Kjøttkaker

What Goes With It

• Boiled potatoes and lingonberry jam
• Stewed peas
• A dark beer

How to Make Kjøttkaker

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1. Put the mince in a large bowl with the potato starch, salt, ginger, allspice, pepper, nutmeg and grated onion.

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2. Work it together with a wooden spoon or a mixer for 2 minutes, until it turns sticky and noticeably paler.

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3. Add the cold milk 3 tablespoons at a time, beating hard after each addition until it has been completely absorbed before adding more. This takes about 5 minutes and the mixture will end up soft and glossy.

   Mark done Start 5 min timer

4. Shape into 12 oval cakes about 2 cm thick, with wet hands.

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5. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and fry the cakes in two batches, 4 minutes a side, until deep brown. Set aside.

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6. Pour off all but a tablespoon of the fat. Add the butter, and when it foams whisk in the flour and cook 2 minutes until it smells biscuity and turns light brown.

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7. Add the stock a third at a time, whisking each addition smooth, then the soy sauce, sugar and salt.

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8. Simmer 5 minutes until the gravy coats a spoon.

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9. Return the cakes, cover, and simmer gently 15 minutes, turning once, until cooked through and the gravy has thickened around them.

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Notes From the Method

Cold milk, added slowly, beaten in fully. Rushed, the mixture splits and the cakes fry dry.

Potato starch, not cornflour or breadcrumbs — it is what gives the texture.

They are better the next day, once they have sat in the gravy.

Leftovers

Refrigerated in the gravy for 4 days. Freezes for 3 months.

Kjøttkaker Nutrition

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (how much frying oil the food takes up cannot be known from the recipe). Why some recipes have none.