The best tasting Danish meatball recipe? I'm experimenting...
It's true Ikea popularized the Swedish meatball served with lingonberry sauce at their famous retail store, but meatballs - or Frikadeller in Danish - continue to be popular all throughout Scandinavia. And each nation prefers a different type of meatball!
Over the course of the 20th century, food cooperatives in Denmark grew larger and larger via mergers to streamline the food industry and provide food for a nation in large quantities at reduce prices.
The process was fantastic for the Danish economy, but it destroyed food diversity, made rural farmers much less engaged with their products and made the consumer less conscious of what was authentic food.
"We were just very good at producing it in large amounts," said Bi Skaarup, who teaches a course on Danish food history on her farm in southern Denmark. "And in the battle to get things sold to England, the Danish consumer lost the knowledge of what was good."
A manifesto for a new Nordic cuisine emerged from a lack of food diversity.
The aims of New Nordic Cuisine:
To express the purity, freshness, simplicity and ethics of the Nordic region.
To reflect the changing of the seasons in the meals made in restaurants in the region.
Base the cooking on ingredients and produce from climates, landscapes and waters of the Nordic region.
A movement was born that gave birth to popular restaurants like Noma, Geranium and Amass -- all Michelin star restaurants and all heavily popular. I dined at all three places over the course of several visits to Copenhagen. So why am I experimenting with Danish meatballs totally outside the purview of New Nordic Cuisine?
Because Noma, Geranium and Amass are mostly for tourists.
Noma had me in-and-out like a child on a 5-minute rollercoaster ride at Disneyland. But you can even take a selfie with the kitchen staff!
Geranium, a personal favorite, skimped on the freshly picked dandelion weeds. Although with several courses, I was quite full. And the service at Geranium is superior to Noma in every way. And you can even take a selfie with the kitchen staff!!
The point I'm hoping to convey is all these establishments are mostly setup as tourist traps.
Most Danes do not dine at Noma, Geranium and Amass.
So I'm on a search for authentic food Danes actually eat, which brings me back to the meatball and popular junk food found at a grocery store.
Some argue the difference between Swedish and Danish meatballs are that Danish meatballs are fluffier and juicier because they contain veal and ground pork.
My Danish Meatball Recipe
Ingredients
1/2 pound ground veal
1/2 pound ground pork
1/4 cup milk, or as needed
1/4 cup finely ground onion
1 egg
1/4 cup bread crumbs, or as needed
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup seltzer water
salt and pepper as needed
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
a dash of nutmeg
1/4 cup butter
Method
Mix the veal and pork together in a bowl, and stir in the milk, onion, and egg. Mix the bread crumbs into the meat. Sprinkle in the flour, and knead well to mix. Stir in the seltzer water, season to taste with salt and pepper, add the cinnamon and nutmeg, and mix well. The mixture should be very moist, but not dripping.
Chill the meat mixture for 15 to 30 minutes in the refrigerator, to make the meatballs easier to form.
Heat the margarine in a large skillet over medium heat.
To form meatballs, scoop up about 2 1/2 tablespoons of meat mixture with a large spoon, and form the mixture into a slightly flattened, oval meatball about the size of a small egg. Place the meatballs into the heated skillet, and fry for about 15 minutes per side, until the meatballs are well-browned and no longer pink in the center.
Serve with Danish Brown Sauce, Danish cucumbers and a hint of jelly or bitter berries.
Can be made with or without cinnamon and nutmeg.
For me, a good Danish recipe trumps most restaurants including Noma.
