Dishes · A classic of Nordic and Baltic rye · Sweden
Köttbullar
Small meatballs of beef and pork with onion and milk-soaked breadcrumbs, browned in butter and served with cream sauce, lingonberries and potatoes.
What makes it köttbullar
- Beef and pork, with breadcrumbs soaked in milk or cream.
- Small, rolled with wet hands and browned in butter.
- Cream sauce and lingonberries, always.
Where it comes from
Swedish cookbooks print them from the eighteenth century, when they were a dish of well-off households; in time they became everyday home cooking and a fixture of the smörgåsbord. A popular story says King Charles XII brought the idea home from the Ottoman Empire in the early 1700s — historians think the truth is less tidy.
The plate hardly changes: meatballs, a brown cream sauce, boiled or mashed potatoes, lingonberry jam and quick-pickled cucumber.
How it varies
- Julköttbullar
- Christmas meatballs, smaller, often with allspice.
- Frikadeller
- Denmark's larger, flatter cousins, fried in butter.
Be the first here
Start your own köttbullarNo one here has made köttbullar yet. Start it as v1, and every version after is an experiment the next cook can learn from.
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