Swedish meatballs with cream sauce

Ingredients

For the meatballs

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 600g/1lb 5oz wild boar or pork, minced
• 4 anchovy fillets, finely chopped
• 100g/3½oz breadcrumbs
• 1 free-range egg
• 50ml/2fl oz milk or single cream
• ½ tsp allspice
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• salt and freshly ground pepper

For the gravy

• 25g/1oz butter
• 25g/1oz flour
• 100ml/3½fl oz white wine
• 500ml/18fl oz beef stock
• 2 tbsp single cream
• 1 tbsp lingonberry jam or redcurrant jelly

To serve

• few sprigs of dill, finely chopped

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan/Gas 6.

2. For the meatballs, heat the oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and sauté for a further minute. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

3. Put all the meatball ingredients, including the cooked onion and garlic, into a large bowl and mix thoroughly with your hands. Shape the mixture into balls somewhere between the size of a walnut and a golf ball – they should be around 40g/1½oz in weight. You should end up with around 24 meatballs. Put the balls on a baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes until cooked through.

4. To make the gravy, melt the butter in a saucepan large enough to hold the meatballs. Add the flour and stir for 5-10 minutes until the flour and butter have combined into a roux and turned golden-brown. Add the white wine and stir vigorously until well incorporated, then gradually add all the beef stock, stirring thoroughly between each addition to avoid lumps, until you have a slightly thickened gravy. Add the cream and the jam, and mix to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Remove the meatballs from the oven and place in the gravy pan. Simmer gently for 5-10 minutes to allow the flavours to combine. Serve with a sprinkling of dill, more jam on the side and lots of mashed potato.