Skip to main content
Main

Swedish Meat Balls

A dish of beef meatballs seasoned with salt and pepper, mixed with egg yolks and bread crumbs, fried and served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Swedish Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely chop the beef and season it with salt and pepper.

  2. Soak the bread crumbs in milk, then add them to the beef along with the slightly beaten egg yolks.

  3. Shape the mixture into small balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the meatballs in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  4. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Forms the main body of the meatballs and provides their savory meaty flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture together and add richness and moisture to the meatballs.
Soft bread crumbs
Absorb milk and help keep the meatballs tender and moist rather than dense.
Milk
Softens the bread crumbs so they blend evenly and add moisture to the mixture.

The step that matters

Frying in deep fat until golden brown. Frying at a steady, hot temperature browns the outside quickly, sealing in juices and building flavor before the interior overcooks and dries out.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes