aluminum foil lined sheet pan

1. Take the dried bread and pulse it in a food processor until fairly fine.
2. In a small bowl whisk 2 eggs with part of the milk mixture.
3. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and preheat your oven to 350°.
4. In a bowl add the diced onions, the mustard and the all spice and whisked eggs and milk. Mix well.
5. In a larger bowl place the ground beef and the wet ingredients and mix quickly. Add in the bread crumbs - half the mixture at a time. Again mix quickly.
6. Keep adding breadcrumbs and the milk until you achieve a good balance of wet to breadcrumbs.
7. The meatballs should be moist but hold together which is why you balance out the amount of breadcrumb and milk.
8. Roll the meatballs and place on a foiled lined baking sheet.
9. Bake in a 350° for approximately 20-25 minutes. An alternate method is to fry them in a skillet.

I was lucky to be able to make a sauce for these. We did not have a ton of sauce as we just wanted a light coating. How I made the sauce was using 3 of my frozen discs of demi-glace I made in the Fall. To that I added one 10.5 ounce can of Campbell's Beef Broth and about 3 tbsp. of heavy cream and 3 tbsp. of sour cream.

The second sauce I made was with blackberry preserves and some horseradish. About 1 cup of  preserves and two tablespoons of horseradish. It makes a sweet with a kick dipping sauce that is a delight on the palette.

If you have my recipe for making demi-glace you can make this or a variation of your own sauce to go over the meatballs. The demi-glace takes time to make, but it is so worth having those discs to pull out when you need them.
Swedish meatballs don't just have to be an appetizer as they make a great family meal when served with egg noodles and a nice bright vegetable.