My family’s preferred dish is lihapyorykoita, or Finnish meatballs. Punajuuret, or beets, and perunasose, or mashed potatoes, are used to make them. Include cranberry sauce with it. Personally, I also enjoy it more when there is a side of pickles.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 50 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
Ingredients
- 1 pound lean ground beef
- 1 cup plain bread crumbs
- 1 yellow onion, minced
- 1 egg
- ½ cup whipping cream
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground allspice
- ¼ cup butter
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 2 cups milk
- ½ cup whipping cream
Instructions
- Mix ground beef, bread crumbs, onion, egg, cream, salt, and allspice in a bowl with your hands until evenly mixed. Roll mixture into golf ball-sized spheres.
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook about half the meatballs in melted butter until evenly browned on all sides, 5 to 7 minutes; remove to a plate and repeat with remaining meatballs, keeping liquid in the skillet when finished.
- Sift flour into the skillet drippings; cook flour in the skillet drippings until brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Slowly stream milk into the skillet while whisking vigorously; pour cream into mixture and stir until smooth. If you aren’t good at making gravy and end up with some lumps you can pour gravy through a strainer. Return all meatballs to the skillet; stir to coat with gravy. Bring the mixture to a simmer and cook until the meatballs are cooked through, 15 to 20 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 747 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 36 g |
| Cholesterol | 243 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 33 g |
| Saturated Fat | 29 g |
| Sodium | 1603 mg |
| Sugars | 10 g |
| Fat | 53 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Came together easily; good flavor in the meatballs – the allspice gives it an interesting twist. Gravy is a little bland
Meatballs were flavorful and moist! Recommend swapping out half ground pork.
I made this recipe & doubled it for my large family, & they devoured it! It was soooooo good! Thank you for sharing. The only thing I changed was adding fewer bread crumbs because I didn’t have enough, & then added less cream. Definitely a keeper to make again! And per the author’s suggestion, we did have it with beets, mashed turnips (instead of potatoes), & pickles. All from our garden – yum!
Thanks for the great recipe!
This was delicious! I tried to follow the recipe as close as possible. I wasn’t sure how salty it would be so I reduced the salt to one teaspoon. I also used 1/4 cup cream in the meatball mixture and found it worked perfectly. Side note to say I made this in my instant pot! I sautéed the meatballs on low, then added 1 cup of milk. I switched it over to manual low pressure for 15 minutes. Quick released, removed the meatballs- whisked in 1 Tbsp flour and cream until thick and smooth. OMG I’m so glad this recipe was spotlighted for me…yum yum!!!
I’m a “newly fledged” adult. (If my parents are empty nesters, that makes me a fledgling, right?) I make this all the time now. It’s great. I use turkey instead of beef and used the gravy recipe from one of the comments to reduce the fat. I also don’t cook the meatballs in the gravy since I like to freeze them and save for days I don’t feel like cooking. And I don’t like onions, so I don’t use that either. The allspice flavor is wonderful!
I have been making this recipe for years now and we love the flavor of these meatballs. Perfect comfort food!
This recipe is great! I have made it twice in the past two weeks as I am going through a meatball phase. They are very soft due to the cream. The gravy is just a basic béchamel, and I seasoned it with allspice for something different.
These are quite similar to the ones I grew up with. The only differences I make are: less salt in the meat, less allspice and add fresh black pepper. I also add salt and cracked black pepper to the gravy and a little dry red wine doesn’t hurt either. These are delicious. : )
Hyvää! I am a novice in the kitchen and this was easy to make. I added some beef Knorr Fond du Chef to make the sauce. The sauce was a bit to thick and I also added water to thin it out to our preference. Good recipe, my Finnish bf loved it!
My family likes sauce so I doubled the sauce and added some salt and 1/2 tsp of Allspice to it. My very picky boys both ate it up. Thanks
I absolutely love this dish, and so does everyone I feed it too. The Allspice really makes it. Although I have never used the whopping cream in this dish, always just the milk we have in the fridge, it turns out delectable every time.
Amazing how flavorful these meatballs were with such few ingredients. My only recommendation is to chop the onion really finely.
Made it as instructed, and it was delicious. Served over egg noodles with a side of mashed potatoes.
The meatballs taste unique but the milk gravy was kind of bland – not worth the fat…
This recipe is exactly like the dish I had in Finland at a host home on my last trip, it’s wonderful exactly as presented, simple, good healthy, comfort food. Served with some wide noodles, oh my…very good.
My mother (yes she is finnish) use to make these all the time and they are great !!! did not change a thing allthough they are not as good as moms but are they are very close !! my mom does something diffrent and she wont tell me ! LOL maybe someday thanks again !!!! will make again for sure
These are easy to make, I had all the ingredients in the house, and they were amazing. Pretty much exactly like Swedish köttbullar. I added potatoes, and forgot the veggies, but that was okay. 😀 Everyone loved them and they were gone in no time! I made them start to finish in a classic cast iron skillet. Little mess and little cleanup. I will definitely be making these again.
OMG amazing wonderful flavor my dughter loved it and was truly happy that she helped me with our Sunday meal:)Thank you for sharing the great recipe!
Excellent! Very easy to make! This is a five-star without any changes. My kids complained about the onions even though it was minced. Next time I will just put onion powder. I would prefer to make smaller meatballs next time, like the size you find at IKEA. We put the meatballs and gravy over the mashed potatoes. Everyone loved it!
The meatballs had a decent flavor, but nothing spectacular. The mix of breadcrumbs and cream was too much for the amount of meat. The meatballs came out mushy and bready, not really the texture of meat at all. The sauce was really bland.