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Right, so I said I was going to keep a blog but then I didn’t. Anyway, all is good here in Vilnius but I’m missing some people and food from home. To leviate the pain a little I decided to make bitterballen for the first time yesterday/today. I obviously bragged about it on facebook and some people were asking how I made them. There’s many recipes I guess but this is how I did it:

Ingredients

• 500 grams of beef
• 3 dl of stock (or 3 dl water and 2 bouillon cubes)
• a couple of bay leaves
• 200 gr butter
• flower
• nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste
• 2 eggs
• breadcrumbs

What I did

Cut the beef in small cubes, heat up the butter and brown the meat. Add the stock and bay leaves and let it sudder for about 3 hours. After that take out the meat and pull it apart using two forks creating small threads of beef. Put it back in the stock and give it a little stir.

Take about 1/3 cup of water and mix 3/4 tablespoons of flower into it and add that to your meat. Add nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste and stir the meat for a couple of minutes so you get a nice thick ragout. Put in in the fridge for at least 2 hours so it will stiff up. It needs to harden out as much as possible otherwise it’ll be impossible to make nice balls.

Once your ragout has cooled down set aside a deep plate with the mixed eggs in it, one with flower and one with the breadcrumbs. Take about two tablespoons per ball and make sure they’re nice and round. Roll them in the flower first, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs. Make sure you cover them completely each step otherwise they will break when you deep fry them. That’s it! Either freeze them, or deep fry them straight away. However, don’t keep them in the fridge or they will turn soft. If you want to keep them there leave out the egg yellows and use only the whites.

If you’re living abroad like I am you might not have a deep fryer. No problem at all, just use a big pot with sunflower oil and heat it to about 180 degrees and fry them for about 7 minutes.

Pics to come, hope you enjoy!

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