I do a mean meatball dish, even if I say so myself. I cook minced meat lightly with spices, make balls out of them, boil them in water, and then let them simmer in rich tomato-based gravy.
I thought it was all mine till I read on Twitter that it wasn’t. The Swedes thought it was theirs, and it turned out that wasn’t true either. I can imagine perturbed faces across the world — because everyone thought the dish belonged to them.
Sweden’s official Twitter handle said that their famous meatballs actually came from Turkey. “Swedish meatballs are actually based on a recipe King Charles XII brought home from Turkey in the early 18th century. Let’s stick to the facts!”
Meaty truths
Since then, I have been reading up on koftas and meatballs. The Parsis have their papri-ma-kavab, cooked with flat beans, a recipe I found in Katy Dalal’s Zoroastrian Food Fiesta . In mangsher kofta curry, which figures in Bangla Ranna: The Bengal Cookbook by Minakshie Dasgupta, minced meat is mixed with white bread soaked in milk, onion, ginger, garlic, green chillies, green coriander and garam masala. I love nargisi kofta, with a boiled egg inside a meatball; and Kashmir’s rishta and gushtaba, cooked with pounded meat.
The Bangala Table – Flavours and Recipes from Chettinad by Sumeet Nair and Minakshi Meyyappan mentions a mutton ball curry — cozha urundai kozhambu — while The Pondicherry Kitchen by Lourdes Tirouvanziam-Louis speaks of kassa kassa kola urundaiy, prepared with roasted poppy seeds, coconuts and star anise. “This is an old recipe with a strong Mughal influence, most probably brought to Pondicherry by mercenary soldiers,” it says.
I know that one of the great food masters of all time — Antonio Carluccio — was known the world over for his polpette, made from minced meat (polpa).
“(These are) cooked all over Italy and are considered to be the most economical and tasty way of using minced meat. Different meats can be mixed to vary the flavour.
Classic polpette
The classical recipe for polpette is minced beef or veal mixed with beaten egg, crushed garlic, grated parmesan cheese, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. The ingredients are thoroughly mixed together, the mixture shaped as balls are deep fried until crispy. They can either be eaten as they are or cooked and served in sauces to dress pasta as they do in southern Italy,” he says in Complete Italian Food .
The meatball, clearly, belongs as much to Italy as it does to the Scandinavian countries. I can hear some murmurings in Sweden’s neighbourhood. After all, Roald Dahl mentions Norwegian meatballs — cooked with Worcestershire sauce, thyme, parsley and chives — in one of his books, and frikadeller is a much loved dish from Denmark.
I should tell you a secret that I picked up from a book called Curry, Curry, Curry by Ranjit Rai. When you mould your meatballs, Rai advises his readers, you should put a small piece of ice in each one of them, and refrigerate them. When you cook them later, the ice melts into the gravy, but the kofta has a soft and hollow centre which fills up with the juices — and the end result is yummy!
And that, I say, doffing my cap to the late Ranjit Rai, is quite possibly the reason I cook a mean meatball curry.
The writer grew up on ghee-doused urad dal and roti, and now likes reading and writing about food as much as he enjoys cooking and eating. Well, almost.
