Vegan Swedish "Meatballs" with Spaghetti from The Official Netflix Cookbook (Young Royals)
Taking a break from the Tomb Raider Cookbook this week, my next recipe is from The Official Netflix Cookbook: 70 Recipes from Your TV to Your Table. It's called Vegan Swedish "Meatballs" with Spaghetti, and it's based on the Netflix show Young Royals, from Sweden. It ran for three seasons from 2021-2024, but it wasn't until the latter year that I became aware of it after a friend mentioned seeing it and becoming infatuated with one of the lead actors, Edvin Ryding.
As someone who enjoyed Heartstopper and Red, White & Royal Blue, a show and movie with some parallels to Young Royals, I was motivated to check out the show for myself. It's a brilliant, thrilling coming-of-age show about young love, monarchy, mental health and deciding what you really want in life. Definitely watch it. If you're a Star Wars fan, you'll recognize the actress who plays the Swedish Queen, Pernilla August: she played Anakin Skywalker's mother.
After watching Young Royals, I did what I always do and hit the internet. I knew there were Stranger Things and Wednesday cookbooks, both of which I want to explore in the future, but I wanted to know if there was one for Heartstopper. There is not, though I stumbled upon a comment on Reddit which said a Heartstopper-themed fish and chips recipe was in the Official Netflix Cookbook. Further research confirmed this, and that it also had a Young Royals-themed recipe, for Vegan Swedish "Meatballs" with Spaghetti.
I am not a vegan, but the recipe nevertheless intrigued me. What could make these "meatballs" despite having no meat? How different were they from regular Swedish meatballs, of which I've made a recipe multiple times before? The only other source discussing these Vegan Swedish "Meatballs" online was a now deleted Tumblr post pointing out what the author said were cultural inaccuracies in the recipe. They're right in that these are effectively lentil falafels served in a mushroom gravy with parsley, vegan Parmigiano-Reggiano and optional lingonberry jam, and they have ingredients most recipes for Swedish Meatballs don't. Still, my curiosity would not be satiated until I had made and tried them.
I decided to make this with my usual taste testers and day 1 readers of this blog (hello to you), but with modifications. Namely, when I made them they were more like vegetarian Swedish Meatballs. The recipe calls for using ground flaxseeds instead of an egg, which keeps it vegan, but you have to buy a large bag of ground flax and I'd never use it for anything else. Same with the vegan Parmigiano, butter and cream and vegetarian Worcestershire sauce it asks for.
Although it's an optional ingredient, I wanted to include lingonberry jam when I ate it. The only place I can buy it where I live is Ikea, and the nearest store is quite a drive from my home. Fortunately, last summer I had the chance to visit London, where I picked up a jar of the jam from ScandiKitchen in SoHo. Lingonberry jam tastes a lot like cranberry, but it's runnier and a bit more tart. If you wanted to substitute with cranberry then I suppose you could, but I was aiming for some degree of authenticity here, even if the Tumblr user disapproved.
This is an example of a recipe that isn't specifically consumed within the show - I don't remember anyone eating Swedish meatballs - but is themed after it. That happens with a lot of pop culture cookbooks. Most of the Tomb Raider Cookbook recipes are inspired by the cultures Lara Croft visits, even if she's never shown eating them.
My friends and I agreed that we should have a backup meal in case the vegan meatballs were disgusting, so before heading over to their house, I made a batch of Laura Vitale's Swedish Meatballs and kept them in a pot until we were ready to eat. I left out the finishing sour cream until we reheated them so it didn't curdle. I brought the actual meatballs and everything we needed to make the vegan ones, pre-measured, along with a pair of oven mitts I got them as a gift in London. They loved them. Doing the meat meatballs ahead of time also benefitted because their kitchen is smaller than mine, and cooking all of it there wasn't practical.
When the time came to make the meatballs, I set to work on forming them. In spite of all the binder ingredients used to hold them together, I thought there was no way they would keep their shape. They were still quite wet and squishy, even after freezing them for 10 minutes as the recipe says. I made 15 lentil meatballs, which after freezing you sear in a pan as you would proper meatballs, then bake them to finish cooking. I made a mistake because I forgot to bring flour for the gravy roux, and my friends didn't have any. Therefore, I had to reduce the gravy down as best as I could without any thickener. Also, one of my friends dislikes mushrooms, although I cut them into slices large enough for her to pick out easily.
We served both the beef/pork and vegan/vegetarian meatballs with their gravies over top of spaghetti, along with generous dollops of lingonberry jam. They were both delicious, and we really loved them. Granted, the vegetarian/vegan meatballs are a lot of work, and we preferred the meat ones to them, but I was glad I tried them out. It's a solid recipe. I took the leftover vegetarian meatballs home and left them the rest of the meat meatballs. The next day, I pureed the mushroom gravy and thickened it with a reverse roux, then I mixed it into the rest of the spaghetti and lentil balls, and ate it with more jam. That was really good.
In addition to the Tomb Raider Cookbook, I plan to try all of the recipes from the Netflix Cookbook. The next one I made was Heartwarming Fish-and-Chips (Heartstopper). However, to have some knowledge of the source material, I also plan to watch the movies and shows for each recipe before I make them.
If you want to make this recipe yourself, you can get it in The Official Netflix Cookbook: 70 Recipes from Your TV to Your Table. Laura's Swedish Meatball recipe can be found here.
