Swedish meatballs, the easy way

Here we go, first post! Today's dinner!
My dear bf is a real sucker for meatballs and mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, we're currently out of potatoes, so for this one we decided to stick with pasta and store-bought tomato sauce. But no cheating on the meatballs!



First, you take your ground beef or minced meat or whatever you want to call it. Just squash it around for a bit.


Then, you mix some dried breadcrumbs with some water (about a teaspoon of each) and let it stand for about a minute, until the crumbs absorb the water and it turns into some kind of goo. I tried to take a picture of this, but it looked too hideous. Anyway, mix it in with the meat. This helps keeping the whole thing together. Some recipes use eggs or other weird stuff for this, but to me they add too much.. well, egg. I want my meatballs to taste like meat. Mostly.


Next step is spicing. I always try to put in some ginger and garlic, both fresh if I have them at hand - which I had this time, as you can see. I also happened to have some dried piri-piris, so I threw in three of those. And of course all the spice jars - a pinch of cayenne, some mild paprika powder, my favorite spice mix called "Chili Explosion", about a tablespoon of dried basil, and lots of black pepper.
Mix it well!


Now here comes the fun part. Put some salted water on the stove for the pasta. Then wet a plastic cutting board and your hands with cold water, and pat them with a towel so you won't drown your meatballs. And we're rolling! A heaping teaspoon is about the right amount of meat to make one ball - as any swede could tell you, the smaller the better, 'cause the crust and burnt parts are always the best. Just roll it all up and put the little beauties on the cutting board, the water will make sure they don't stick. Trust me, they will stick without it.


Fry 'em up!
Don't be shy with the fat now, or they're gonna stick to the pan and lose that roundness you worked so hard to create. And use real butter, if you can afford it. Anyhow, brown them on medium-high heat, shaking the pan vigorously every other minute or so until they look tasty. If you made them as tiny as I did, they'll probably be done by then. Cut one open to check, and just lower the heat 'til they're done if they're not.


And look what we created in just 30 minutes. :)

Now let some happy eater take care of the dishes. They won't object.