Thursday, May 31, 2012

Frickadellen...or what to do with ground pork glut

It's official.  I've been asked one too many times about what to do with ground pork glut.  For those of you who have a half or whole hog in the freezer you're likely to have lots of ground pork (unless you had it all made into sausage, which is the best thing to do with ground pork).   Here is a family recipe I received from a good friend at church.  She is 80 something years old, grew up in Germany, lives in the quaintest apartment in town and manages to host delightful dinner parties for 12 or more people in a space that can't be larger than 400 square feet! You'll have to play with the amounts of some of these ingredients--like all great family recipes, the measurements are inexact!

Frickadellen
1 lb pork
some bread crumbs
1 egg
some cardamom
salt and pepper
1 tbsp of ground onion (I use lots of chopped onion)
capers (I don't use these, because I don't like capers)

So you mix everything (except the capers) together in a bowl and knead really well before forming little golf-ball size balls. Then pat them down.  It's almost like you're making sliders.  You put them in the pan to brown, adding some water at times to help with the browning process.  My friend likes to pour a gravy (with the capers) over them.  We eat them straight up.  The cardamom really adds a nice flavor and the breadcrumbs keep the pork very moist. 

Enjoy!

P.S  When Belle was at the vet clinic, they asked me to bring in some human food for her to eat.  The frickadellens were what I had on hand so I brought in two of them (I actually handpicked the onion pieces out because I wasn't sure those were good for her at the time).  When the vet tech warmed the patties up and the smell of yummy frickadellen permeated the clinic the staff was very sad that the food was for Belle and not for them!

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