# Swedish Meatballs, sour cream or no?



## Cooking4to

I have made it both ways, what do you think is better, I am ready to try a new swedish meatball recipe, making them tomorrow, I just ground up the pork and chuck...


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## GotGarlic

We like it with the sour cream. Never tried it without.


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## jennyema

Never had it with.  And I'm Swedish but my grandmother who made them all the time wasn't a very good cook.  Family friend Myrtle's recipe that I use doesn't have either.

But it sounds like it could be delish!


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## Cheryl J

IMO, yes to the sour cream gravy!  I have some Swedish meatballs in the freezer from the last time I made them.  I saw them the other day and decided I'm not going to have them until I make some sour cream gravy to go with them. 

Here's an interesting thread from not too long ago about meatballs. The Swedish meatballs discussion starts about halfway through the thread. 

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f48/iso-good-meatball-recipe-90423-6.html

It sounds like you already have your recipe, Cooking4to.  I hope you love them.  This is the recipe I followed that was posted by another member, and it was fantastic.  Please let us know what recipe you use! 

Swedish Meatballs (Svenska Kottbullar) Recipe - Allrecipes.com


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## Cooking4to

Cheryl J said:


> IMO, yes to the sour cream gravy!  I have some Swedish meatballs in the freezer from the last time I made them.  I saw them the other day and decided I'm not going to have them until I make some sour cream gravy to go with them.
> 
> Here's an interesting thread from not too long ago about meatballs. The Swedish meatballs discussion starts about halfway through the thread.
> 
> http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f48/iso-good-meatball-recipe-90423-6.html
> 
> It sounds like you already have your recipe, Cooking4to.  I hope you love them.  This is the recipe I followed that was posted by another member, and it was fantastic.  Please let us know what recipe you use!
> 
> Swedish Meatballs (Svenska Kottbullar) Recipe - Allrecipes.com



I am going to run with that one, it is different enough from what I have done in the past.  I like mine but I can't say its the best I ever had, so if someone somewhere at some cookout makes them better than me, I have some room for improvement.

I do like how the meatballs come out 50/50 so I may just change that unless you think I should follow it exact?  I already ground 50/50, so kind of locked into it, lol...


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## Cheryl J

A 50/50 mix should be fine.  The crumbled bread and cream help keep them moist.


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## Cooking4to

Cheryl J said:


> A 50/50 mix should be fine.  The crumbled bread and cream help keep them moist.



I will post pics and progress tomorrow...  thank you Cheryl, you are a doll..


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## GotGarlic

I was mistaken. The recipe I use (from Cooks Illustrated) calls for heavy cream, not sour cream.


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## Cooking4to

GotGarlic said:


> I was mistaken. The recipe I use (from Cooks Illustrated) calls for heavy cream, not sour cream.



I have made it both ways, my go to way is normally with heavy cream, I am going to try the one above and see how it comes...


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## Cheryl J

Just to add, the recipe I posted also calls for heavy cream *in* the meatballs, the sour cream was just for the gravy.  

Now I'm craving them again.


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## Cooking4to

Cheryl J said:


> Just to add, the recipe I posted also calls for heavy cream *in* the meatballs, the sour cream was just for the gravy.
> 
> Now I'm craving them again.



I have been talking about making them again, and then today getting everything ready, I want them right now on a nice soft moist potato roll... I am making a ton of it for tomorrow, my mother, father, sister, both brothers and their "girlfriends", niece, me, my 2 sons and my oldests girlfriend, youngests sons friend {he lives down the street I feed him at least 2 meals a day}, and a couple that are family friends will be here, so thats 15 people I am going to make 8lbs of meatballs, 5 lbs of pasta, and 4 triple braids!!!  

Its not too bad though, I did the hard work today, ground the meats...  I have all the ingredients, except I am going to need more sour cream which I will have my wife pick up in the morning...  I am used to cooking for a lot of people, for thanksgiving we have around 40 over, my dining room table seats 12, so we will put the kids in the kitchen at the counter bar, and have plenty of room...


