Swedish meatballs

The Swedes know how to make tender little meatballs. And they do not require a sauce. A freshly-cooked meatball, studded with onion fragments, neither dry nor soggy, is a delight. Astrid Lindgren’s hero, Karlssoj, a man with a built-in helicopter propeller,  is fond of them and persuades his friend Milo to go downstairs and fetch some for him. Milo’s mother, busy frying them in the kitchen downstairs, obliges. But she is not best pleased when she discovers that Karlsson has not eaten them but has used some of them to decorate a toy brick tower.

I discovered recently that Swedish meatballs originated in Turkey. The Swedish King, Charles XII, brought home the recipe from Turkey in the early eighteenth century.