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dill-meat (boiled meat with dill sauce)

Recipe by
Carina Ullberg
Linköping

Dill-Meat is an old and tradition-bound dish in Sweden. This recipe comes from one of Sweden's great chefs, Leif Mannerström. It's his recipe, I only translated it into English. Normally it is made of veal or lamb, but pork is good too. As you cook the meat for quite some time, you can to use a part of the animal which normally is pretty tough (back or shoulder for example). It is supposed to cook until it is tender in any case. * NOTE: Use 12% vinegar essence (In swedish it is called "ättika") Read about vinegar essence here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetic_acid#Vinegar

yield 8 -10 persons
prep time 20 Min
cook time 1 Hr 30 Min
method Stove Top

Ingredients For dill-meat (boiled meat with dill sauce)

  • COOKING THE MEAT
  • 1,5 kg
    meat - veal, lamb or moose calf. for example: back, shoulder
  • 1 lg
    yellow onion
  • stalk
    dill - from the dill used for the sauce
  • 1 md
    leek
  • 2-3 md
    carrots
  • 1 md
    parsnip
  • 6-8
    peppercorns, whole white
  • 8-10
    allspice, whole
  • 4
    cloves
  • 4
    bay leaves, dried
  • 1 Tbsp
    thyme, dried
  • salt
  • DILL SAUCE
  • 3 bunch
    dill, fresh
  • 1 Tbsp
    flour
  • 1 Tbsp
    butter
  • 500 ml
    broth, from the cooking of the meat
  • 1-2
    veal stock cubes - if needed
  • 200 ml
    milk, creamy ( 50-50 milk and cream)
  • 2 Tbsp
    vinegar (12%) * see note!
  • 4 Tbsp
    sugar
  • salt and pepper

How To Make dill-meat (boiled meat with dill sauce)

  • 1
    Peel and cut the onion into coarse pieces. Clean and cut the leek in oblique pieces.
  • 2
    Peel and cut carrots and parsnips in oblique pieces
  • 3
    Place the meat in cold water in a large pot and bring to boil.
  • 4
    Boil 1 minute maximum. Take up the meat with a slotted spoon and rinse it briefly.
  • 5
    Clean the pot and cook the meat in fresh water (remember that there will be space for the vegetables too). Measure how much water you pour in.
  • 6
    Add salt, start with 1 teaspoon per liter of water and taste of saltiness later.
  • 7
    When the meat has begin to boil, add the onion, vegetables, dill stalks and spices and let simmer for a maximum of 1 hour.
  • 8
    If you have bones in your meat, the meat is ready when it detaches from the bone, otherwise you can test it by poking with a fork or a knife.
  • 9
    After half an hour, pick up the carrots and parsnip with a slotted spoon. Save them, they will be used again when serving.
  • 10
    If the meat should be served the same day you can add 15 minutes of cooking time.
  • 11
    If it is to be served the day after, you let it cool in its own juice.
  • 12
    Take the meat out of the broth and skim the broth – it will be used for the sauce.
  • 13
    Cold broth is easy to skim, if it is warm the fat will float around.
  • 14
    But try anyway.
  • 15
    If you have cooked the meat the day before, heat it in the broth that is not needed for the sauce.
  • 16
    Cut the meat into pieces about 2-3 cm. (about 1 inch)
  • 17
    Chop the dill to the sauce - quite nicely.
  • 18
    Fry the flour into the butter in a saucepan.
  • 19
    Dilute with sifted broth and creamy milk.
  • 20
    Taste the broth, if it is not sufficiently strong in flavor, add 1 or 2 bouillon cubes. The sauce should be right on the border between well thickened and thick.
  • 21
    Start the flavoring with 1 tablespoon vinegar and 2 tablespoons sugar. Taste so that it's just the right balance between sweet and sour.
  • 22
    Season with salt and pepper.
  • 23
    If you need more acidity insert very little vinegar. Be careful.
  • 24
    When you find a good balance, turn/stir down the dill.
  • 25
    It shall be plenty of dill.
  • 26
    Now add the meat in to the sauce along with the saved vegetables (from the cocking of meat) and let everything be well heated.
  • 27
    Serve steaming hot with potatoes (boiled potatoes).
  • 28
    Tip Dill is practically the only spice that one can not take too much of. Dill sauce, for example, tastes dill whether you use one bundle or three, but the taste is much more marked if you are generous with the dill.
  • 29
    Chef Leif Mannerström wrote: When it comes Dill-meat is actually the sauce that plays the main role. To cook the meat so that it becomes good is after all not so difficult. To the boiled veal or lamb with dill sauce, you can cook the meat the day before, so that you can concentrate on the sauce. I find it hard to think of drinking anything other than beer or mineral water to Dill-meat. / Leif
  • 30
    The following tip are mine Serving tip: It is nice to eat a salad with tomato, cucumber, shredded carrots and chard leaves togheter with Dill-Meat. In this picture the meat is pork.
  • 31
    If you have meat on the bone, calculate the double weight. The bone will give the broth more taste. If you cut the meat before cooking, cut a not too small pieces - they will shrink. If you cut the meat before cooking it will speed up the process a bit and the meat will easily absorbe more flavor from the spices.
  • 32
    There are many different recipes for this dish. Some uses lemon togheter with the vinegar, some dont have vegetables in, some dont have all the spices. So, if you don like a spice or two - then dont use it. A little bit of lemon in the sauce will ad some freshness. You can take almoste any meat, beaf, veal, moose, lamb, chicken, deer ... you name it. But dont use the good and expensive part (for example fillet) that is overkill. A tough meat that cooks for a long time will be better - and cheaper. You can use tried dill, it is ok. Frozen dill is perfect if you dont have fresh. Good Luck
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