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## CWS4322

My grandma, who was Swedish and a very good cook, used heavy cream to soak the bread, and then made the gravy using either milk/heavy cream/sour cream. She would add lingonberries/cranberry sauce to the gravy. And, for holidays, she would grate gjetost and add that to the gravy...I guess those were Norwegian meatballs! In Sweden, the gravy is served on the side with the lingonberry jam. And, nutmeg is key for the Swedish meatball flavor.


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## Cooking4to

OK, so here's an update, I made the meatballs, pasta, and bread Sunday and everything was a hit..  I took picture throughout but for some reason can not get a lot of them to upload from my phone.  

Only one pic loaded, which aggravates me to no end, since it was a lot of trouble to take them.
Even though I ground the pork and beef the day before and made the egg pasta dough the day before, the kitchen was still CRAZY Sunday.  I started by cutting and cooking the onions and mixing the meat for the meatballs, which I did in the mixer, and thats the only pic that came out.  I had about 5 lbs of pork and 5lbs of beef, then the eggs, bread crumbs, etc.  When mixing 10-11 lbs of meatballs the mixer is a HUGE help.

While that was mixing I balled up the pasta dough and started to get it ready for the sheeter.  After it was done mixing I set the meatball mix aside and started a 10 cup italian dough mix, in between all this sheeting and kneading the pasta.  By the time the bread dough was rested I had all the pasta on the drying racks {6+lbs of pasta, you can picture what my kitchen looked like}.  I sheeted the pasta a little thick and cut them into Pappardelle noodles about 9"s long.

Next was to roll my bread which was easy and fast I did 3 split loaves and 3 triple braids, put them in the flax towel and let them do their thing while I started to divide and roll meatballs.  That was the hard part, and I enlisted the help of my sons, one was dividing them to size and the other was, we will call it shaping, I did the final rolling and placed them on sheet pans..

I was going to pan fry them like I normally do but because it was so many, I decided to broil them brown and then go from their..  It worked out well, I sprinkled them with brown sugar and browned them in the oven...
I panned and put the bread in the other oven and started the sauce in a saute pan.  I split the meatballs and sauce into 3 pans, and put them on low {covered}...

Now it was getting close to show time and I needed the kitchen clean and to take a shower before people started to arrive!!!   I got 2 pans of boiling water going and started cooking the noodles, anyone who has made and cooked their own egg heavy pasta knows you can not just throw a pound in a pan, you will end up with a dumpling ball.  So I had to cook a handful at a time, I used a bit of sauce to keep the cooked pasta from sticking while I cooked the rest.   In the mean time I also made my wife vegan stuffed shells, lol...

As far as timing went I got it about perfect, i was dressed and ready 10 minutes before anyone arrived, the bread came out of the oven 15 minutes before we were ready to eat.  I used 4 large pasta serving bowls and everyone served themselves.  We had about 2 servings left over so it all pretty much went {you never want to run out}.  There were actually more people than I expected and a few had never had meatballs like that before.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it and we had a good time, thank you Cheryl for the recipe, I am going to say they were better than others I have made and their is a lot of potential their, whenever I cook A LOT of food it never comes as good as if I do a single pan, normal amount..  While the meatballs were nice and tender if I pan fried them they would have been even more so, which is never a bad thing...  Also I added a bit extra brown sugar to sweeten up the sauce, which I did with out measuring just a handful here and there to multiple pans, while no one noticed one batch was sweeter than another, I did.  My mother said she couldn't tell but she is my mom, and probably wouldn't tell me either way...


Heres the one pic that come out, all the ingredients ready to mix for the meatballs, the meats are already in the mixer for this one...  Thanks for reading along...


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## Kayelle

TSM for the detailed report, I was really hoping you'd do that. I had a cartoon vision of you flying around the kitchen. 
GREAT JOB!!

Now, please tell us about your brother's reaction to all of his wonderful housewarming gifts!


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## Cheryl J

Thanks for the update, cooking4to! Glad you and your guests liked them.  Shame your other pics didn't turn out! 

