Meatballs Speech

A World of Meatballs

If you think about it a meatball consists of meat, salt and pepper or different spices and then the ground meat is rolled into a ball and can be baked, fried, sautéed or boiled. It is interesting how versatile a meatball dish actually is and how different nationalities prepare it. Seeing how much similar information is available on the Internet I have written this piece not only about the type of meatballs but also about how they are prepared.

Albanians enjoy frying their meatballs with feta cheese. The dish is called Qofte te ferguara. They take ground lamb or beef, chopped onions, plain breadcrumbs, chopped Feta cheese, chopped mint, cinnamon, oregano, salt and pepper and mix all the ingredients together. Let stand for an hour so the flavors can blend, then shape into small cylinders, dust with flour and fry.

You will find that your meatballs aren’t round In Austria. The dish is known as Fleischlaibchen or Fleischlaberl. Their shape won’t be round but rather oval-like. Day-old bread (usually a roll) is soaked in warm water or milk. An onion chopped and fried until golden but not burned. Ground beef is mixed with egg, chopped garlic, pepper, marjoram, rosemary, chopped parsley and salt. Once the mixture is ready the soaked bread is squeezed until most of the liquid is gone, then added to the meat mixture and thoroughly mixed in. Then oval shaped patties are formed and fried until ready and golden brown.

Traveling in Belgium you will discover that