If you’re like most people, you can’t tell the difference between a Norwegian and a Swedish and a Finnish meatball. Perhaps you think of them as all the same. This is actually true of the people as well: on the surface, they look similar, but there are subtle and important differences. Admittedly, this is more important to get right for people than meatballs. (Also harder.) Still, to save you embarrassment and accusations of racism, here are our top tips distinguishing one meatball from another. And speaking of racism, apparently Swedes don’t find the Swedish chef funny. It takes all kinds to make a world, doesn’t it?
Meatball Composition and Appearance
Time for a confession: we’ve eaten a ton of meatballs in the last few months, purely in the interests of science. We’re not sure we can always tell the difference either. There are two intertwined reasons for this, IKEA, and the fact that these countries border one another. ‘Swedish’ meatballs appear across the whole region, with minimal differences by country (but lots by region). The most typical ones are exactly the meatballs you find in IKEA: small and round, made with beef and pork and often veal. Danish meatballs are solely pork more often than in other countries, sometimes with veal. It will not take you more than two bites to eat one even if you have a teeny tiny mouth. They contain egg and milk, breadcrumbs, salt and white pepper. And Scandinavian meatballs often contain butter and potato starch, plus allspice and nutmeg. We have also seen them double in diameter, and even triple, coming about four to a (hefty) serving.
We’ve been told by some that Norwegian meatballs are larger and less round than Swedish, but we’d be willing to bet they’re actually talking about a different dish, pannbiff. This is more or less what you will know as a hamburger, minced or ground meat served not in a bun but on a plate, like meatballs. Hence the confusion. Sometimes pannbiff is only beef, not pork. It’s excellent too, but it ain’t a meatball. It’s served all across the region as well.
Meatball Sauces and Accompaniments
The real differences come in packaging. Usually, Swedes and Norwegians serve their meatballs in a beef-and-cream sauce, i.e. a roux with stock. Finnish sauce is cream-based too, but whiter (usually made with chicken broth) and with dill. From the taste, we suspect that they add sour cream instead of milk to the meat, and often, minced onions. The Danes like curry sauce with theirs. Pannbiff takes the same brown cream sauce, often with sliced onions (which we have never seen in meatball gravy).
The classic plate includes boiled or mashed potatoes with parsley, lingonberry sauce, and (at IKEA) peas. In Sweden, lightly pickled cucumbers show up with some regularity, and sauerkraut often accompanies Norwegian meatballs. Egg noodles sometimes substitute for potatoes (more, in our experience, in Iceland than elsewhere).
The single best place to try meatballs made from a variety of animals is Stockholm’s Meatballs for the People – you can get a place of eight different kinds, like we did, or choose your favourites.
Fun fact: this quintessentially Swedish food was brought back from Turkey by King Charles XII in the 18th century (where köfte are beef-and-lamb based).
There you have it, everything we know about Scandinavian meatballs. The next time you’re at IKEA, pop into the cafeteria and enjoy a plate!
