Recipe for easy chicken meatballs
Some foods can never be modern enough – and then there are dishes that just have to exude grandma’s cooking and good old Danish traditions.
If there is something that is truly grandma-like, it must be frikadeller. Frikadeller are an extremely popular dish in the Danish kitchen, but there are numerous variations and opinions on how to make a good frikadelle mixture. For example, should the onions be chopped or grated? Should the mixture contain breadcrumbs or not? And should it rest before frying?
One thing is certain, a traditional frikadelle mixture must be made with pork. Pork and traditional Danish cooking are just inseparable.
However, it has become very common to replace the ground pork with ground chicken. Chicken frikadeller can be easier to keep juicy for some, and because chicken has a milder flavor than pork, some also find it easier to experiment more with spices in chicken frikadeller.
Although frikadeller are something that many of us consider to be as Danish as it gets, many other countries have their own versions of frikadeller. For example, the Swedish version of frikadelle mixture closely resembles the one we use here, although the mixture is shaped into small, round meatballs. The Swedes, however, call them köttbullar, and it’s actually quite funny because what we would call “meatballs” here, the Swedes call “frikadeller.”
But back to the chicken frikadeller: In this recipe, I made frikadeller from trimmed cuts of a butchered chicken, including the tenderloins. In this video, you can get inspired on how to butcher the chicken:
I chose to grind the chicken with my SILVERCREST KITCHEN TOOLS® Monsieur Cuisine édition plus, but you can certainly opt to grind the meat in a regular blender or with a knife and manual effort.
Chicken Frikadeller Recipe
Easy Chicken Meatballs
Ingredients
- 1 pcs. Whole Chicken
- 1 pcs. Onion A small onion is preferable
- 50 gram Cream
- 1 pcs. Egg
- Spices Salt, white pepper, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar to taste
- Ghee or oil and butter – for frying
Instructions
- Start by quartering the whole chicken. It is important to keep the skin on the breast pieces for this recipe.
- All ingredients (except cream) are added to the chicken meat and mixed together.
- Add the cream last while stirring until the consistency of the mixture is as desired.
- Let the mixture stand and absorb flavors in the fridge for half an hour.
- Take the mixture out and let it stand at room temperature when ready to cook.
- Shape the mixture into meatballs using a large teaspoon or a small tablespoon.
- Fry the meatballs in ghee or a blend of equal parts oil and butter over medium-high heat. A great tip for frying them quickly while giving them an extra crust is to turn them 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) (instead of 90 degrees Celsius (194 degrees Fahrenheit)) so they become triangular. Fry them for 2 minutes on each side.
- Take the chicken meatballs off the heat and let them rest for a couple of minutes before serving.