Week 28 - Danish

So many recipes sounded good for Danish week, but after much deliberation, I decided on meatballs (frikadeller, based on a recipe from Scandi Kitchen) paired with mashed potatoes (specifically, brændende kærlighed, which were topped with onions and bacon and based on a Nordic Food Living recipe; I will probably just refer to them as the mashed potatoes from here on, since I don't know the keyboard command for the æ letter).

I love meatballs, all different variations, but this was my first time eating or making Danish meatballs. According to the Scandi Kitchen site, meatballs are so common that they're eaten about once a week, warm with boiled potatoes (with parsley and butter, sounds delicious), gravy, and pickled cucumbers, or cold with potato salad, on sandwiches, and other ways. We had them with mashed potatoes and green beans, so not any of the "typical" ways, which means we might just need to make them again "properly" whenever we get to the Danish section of the AtWCC. (Or maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to make meatballs again, because I love meatballs.)

The original recipe for the meatballs was made with veal and pork, but since I don't really cook much red meat at home, I just went with a really fatty ground pork. I also made some other substitutions, like flax eggs, oat milk instead of whole, Better than Bouillon instead of a stock cube, panko breadcrumbs instead of fresh. The most interesting ingredient to me was the addition of sparkling water. I had never put those in meatballs before, and I was curious to see how it would change the texture.

Alongside the meatballs, we also made the mashed potatoes, which were fairly straightforward and just topped with onions and bacon. Can't really go wrong with that combination.

We really enjoyed this meal. We've had much more exposure to Swedish meatballs, but these Danish meatballs were delicious. I would definitely make these again, and I think they're going to be on the list for revisiting whenever we decide to focus on Denmark for the AtWCC. Maybe we'll do them both warm and cold!