We’re making meatballs

Meatballs with mashed potatoes, cream sauce, pressed and pickled cucumber and lingonberry jam was served to us by our grandmothers and mothers. And I guess it will always be a favorite. Forget the ones from IKEA. This is the real thing!

Meatballs

• 500 g minced Beef
• 2 Egg
• 1 tbsp Mustard
• 1 bread Roll, only the content (or other fresh white bread)
• 0,5-1 decilitre Milk or Cream
• 1 Onion, finely chopped
• 5-6 Cloves
• 5-6 Pimentos
• Salt
• Black pepper

Blend everything together, crush the pimento and the clove in a mortar, let the mixture draw for a few minutes. Form the meatballs with wet hands and fry them in a pan with butter.

Mashed potatoes

• 8-10 Potatoes
• 1 decilitre Yoghurt
• 1-2 decilitre Milk
• a knob of Butter
• Nutmeg
• Salt
• Black pepper

Boil the potatoes, when they’re done pull out the water and mash the potatoes. Use an electric mixer, add a knob of butter, nutmeg and yoghurt and mix. Gradually add the milk until you get preferred consistency. Spice it with salt and black pepper.

Pressed and pickled cucumber

• 1 Cucumber
• 1-2 teaspoons Salt
• 1 decilitre Water
• 2 tbsp Sugar
• 2 tbsp Vinegar essence
• Parsley

Slice the cucumber thinly, put it in a bowl with the salt. Put a lid (or a plate) on top of the cucumbers and add a weight to press it down. Leave it for 30 minutes. Blend water, sugar and vinegar essence.

Pour out the water from the pressed cucumber and put the cucumber in a glass jar, add chopped parsley and pour the fluid into the jar. Leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours before you eat it.

Brown sauce

• Cream
• Beef broth
• Soy sauce
• Sauce thickener
• Salt
• Black pepper

Make the sauce in the pan where you fried the meatballs without washing it in between. Add the ingredients depending of your own taste, you can of course exchange the cream for milk. Stir everything until you have a nice consistency and a tasty sauce.

The lingonberry jam is bought in Sweden and not homemade.

Music: CEO – the swede Eric Berglund – and his latest record White Magic.

Pickled gherkins

We haven’t been able to find pickled gherkins in Berlin. Salt pickled gherkins that is. What is a hamburger without pickled gherkin or your liver paste sandwich for breakfast for that matter?

We have to make our own and now it is the season for tiny cucumbers that we bought from the Farmers Market on Kollwitz Platz in Prenzlauer Berg.

• 1 kilo tiny Cucumbers
• 1 liter Water
• 4 tbsp Salt
• 2 teaspoons Sugar
• 2 1/2 tbsp Vinegar essence
• 2-3 heads of Dill
• 4 centimetres of Horseradish
• 2-3 centimetres of fresh Ginger
• 4-5 Black peppercorns

Scrub the cucumbers clean and prick tiny holes in them, so that they better absorb the flavours. Stir water, salt, sugar and vinegar essence together so that the salt and the sugar dissolves. Let it rest for a couple of minutes.

In the meantime slice the horseradish and the ginger in 0,5 centimetre slices.

Use a big jar, preferably a glass jar, or whatever you prefer. Put cucumbers, slices of ginger, slices of horseradish, the dill heads and the black peppercorns in layers. Pour the liquid carefully.

Let your pickled gherkins draw for a few days before you eat them.

Chocolate fondant with rasberry sauce

A really easy dessert to make.

We use the following ingredients:

• 100 g Chocolate, 70 % cacao or more
• 100 g Butter
• 40 g Sugar
• 27 g Flour
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Eggyolks

Whisk sugar and butter together, add the two eggs and then the eggyolks. Melt the chocolate carefully over a water-bath. Pour the melted chocolate over the sugar-butter-eggs and add the flour. Pour the thick and fluffy mixture in four small tins and put them for 6 minutes in the owen at 200 degrees Celsius.

Serve with rasberries mixed with a small amount of sugar, if necessary, and fresh mint leaves.