Or, mebbe I should call these Swedish Meatballs, tho’ I already have a version of those here, with a follow-up on da sauce here. What these really are is my new favorite buttermilk meatballs, cooked with sautéed ‘shrooms and diced onion in stock and crème fraîche; served over egg noodles and dusted with poppy seeds – but try fitting all THAT in a headline.
Whatever you want to call it, this is ONE. TASTY. MEATBALL. dish. But that could’ve also been due to an unusual choice of stock…
INGREDIENTS
•Meatballs – I used 2 dozen from the freezer
•2 cups pork stock (or chicken stock)
•2 cups water (or 2 more cups stock)
•2 cups crème fraîche
•1/4 to 1/2 cup sweet vermouth
•2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
•2 tsp salt
•3/4 tsp pepper
•2 tsp paprika
•1 tbsp butter
•Canola oil
•‘Shrooms (2 pkgs), sliced
•1 onion, diced
•1 tsp corn starch
•1 tbsp water
Melt the butter with a good drizzle of canola oil in a hot pot over medium high heat. Add the ‘shrooms and onion, and sauté until the onions are translucent and the ‘shrooms nicely cooked.
Add the vermouth to deglaze the pan, scraping up any of those tasty little crispy bits stuck to the bottom, and cook until it is reduced to almost a glaze on the ‘shrooms.
Now, a note on the stock. I would usually have used 4 cups chicken, or mebbe even veggie stock; but was fresh out (I HATE when that happens!). Fortunately, I had 2 cups of skimmed pork stock, leftover from a recent batch of cider-braised ribs (I had used boneless country-style pork ribs), in the fridge.
Hmmm.
I went ahead and added the 2 cups of pork stock and two cups of water to the pot, along with the salt, pepper, paprika, and Worcestershire, along with the meatballs and heated to boiling. The meatballs were already fully cooked, and I had thawed them, so I was looking to get a little bit of the flavor from them in the stock as I was heating them up.
Here’s the beauty part:
If I had been using sour cream, I would have needed to be careful about adding it at this point, lest it get too hot and curdle. With crème fraiche, I needed only pour the contents of my jar into the bubbling pot and simmer away to heat through and reduce. I did add 1 tsp cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbsp cold water after a bit to help speed thickening of the sauce, but perhaps if I had had more patience (or hadn’t been quite as hungry) it would have thickened sufficiently with time and simmering.
No matter, it was done and it was GOOD! I believe I may use my apple cider and pork stock for this now, instead of saving it for Hot and Sour Soup.
We had ours over lightly buttered egg noodles with poppy seeds.