Our ‘Danish’ grandson introduces us to ‘Frikadelle’

Grand Island Dispatch, September 21, 2007

When our grandson, Gil, was in his junior year at Hobart, he spent the spring semester in Denmark. Rather than coming back at the end of the semester, Gil wanted to travel. He toured around Europe until his younger brother had finished his school year here in New York. Then they toured most of the countries that Gil had scoped out in the interim, but not before young Michael had a chance to meet Gil’s host family.

Michael wrote an account of their travels in his journal. His parents edited it and it was printed out. We were happy to get a copy.

This year, two years after Michael’s adventure, he spent a few weeks with us and worked at his uncle’s restaurant. He had to. He has been broke ever since that trip. It had taken all he had saved in his 12 years to finance his very special trip.

Michael got back home in the Southern Tier just in time for his 15th birthday.

Working at the restaurant and knowing that I write this column put Michael in the mood to talk about food one night after work.

“Have you ever heard of Frik-a-della?” he asked.

“Never. What is it, a pasta dish?”

“No, no. It’s a dish I had while visiting my brother’s host family in Copenhagen, Denmark. The family served it nicely with a side of baked sweet potatoes, skinned, and with a portion of carrots cooked with brown sugar to make them sweet. I’ll send it on in an e-mail after I get home.”

So, this is what Michael sent, with an explanation. He had to modify it by changing the measurements from metric to our standards and to simplify the instructions.

Frikadelle

Ingredients (Serves 4):

1 small onion, grated or chopped fine
1/2 pound veal, ground
1/2 pound of lean pork, ground
About 1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
Dash of pepper
A scant 1/2 cup (7 ounces) of milk
2 tablespoons butter or margarine.

This is what you do:

In a medium bowl, put meat, egg, flour and seasonings. Mix well.

Add milk, a little at a time, still mixing. When the mixture doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl, but can still be stirred, it has the right consistency.

Wash your hands thoroughly before proceeding. Using a cup of water, a spoon and your hand to shape the meatballs, dip the spoon in the water and grab the desired lump of meat mixture with your washed hands and put it on the spoon. Shape into a meatball. Do the rest of the meat in the same fashion.

Heat butter or margarine in a large fry pan until it is a good color and is sizzling.

Add meatballs one by one and turn down the heat to medium high for about five minutes, shaking the pan a few times, then turn up the heat. Cook all until browned well.

Turn down the heat again for another five minutes. The meatballs should be well done before you remove them from the pan.

Note: You must not taste the raw meat mixture. If you want to see whether the meatballs taste the way they should before they are all cooked, you should fry a small test meatball beforehand.

Remove from pan and serve with baked sweet potato and carrots. Enjoy!

Sugar Browned Potatoes

Ingredients (Serves 4 to 6)

5 medium new potatoes
1/4 cup margarine or butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons water

In a medium saucepan, heat one inch salted water to a boil. Add washed potatoes. Bring back to a boil.

Cook for about 25 minutes, or until tender. Drain.

In a large skillet, over medium heat, blend margarine, sugar and salt until mixture starts to turn golden brown. Remove from heat to cool, slightly. Stir in water to blend. Add potatoes. Cook over a low heat, turning to coat potatoes with sugar mixture.

This dish goes well with roasted pork chops or tenderloins.

Danish Rice Pudding

Ingredients (Serves 8)

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
One and 1/2 cups cooked rice
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup chilled whipping cream
Raspberry currant sauce (recipe below)

Heat water, sugar, gelatin and salt in a medium saucepan, stirring constantly until gelatin is dissolved. Stir in milk, rice and vanilla.
Place saucepan over a bowl of iced water for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or place saucepan in the refrigerator for 15 or 20 minutes. Stir occasionally until mixture thickens slightly when dropped from a spoon.

Beat whipping cream in a chilled bowl until stiff. Fold cream into rice mixture and then pour into a bowl or a one and one-half quart mold. Cover and refrigerate for about three hours.

Unmold onto a cold plate. Serve with raspberry currant sauce.

Raspberry Currant Sauce

Ingredients:

One 10-ounce package frozen raspberries, thawed
1/2 cup currant jelly
One and 1/2 teaspoons corn starch
1 tablespoon cold water

Heat contents of raspberry package, including juices, along with the currant jelly, to a boil, stirring constantly and mixing water and cornstarch into juices. Boil and stir for one minute. Cool.

Serve over rice pudding.

Something tells me that young Michael would not mind at all being Danish. He and they do like their sweets.

It was a good summer for a bunch of our grandkids. Their staying with us helps us to know what this generation is all about. We are richer for having had them with us.

Note: In the most recent column, there was one missing ingredient in the Chili Sauce recipe: One sweet, green pepper, cored and cut into eight pieces. In the ingredients listing, add the green pepper in between the hot red pepper and the brown sugar.