Frikadellen - an almost forgotten project
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
"A good Frikadelle is not supposed to be flashy. It should be well seasoned, browned on the outside, juicy inside, and substantial enough to feel like proper comfort food." the Sausage Haus
A long time ago now - post Christmas - I 'reviewed' this book - a present from my son - and I also talked about the meatballs I made from it. I'm not absolutely certain which ones they were but I think they were koofteh berenji from Persia - made with yellow split peas and rice and they were OK, but I made far too many of them and after a couple of reheats, I wasn't actually sure that I liked them any more, and so, to my shame, I threw the remains into the green bin.
Anyway it is a lovely book and so I determined to pick out a few of the recipes and look at one every now and then - well we all love meatballs I suspect. A new project was born - and went nowhere.
I now wish I had not chickened out from making what had been my personal no. 1 choice.
Why did I chicken out? Well it was - Frikadellen mit rahmspinat - from Germany and I didn't think my audience would like the spinach sauce. But doesn't it look beautiful - well I thought so anyway, So today - inspirationless as usual - I have returned to that project and that recipe which, coincidentally is the first recipe in the book.
It's a German dish and the recipe is from a German friend - an immigrant to Australia, who had collected her favourite recipes from home, to help her to adjust to her new country whilst remembering home.
There is not a huge amount to say about frikadellen and certainly not frikadellen in a spinach sauce because they actually don't really seem to be served in a spinach sauce much at all. The only German - well any recipe I found of frikadellen with creamed spinach was this one - no recipe - it's an Instagram picture from a lady whose Instagram tag is Marianne Kocht Taeglich (Marianne Cooks Everyday).
There was one fan of my book who had a go at the recipe however, saying that:
"The frikadellen were light and almost fluffy in texture but with a good sear on the exterior from the cast iron cooking." The Culitveater
And elsewhere on the Dirndl Kitchen website I also found this Spinach casserole for which the meatballs were made with skinned bratwurst, and the whole was served eventually as a sauce for pasta.
They also are not generally the shape in my book. In spite of the recipe in the book telling us to slightly flatten the meatballs, they are definitely not as flat as those shown here - Traditional frikadellen (German meatballs) from the Daring Gourmet website as well as in virtually every German recipe for frikadellen that I found.
For the frikadellen is the forerunner of the hamburger. The Danes and the Germans fight over origins, with the Dutch putting in a word every now and then, and they definitely spread all over central and northern Europe - but they are not round balls. And they are also not eaten in a sauce, although you will often find them in the company of pasta - or knudeln I suppose.
The ingredients however are mostly much the same as the ones in the book - pork and beef, bread soaked in milk, onions, spices and herbs. My book uses paprika and mustard for extra flavour plus some parsley, although she tells us her friend Claudia often adds some chopped pickles. And they are fried. The kind of thing we all make to put into a hamburger bun.
The Germans do do creamed spinach however - although that varies hugely. This is Creamed spinach from My Dinner - and as you can see it is often paired with plain potatoes - boiled as shown here or mashed as well. There is also more spinach than cream - to varying degrees of course but nevertheless nowhere as creamy as my book's recipe.
But just about every country in the world does a version of creamed spinach if you think about it - even if the cream is yoghurt or goat's milk, crème fraïche or maybe even whipped feta.
So I'll end with the lovely Nigel and his Classic creamed spinach which seems to be a favourite with the cognoscenti, but is far too thick a sauce to accompany our meatballs. He suggests making it a gratin with cheese on top.
Frikadellen they may be called in this book, but I suspect they are not standard - just Claudia's German great-aunt Kathi's recipe. Which makes them authentic in my book. She was German and she called them Frikadellen, which is good enough for me.
They date back centuries - and so I'm pretty sure that every household in Europe would have had a similar recipe with some kind of unique touch in every household. And I will have a go at this one too - and I bet I tweak it as well - either deliberately or inadvertently.
YEARS GONE BY
April 24
2025 - Mouthfuls
2023 - Specks
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2019 - Dietary despair
2018 - Lucky dip - choux pastry
I prefer frikadellen to spinach... I think! 😋