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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

How to make Frikadeller. A Homemade Danish Meatball Recipe for Lunch, Dinners and Leftovers

Frikadeller are the Danish national dish and very easy to prepare and make.  Frikadeller are flat, pan-fried meatballs.  The base is pure pork minced meat. The pork makes the meatballs really tasty.  But you can add or supplement with veal or beef too. A couple of popular version is 1/3 pound pork, 1/3 pound beef, 1/3 pound veal or just a pound of pork.

Our family eats frikadeller when we have Sunday dinners.  What do we eat with Danish Frikadeller? A typical Danish frikadelle dinner has Danish red cabbage (Rødkaal), Danish cucumber salad (Agurksalat), sugar brown potatoes (kartofler) and brown gravy (sovs).

To prepare for our Sunday dinners we go out and buy the ingredients the day before.  Sunday afternoons, starts with making the side dishes.  There are usually extra hands to help with chopping, shredding and mincing. Sometimes it is easier to make the side dishes the day before which is fine. The Danish Red Cabbage and the Cucumber Salad both taste great the next day too.  





Ready to make the delicious meatballs?  Below are our ingredients, instructions and a YouTube video.

Ingredients
*1/2 pound of minced beef
*1/2 pound of minced pork
*1 cup of flour
*1/2 cup of oatmeal (breadcrumbs is another option)
*2 eggs
*1 minced onion
*1/4 teaspoon of pepper
*1 teaspoon of salt
*1 to 1 1/2 cup of milk
*allspice (optional)
*butter or margarine

Kitchen Tools
*bowl
*mixing spoon
*grater
*measuring cup
*measuring spoon
*non-stick frying pan

First Step is to make the fikadelle mixture
There is a little prepping to do which is great! A few things you will need to do is buy minced meat.  If you choose to use breadcrumbs, you will either need to buy or make your own breadcrumbs. Also, you'll need to mince one onion with a grater. Once you have all of the ingredients you are ready to make the frikadelle mixture. 

First, mix the beef and pork together in a bowl. Stir in milk, onion, and eggs.  Add oatmeal or bread crumbs into the meat mixture. Sprinkle in flour, and knead well to mix. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and mix well.   Some people enjoy the taste of allspice and it is optional. A tip is the frikadelle mixture gets better the more you mix the ingredients together. Also, the mixture should be very moist, but not dripping.  If it is too moist, add more flour and use less milk.

Now you are ready to let the frikadelle mixture to rest for a 1/2 hour to an hour in the refrigerator. The mixture should be quite moist and soft. This makes it easier to form the shape of a meatball.

Did you know that   
frikadeller = meatballs and frikadelle = meatball



Second step is to fry the frikadelle
Place a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. Melt a couple of table spoons of margarine or butter in the frying pan.

Now you are ready to shape the meatballs. A tip is to dip your large tablespoon into the melted margarine. Then, scoop the tablespoon into the bowl to form the meatball.  A helpful trick is to take the tablespoon mixture and smoothen it against the wall of the bowl.  The mixture in the spoon should look slightly flattened oval meatball about the size of a small egg when placed in the pan.

One-by-one place the oval flat shape frikadelle into the heated skillet. Don't put too many frikadeller in the pan at once and they should not be touching.  Fry the meatball for about 3 to 5 minutes on each side until they are well-browned and no longer pink in the center. Also, it depends how big the meatball is on the pan and how hot your pan is too.  If it is still pink, fry for 3 or more minutes.  Then, remove the frikadelle to a separate platter. 

If you have a more frikadelle mixture in the bowl, add more butter in the skillet and then fry another batch.






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If you have leftover frikadeller, it is great to eat the next day.  The Danish Frikadelle tastes great cold.  A popular way to eat the frikadeller cold is on a Danish open face sandwich  This is made with rugbrød with red cabbage or pickles slices.  Danes don't waste their food.  So, the side dishes from the evening before usually gets used on the open face sandwich.

Trivia: Did you know that the Danish Frikadelle is about 250 years old as we know it today. In the mid 1800's, it was wood-fired ovens and meat grinders that contributed to new dishes including the Danish frikadelle.

We hope you enjoyed our video and recipe! If you like this danish frikadelle recipe as a meat dish, please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel Scandinavian Today.  Our channel has videos including
*how to make Danish Christmas rice pudding with cherry sauce dessert recipe (Risalamande med kirsebærsauce)
*how to make Swedish Glogg for Christmas & cold evenings! (glögg or mulled wine recipe) 
*how to make aeblskiver (æbleskiver)
*how to make Danish Christmas Klejner
*how to make easy Danish cucumber salad (arguksalat)
*how to make Danish sugar browned potatoes (brunede kartofler)
*how to make Danish red cabbage (rødkaal)
These recipes are perfect for the holiday season. Please let us know what you think! Glædelig Jul and Merry Christmas♥ !

Our Scandinavian recipes including Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish are on http://scandinavtoday.blogspot.com/

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