Swedish Meatballs

Ingredients

serves 4-5

Swedish Meatballs

• small knob of butter
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 1 Small onion
• 5 Garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp Grillkrydda (Swedish grillspice)*
• ¼ tsp Ground white pepper
• 300g Portabello mushrooms
• 2 tbsp Soy sauce
• 400g Cooked chickpeas
• 50g Breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp Fresh parsley
• 1 Free-range eggs
• Plain flour for coating

To cook meatballs

• Knob of butter
• Olive oil

Cream sauce

• 50g Butter
• 50g Plain flour
• 1 tbsp Soy sauce
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 400ml Vegetable bouillon stock
• 100ml Double cream
• Sea salt
• Ground black pepper

Mash potatoes

900g Potatoes

50g Butter

100ml Milk

Sea salt

To serve

• Garden peas
• Lingonberry jam
• Dill pickle slices
• Fresh chives

Method

Swedish Meatballs

For the meatballs, heat a large heavy-bottomed over a medium heat before adding the butter & oil. Finely chop the onion and add it to the pan, lower the heat, stir to coat and cook for 3 minutes. Crush the garlic and stir that in. Continue to cook for 1-2 minutes or until softened. Meanwhile, finely chop the mushrooms in preperation

Stir in the grillkrydda and cook for a minute to realease its aroma. Add the mushrooms and stir to combine - add a little more oil when necessary. Cook for 5 minutes or untill the mushrooms have reduced in size and released their moisture. Add the soy sauce and continue to cook for another minute - the mushroom mix should be moist but not wet.

Add the chickpeas* to a food processor and pulse to break down a little before adding the mushroom mix. Pulse again to combine to a rough puree - see notes*. Remove to chill mix: 30 minutes in the freezer or 2 hours in the fridge.

Take the chilled mix and roll 20gram balls, roll in flour - I use a well-floured large plate. At this stage you can freeze any you are not going to cook. To cook, heat the butter and oil in a large heavy-bottomed pan. Place the floured balls in the pan and cook to a golden brown - turning when necessary. Add more oil if needed. Remove the balls while you create the cream sauce - do not clean the pan!

Cream Sauce

In the same pan you used to cook the meatballs, stir in the butter to deglaze the pan. stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes before whisking in the vegetable stock, cream, and Dijon mustard. You can, if you wish, add more stock to create a thinner sauce. Add the meatballs to the sauce and remove from the heat.

Perfect Mash

. Remove the butter from the fridge. Peel and cut your potatoes in to equal sized chunks. Place in a large pan and cover with cold water. Bring the water to a simmer and continue cooking till the pots and fork-tender - 15 to 20 minutes (depending on the size). Drain well and return to the same pan. Add the milk and butter to the pan and mash*.

JAMx