Meatballs and mash

I never made meatballs like these until a couple of weeks ago. These are the proper large meatballs which i used to get at home. I had a sandwich with a meatball at the frietshop Fritez here in Rotterdam. I did ask for the recipe for the meatballs when talking to the cook there. She told me you need to first bake them, then add a broth and slowly simmer them. So i decided to make meatballs myself, and hey, i’m turned into a fan! Especially since i discovered the minced beef at the butcher Mellegers close to my home. Where i got told the AH supermarket sells that kind of minced beef as a tartaar, which is sort of a chopped steak. I didn’t ask what sort of meat is inside the minced beef sold at the AH, it does scare me a bit. My advice, get some good minced beef!

The mash is simple. Just a couple of root vegetables cooked together. Then some butter, milk, salt, pepper and nutmeg. I should get a proper potato crusher. The one i had has broken down. I use a masher now. The mash is not as finely crushed, but still pretty good!

Ingredients mash

• celeriac
• parsnip
• flowery potato
• butter
• full milk
• salt
• pepper
• nutmeg

Ingredients meatballs

• 250 gr minced beed (as good as you can get, i bought mine at the butcher)
• half an onion, finely sliced
• one egg
• one spoon of mustard
• salt
• pepper
• a crumbled biscuit or rather.. ‘beschuitje’ (this might be dutch only, you can use dried out breadcrumbs if you can not get this)
• beef broth cube
• butter
• hot water

Making the meatballs

1. slice the half onion in smaller pieces
2. do these onions in a bowl
3. add the minced beef
4. add the egg
5. slice the sage and add this
6. add salt, pepper, nutmeg
7. mix all this together with your hands or a fork
8. divide this in two equal size pieces and roll each piece with your hands into a smooth ball
9. in a sturdy pan, preferably with a lid, heat the butter till it’s brown
10. add the meatballs and brown them on all sides
11. cook like half a liter of water
12. add the hot water to the meatballs together with the beef broth cube
13. add some more mustard to the broth
14. mix it all with a fork
15. i added some tomato puree i had in the fridge to it, you can leave this out
16. simmer on a low fire for like half an hour, with the lid on

Making the mash

1. cook like half a pan of water with some salt added
2. peel and slice the potato and the parsnip
3. use a quarter till a third of the celeriac, peel and slice it
4. i added some cabbage i had left over from making the soup last tuesday, no need for this of course!
5. add it all to the water and let it cook slowly for 20 minutes
6. drink a bit of wine, or port, or moscadet, or gin-and-tonic, or simply some water while you clean up your kitchen or listen to music or do something else
7. once the 20 minutes have passed, you pour away the water and set the pan back on the fire and let the veggies dry a bit
8. add a bit of butter, the full milk, a bit of salt and pepper and some nutmeg
9. crush!

Serve this on a deep plate, first the mash, then a meatball with some gravy. Enjoy!

I did forget to mention that you make two meatballs, but only a one person mash. Tomorrow i will eat the same and only warm up the meatball. I prefer my mash to be fresh.