Author: Thomas Sixt is a chef, food photographer, cookbook author and blogger. Here he shares recipes, answers cooking questions and helps with cooking.
We still know the meatballs in sauce under the names “Saure Klopse” (sour meatballs), “Kapernklopse” (caper meatballs), “Soßklopse”(meatballs in sauce) and “Kochklopse” (cooked meatballs).
The meatballs in white caper sauce are named after the residence town of Koenigsberg and the East Prussian word for “small dumpling”.
The classic of German cuisine is an evergreen, I will show you how to prepare it step by step today.
The following recipe is taken from my grandmother’s kitchen.
For an original experience, please pay attention to the tips for preparing the sauce.I wish you good luck and a good appetite!
Preparation step 1 Potatoes peeled in salted water with caraway seeds.
Prepare potatoes
Cook the potatoes with skin in salted water until soft.
You can add some caraway seeds and parsley stalks for the taste.
Prepare meatballs
Preparation step 2 Ingredients for sour dumplings
Provide ingredients
Prepare and prepare the ingredients as listed above.
Preparation step 3 Bread cubes soaked in milk
Soak bread
Cut the rolls into small cubes and soak with milk.
Preparation step 4 Finely chop the garlic, onion and parsley for the meatloaf.
Cut ingredients
Finely dice the peeled onions and garlic, finely chop the parsley.
Make some extra parsley for decoration.
Chop the anchovy fillets finely.
Preparation step 5 Ingredients for dumplings in a bowl
Prepare mincing mass
Sweat the onion and garlic cubes in a colourless pan for 3-4 minutes with a little sunflower oil and allow to cool for a few minutes.
Put the minced meat, eggs, lemon grater, chopped anchovy fillets, squeezed out rolls and finely chopped parsley in a bowl.
Preparation step 6 Onion peppered with bay leaf and cloves
Prepare onion
Prepare the stock to cook the meatballs: Put the onion with bay leaf and clove in a pot, add allspice and white wine vinegar and broth and bring to the boil.
Preparation step 7 Thicken the dumplings with breadcrumbs.
Bind meat mass
Bind the minced meat mixture with breadcrumbs or cornflour (gluten-free!).
Preparation step 8 Trial cooking loops
Cook sample meatball
Mix the minced meat mixture well and cook a sample dumpling.
Remove the boiling stock from the heat. Put the dumpling formed with the moistened hands in the stock and let it draw below the boiling point.
My sample ball has not yet set, so I have added more breadcrumbs to the mixture and adjusted the amount of ingredients.
Preparation step 9 Portion the minced meat mixture and form dumplings.
Portioning
Portion the remaining minced meatballs with the ice ball cutter.
Form round balls with your hands (cold water).
Preparation step 10 Cook sour dumplings floating in the stock.
Meatballs cooking
Cook meatballs at 90 degrees Celsius below the boiling point in the stock until they float.
Prepare Caper Sauce
Preparation step 11 Roux with butter, diced onion and flour
Prepare sauce base
Peel the onion and finely dice it.
Sweat with butter and prepare a light roux with flour.
Preparation step 12 The roux with white wine, broth and cream.
Sauce cooking
Deglaze the roux with dry white wine so that no lumps form.
Pass a little dumpling stock through a fine sieve to the base of the sauce.
Bring the sauce to the boil and refine with cream if desired.
Preparation step 13 Add the capers to the prepared light sauce.
Capers supplement
Provide some capers for decoration.
Add the remaining capers to the sauce, then season to taste with salt, pepper, nutmeg, sugar and cayenne pepper.
Preparation step 14 Check how well the dumplings are cooked.
Check Meat Balls
Check the consistency of the cooked meatballs.
arrange the food
Preparation step 15 Peel the boiled potato
Peel Potatoes
Peel the hot potatoes and put them on warm plates.
Preparation step 16 Serving the knobs
Serve
Arrange the meat balls with sauce:
Decorate with freshly cut parsley and fresh capers and serve.
Enjoy your meal and the Original Meatballs with Sauce German Königsberger style.
Video
Tips for the Sauce:
I prepared the classic sauce with a roux.
You can also bind the sauce with cornflour, as Alfons Schuhbeck shows in his culinary stories.
Another way to bind sauces is with cold cream, egg yolk and little starch.
Mix the so-called liaison cold and then add to the sauce, heat slowly, do not boil at best!
Tips for tying the Meatballs:
Please express the rolls well after soaking.
Always prepare a sample dumpling, you can then provide even more binding.
The more breadcrumbs you add to the mixture, the firmer and less fluffy the dumplings will become.
With a gluten-free diet you can bind with starch, this applies to both the minced meat mass and the sauce.
Note on mustard:
The original recipe was probably prepared without mustard.
I tried both variations and I like the meatballs with mustard better.
Hi Chef Thomas,
I love this meatball and can’t get enough of it.
The instructions are so nicely laid out and the dumplings are excellent mr succeeded.
Yummy Yummy 🙂 Thanks.
Rell