I'll have to go back to that thread and re-read who originally posted the link to that recipe.  I think it was either GG or Kayelle....my memory is fading!


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## Cooking4to

Kayelle said:


> TSM for the detailed report, I was really hoping you'd do that. I had a cartoon vision of you flying around the kitchen.
> GREAT JOB!!
> 
> Now, please tell us about your brother's reaction to all of his wonderful housewarming gifts!



I felt like a cartoon, I have been thinking about doing some videos to send friends of mine, one of my brothers friends wants to know how to make dinner for dates he takes home, lol...

I figured one for making home made pasta, marinara, and bread for 2- with just a few eggs, flour, water, tomatoes, an onion, olive oil, a packet of yeast, and some spices {garlic, pepper, salt, sugar, etc}.  And just use a fork, knife, rolling pin, and a couple pans to do it.  

That is where I really like to cook, just a simple dinner for two, I will often make my kids a pizza then make a tiny batch of pasta dough, hand cut it, boil it and make a small batch of marinara with just fresh toms, garlic, red wine, oil...  and roll a couple small braids for me and my wife, it is such a nice clean pasta and bread dinner, with a couple glasses of red wine, that is what cooking is about to me. I can make that dinner start to finish in 30 minutes {If I make the dough ahead of time when I do the kids pizza}... Dinner for 2 is fun, dinner for 30 is super stressful...

Also, thank you for asking about my brother, he LOVES everything, he was blown away by the knife set, and the mixer sent him over the top, only 1 person at the party even ever seen one of them mixers before!!!

On the way to his house for the party, my youngest son said "did you get him flour and stuff to make bread", me and my wife looked at each other and laughed, I then stopped at the market and got him, flour, yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil, and cornmeal.  Sure enough as soon as he was done opening all the gifts {he was very emotional} he wanted to make some bread, we turned his oven on, and my wife washed the mixer bowl and his new pans. 

That mixer is awesome for bread dough!!!  It mixed the dough perfectly and pretty fast.   We rushed it and only let it sit for about 20 minutes then rolled it and let it sit about 30 minutes, then cooked them...  But they came good for the first thing he cooked in his house.  

His friends chipped in and bought him a snow blower which was really nice, he has a large driveway to do and 2 walk ways so that will be handy, its really nice probably a $1700 unit!!!

He is off to a great start, he texted me last night for a recipe for chicken marsala, I emailed it to him and he made it tonight.  He texted me and said his was a lot dryer than mine, and I told him to lower the heat and add the wine sooner, he will get there.  He also said he bought a twine holder, he bought a sirloin and cut himself like 20 steaks.  He is a steak and potato guy for sure, but I reminded him, he only eats red meat once a week twice max, he just bought 4 months of steaks, lol...  But he said he will be cooking for friends that come over so it will go fast.  He is having 8 people over for dinner and drinks saturday night, and then next week he is doing a big super bowl party..


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## Souschef

Today was a harmonic convergence!!!! We used the microwave, the dishwasher, the range and the oven!!!
Right now Kayelle is making the gravy for the meatballs.
She is thrilled with the power burner for boiling water!


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## Kayelle

I'm sooo happy for him and for you!  When I read that he got emotional, it brought tears to my eyes too. Love is a wonderful thing.
I felt like a one armed paper hanger just doing the involved dinner for the two of us tonight, but never would have wanted to do it without my dear Souschef by my side.


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## Cheryl J

Yay!  Breaking them all in at once. 


edited to add...it's gotta be so much more fun with your souschef.


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## Cheryl J

...and how was your meatball dinner?


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## Kayelle

Cheryl J said:


> ...and how was your meatball dinner?



Thanks for asking Cheryl...it was deeeelicious and plenty for another dinner, plus lunch, as I dished up too much for dinner for us. The gravy was perfect with the sour cream. I froze half the Spaetzle without being fried in butter for the future.  Dang, I love that Spaetzle.


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## Cheryl J

davidlie said:


> If you try beef or sheep
> Could be better than pork


 
Welcome to DC, davidlie.  Do you have a recipe you'd care to share?


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