Swedish Meatballs & Cranberry Jam

“Andersonville’s roots as a community extend well back into the 19th century, when immigrant Swedish farmers started moving north into what was then a distant suburb of Chicago.” – www.andersonville.org

When McKay ancillary services in the form of my husband kicked in this morning to take over the school runs, I took out all (well most) of the ingredients for this weeks recipe for Swedish Meatballs, chosen to conclude our first month at the Andersonville Galleria.

Irritated to find that I was missing an ingredient, the ground beef – for which there was no substitute, the prospect of a walk to the grocery store in temperatures of -10 degrees F with windchill loomed. I bundled up and made the trip on foot, while contemplating the provenance of the recipe “Why meatballs with berry jam?”

Outdoors in the cold, the penny dropped. In the northern most reaches of Europe, the Land of the Midnight Sun in Sweden, they share the plunging temperatures that we endure in the Midwest. This morning I had seen a recipe pop up on facebook for a delicious looking salad. I desperately wanted to want that salad, but in reality my short walk to the store was to leave me unwavering in my desire for the heavier food I was about to cook.

Swedish meatballs are a soft, melt in your mouth combination of beef and pork, spiced with allspice and cooked in a creamy sauce. The fruity jam accompaniment works to balance the creaminess, those berries which grow optimally in the long, warm hours of a Swedish summer. I’m always on the look out for game and substituted the pork for ground wild boar I found in a chain grocery store locally. Leaner than pork, higher in protein and lower in cholesterol than beef, it’s a tasty alternative. Add low fat sour cream to lighten it up.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: LOW for 7 hours or HIGH for 3 ½ hours

Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 slices of white bread, crusts removed

1 lb ground wild boar (or pork)

1 lb ground sirloin

1 large egg

1 cup / 1 medium red onion, finely chopped

2 tsp allspice

salt and pepper

3 tbsp light olive oil

1 tbsp all purpose flour

1 1/4 cups beef broth

1/3 cup light sour cream

cranberry jam

Soak the bread and milk in a large bowl for 10 minutes, it will absorb the milk and be very soft.

Add the boar (or pork,) beef, egg, red onion, allspice, salt & pepper to the bread and milk mixture. With your hands, mix the ingredients well. Wet your hands and shape the mixture into golf ball sized meatballs. It yields 30.

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and brown the meatballs for 4 minutes, moving around the pan lightly.

Add the meatballs to your slow cooker insert, sprinkle the flour over the meatballs and pour the beef broth over the top. Cover and cook on LOW for 7 hours or HIGH for 3 1/2.

Once cooked, stir the sour cream into the meatballs and sauce (they will be firm now) and serve with boiled potatoes and cranberry jam with a side of fresh, peppery watercress.

* This is an adaptation of a recipe for Finnish meatballs from Falling Cloudberries, Tessa Kiros. They became Swedish because my method of slow cooking requires added broth, a typically Swedish addition.

Zen Moment

“The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them.”

 –Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373)