All Recipes Swedish Meatballs

2 slices day-old white bread, crumbled

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon butter

1 small onion, minced

2/3 pound ground beef

1/3 pound finely ground pork (I use Co-op's meatloaf mix)

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/8 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)

1 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup chicken broth (I used powdered chicken bouillon to save a can of stock)

3-4 tablespoons all-purpose flour mixed with ½ c of water

1 ½ - 2 cups beef broth, or as needed

¾ c cream

1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2 Place the bread crumbs into a small bowl, and mix in the cream. Allow to stand until crumbs absorb the cream, about 10 minutes. While the bread is soaking, melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a skillet over medium heat, and cook and stir the onion until it turns light brown, about 10 minutes. Place onion into a mixing bowl; mix with the ground beef, ground pork, egg, salt, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. Lightly mix in the bread crumbs and cream.

3 Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Make about 1 1/2 tablespoon of the meat mixture per meatball, and form into balls. Place the meatballs into the skillet, and cook just until the outsides are brown, about 5 minutes, turning the meatballs often. Insides of the meatballs will still be pink. Place browned meatballs into a baking dish, pour in chicken broth, and cover with foil.

4 Bake in the preheated oven until the meatballs are tender, about 40 minutes. Remove meatballs to a serving dish.

5 To make brown gravy, pour pan drippings into a saucepan over medium heat. Add beef broth. Whisk the flour and water in until smooth, to total about 2 1/2 cups of liquid. Bring the gravy to a simmer, whisking constantly until thick, about 5 minutes. Just before serving, whisk in the cream. Season to taste with salt and black pepper. Serve the gravy with the meatballs, over wide egg noodles.

MB mods January 2018:

- used ~1/4 cup or less of panko breadcrumbs soaked in the cream. Be careful of adding too much, it turns to cement.

- did the whole thing in the 12" cast iron pan, didn't need to transfer to baking dish. Removed meatballs and used same pan for gravy. yummm

- was cooking something else in the oven that needed higher heat, so did 400° for 20 minutes and they still got done.

- be sure to turn the meatballs an uncountably infinite number of times so that they brown evenly.

-adapted from All Recipes.com