Mittagessen — the hot main dish of the midday meal
Königsberger Klopse (Königsberg Meatballs with Caper Sauce)
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Fine poached veal meatballs, coated in a velvety white sauce brightened with capers and a squeeze of lemon. Mild and tangy at once — the roundness of the meat against the sharp acidity of capers.
Mittagessen — the hot main dish of the midday meal
Fine poached veal meatballs, coated in a velvety white sauce brightened with capers and a squeeze of lemon. Mild and tangy at once — the roundness of the meat against the sharp acidity of capers.
You see, one never quite leaves the city where one learned to walk and think. In Königsberg, my mother poached these meatballs in a clear broth, and the whole kitchen smelled of caper and lemon — a scent I sought to find again in every apartment of my exile. The secret, I assure you, is not in the meat but in the sauce: you bind it with egg yolk off the heat, otherwise it curdles, and you are not stingy with capers. When my friends came in the evening to discuss until dawn, I served these Klopse: one thinks better, believe me, with one's belly held by something of the lost home.
Ingredients
- •Ground veal (or half veal, half pork) — a good pound (base of the meatballs)
- •Stale bread roll soaked in milk — one (soft binder)
- •Onion — one (aromatic)
- •Eggs — 2 (binder for meatballs and sauce)
- •Salt-packed capers — a generous handful (tart signature)
- •Butter and flour — equal parts (roux for the sauce)
- •Lemon — half (touch of acidity)
- •Anchovy or herring fillet — one (discreet umami (traditional in Königsberg))
How it was made : In Königsberg, the sauce was always bound with egg yolk, and salted fish (herring or anchovy) was traditional, a vestige of a Baltic port city. It was served with boiled potatoes, sometimes beets. The dish was eaten at midday, the main meal of the German day.
Sources : Cuisine traditionnelle de Prusse-Orientale (Ostpreußische Küche), corpus régional allemand · Hannah Arendt / Heinrich Blücher, correspondance et témoignages sur son hospitalité