- I used to like, hate anchovies as a kid. - See I was the kid that
brought anchovies to school, and had it with a slice of bread, so. Not many friends at my lunch table. (laughing) (upbeat music) Chef Danny at the Arthur
J in Manhattan Beach. How's it going? - Going well. - So this is something
that I grew up eating every Christmas.
- Really? - Love Swedish meatballs, even though I'm Norwegian. The Swedes got one thing right. - Oh absolutely. You might end up giving me some tips on how to make this a little bit better by the end of the show. - Oh, I doubt that. (laughing) Swedish meatballs have a
very distinctive flavor, and what does that come from? - Well, that comes from
what we like to call the Christmas spices. Right here you can see we have here some freshly grated nutmeg, and then the allspice
is a little bit darker, that's the one right here in the center and we make sure we
grind that up really fine by using a spice grinder. - And then that's just like, like really finely ground black pepper? - Correct.
- Okay, great. How do we get these meatballs together? - Well one of the things we first start with are ground meats. We use ground beef, pork, and veal. If we used all beef,
they might be too dry, it might be too strong a flavor. If we didn't use the pork, we wouldn't have the fat content that we really need for these meatballs to have the right texture. - Great.
- I have, ahead of time, added a little bit of milk into two ounces of panko bread crumbs. - And you don't want to
use dried bread crumbs, you want to rehydrate
them, so you're not, like, drying out your meatballs. - Exactly right, because what's going to end up happening is if you have dry pockets of bread crumb, it's not gonna bind. It's actually gonna make the meatballs kind of split apart. We'll add two egg yolks, then we'll add our spices, the black pepper, the allspice and the nutmeg. And we're gonna add
some fresh yellow onion. That's gonna add also flavor and moisture. There's no other way to
do this but to really get your hands dirty in there.
- Yeah. - So I'm just gonna go
ahead and get in there. Really, this probably
the best kitchen tool that exists is just your hands. Alright, that looks pretty good. I think we're there. So I know you've got a
little bit of history making meatballs, so we're gonna see where
you're at with that. Alright?
- Alright, yeah. - I'm gonna give you a little bit of oil. It'll give it a smoother
texture on the outside and it won't stick to your fingers as bad. - Okay. - So just rub that oil right there in the palm of your hand. We're gonna start a little roll, good. Now like you're throwin' a fast ball, right there between those two fingers, and slap it into the palm of your hand. Now what this is doin' is it's really compacting that meat. And then you roll it. Good, good, good, good, good. You should have something kind of like that. Hey, that's pretty good, that's great! Now we just gotta make
a thousand of these. (laughing) - Got a wedding coming up. (laughing) - Alright, let's make this pan hot, 'cause we gotta make the gravy. - Okay.
- Um-huh. You can tell when a pan's ready because you see a little shimmer in the oil.
- Okay. - We're gonna give 'em another final roll 'cause the tend to
flatten out on the bottom once they've been resting. Put it right back there. Nice little sizzle, you can hear it. We want them to form a nice golden brown. In fact, I'm gonna put
in a little bit more oil. And you can already smell them. Those spices are warming up in the pan, that oil is already having
a nice little effect on the ground meat.
- Um-hm. - This is where the flavor starts forming. I don't wanna move them around, but I am gonna move that fat a little bit. So you see all this
stuff forming in the pan? - Yeah. - All this beautiful brown bits, it's all the stuff coming
off of the meatballs and that's gonna go into our gravy. You see I'm basting the meatballs just a little bit.
- Yeah. Start getting that flavor into them - Exactly right. That's looking great.
- Once you get to that color right there, - Yeah, that's right.
- That's the color you're lookin' for,
- Oh absolutely. - that rich brown. - This would make Grandma
proud right there, know what I'm sayin'?
(laughing) It's been about 10 minutes of cooking.
- Yeah, I'd say so, - And so now you want to pull 'em out and reserve them, right?
- Exactly right. So we're gonna set 'em aside, because in this pan where all the flavor's developed, we're gonna use that as
the basis of our gravy. And one of the first things that we start off with in the pan is anchovies. And there's just something
funky that anchovies or preserved herring really lend to a dish. You know, the next thing we're gonna do is add just a little pinch more of salt. - Okay. - I like to throw butter,
because I'm a chef and that's kind of what we do, is add a little bit of butter and I'm gonna also add some blue cheese. We use beautiful Mycella blue cheese, it's from Denmark. So this is a nice ingredient that we use to really make our gravy
a little bit different and stand out. - Where did you develop this recipe from? - You know, one of my first jobs was with a Swedish chef and this is one of the things that we would make as a special for our guests.
- What, the muppett? - Not the muppet!
- Oh, yeah. - Though he would've been cool but hard to understand. But, it's got all those, that basis of a traditional Swedish meatball. We've already toasted the
flour off a little bit, so that also adds a little
bit of toasted nutty flavor to the dish.
- Yeah. - See how it soaks up all that fat, the little remaining bit of fat? And you see the color
already of the flour. If we hadn't toasted the flour, it would make this a lot lighter in color. - Almost more like a
chicken gravy, where that's a little bit lighter.
- Yeah, exactly right. - Here we have some veal stock that we make at the restaurant, and as I'm pouring it
in, I'm gonna whisk it just break up those bits of flour. - It's already starting
to get a nice gloss to it, a nice body to it. - It's lookin' good. We'll add a little bit of
cream and milk here, too. - Ah, that much?
- Yeah. Oh, dude, I like that color. You can see,
- You can see, - see it looks good.
- that's a good color, yeah. - Now is the point where
we're gonna reintroduce the meatballs in there. All the fat, all the flavor that we
put into the meatballs, is now gonna seep into
that gravy that we made. So we're gonna set these aside. In the meantime, I'm gonna show you the mashed potatoes that we serve with it. Yukon Gold potatoes, which
we boil ahead of time, and then equal parts
butter to potato by weight. Just like Mom used to make it, right?
(laughing) So those are looking pretty good. - Yup. - The meatballs, by now, are cooked all the way through.
- Yeah. - They're lookin' really good. So potatoes look good, I'll give them one more little swirl just to incorporate any fat that may have tried to separate. Look at the way they sit on there. And that's what we're lookin' for. Put some of the meatballs over here. That's the way we plate at the restaurant. Nice portion of gravy over the top. There we go. We're gonna top it off with Chef David's family recipe of cranberry-kumquat compote. Sometimes we would pair Swedish meatballs with lingonberry or some other kind of fruit preserve. Last thing we do is a
little bit of fresh chives. And again, just right on top of each bite. And there you go, the Arthur J's Swedish meatballs. - Reminds me of my childhood. (laughing) Going right in for it. You get in there, Chef. - Alright. (upbeat music) No good? (laughing)
- Sorry, I got to go. I love the allspice in it. This tastes like what I've
been having my whole life. - I just think it's one
of those warming spices, I mean it's very soul-satisfying. - Um-hmm, yeah. - But there just work so
well with these meatballs and it's a throwback. It's traditional, with a
few personalized touches of our own. - I know it's Southern California and it's sunny outside, but it feels like home
at Christmas right now. - Best of both worlds. (laughing) (upbeat music)