Grandma Food: Part II: Chicken Frikadeller

Frikadeller is a dish that my grandma made often as I was growing up.

She got the recipe from my grandpa's mother.  My grandpa is 100% Danish.  As the story goes, my great grandpa came over from Denmark to America.  Unable to find a good woman over here in America, he headed back to Denmark and brought over my great grandma.

My grandma always pronounced this dish Frik-A-Dill-A, but, as the true spelling reflects, I think it is pronounced Frik-A-Dell-ER.  

Grandma always made these with ground round, or some type of beef.  I have been making them lately with ground turkey or chicken and they still taste just as good.

Ingredients

Gravy

Use potato water for the gravy

Sprinkled flour onto gravy

Gravy after milk, almost finished

We ate these with the watermelon pickles that I made this summer.  A true Scandinavian dish!

Ingredients:

• 8 Potatoes
• For Meatballs:
• 2 lbs ground meat (beef, turkey, chicken, etc)
• Small Onion, diced
• 4 T Flour
• 2 Eggs
• 3 T Milk
• For Gravy:
• ~1/2 c Potato Water
• ~3 T Flour
• ~1/4 c Milk

Directions:

• Scrub potatoes and place in pot of boiling water for ~40 minutes.  Reserve 1/2 c water when potatoes are done.
• Mix together all meatball ingredients with your hands
• Heat 2 T oil (vegetable, olive, etc) in a large pan over medium heat
• Shape meatballs with your hands; should be about the size of a golf ball but slightly flattened
• Place in pan and brown on each side until cooked in the center (may have to slice one in half to see if it has cooked all the way through)
• Remove meatballs once cooked and place in a container to keep warm (I use a casserole dish with lid)
• Continue cooking meatballs, adding oil before each round
• Once all meatballs are done, turn heat to high and add flour to pan to soak up remaining oil
• Add potato water to pan and let simmer for a minute
• Stir gravy and add milk to the pan.  Let simmer for a minute.
• May need to add a Tablespoon or more of flour to thicken or just let simmer longer
• Serve Frikadeller meatballs with potatoes covered with gravy