IKEA Meatballs Beef Bourguignon Style With Creamy Parmesan Mashed Potatoes

Hello everyone,

Today I am going to show you how to make the quick version of one of my favorite winter meals, using IKEA meatballs.

I guess I am a summer person, I don’t really like winter, cold weather and long dark evenings are the first things that come to my mind. One of the things that can cheer me up is some sort of a hearty, warm comfort food, like soups and stews. One of my favorite dishes of this kind is beef (boeuf) bourguignon, and my preferred way of preparing it is slow cooking, leaving it at low temp in the oven in an iron skillet overnight. However, it happens that I get home from work longing for something like that, right then and not next day. This recipe is ideal for such emergency situations. Using frozen meatballs instead of beef chunks cut down the cooking time considerably, which means that you can have the steaming skillet on the table within an hour as of the moment the idea popped into your mind.

Is it absolutely same as the original slow cooked version? Definitely no, but it can still save the day.

For the stew:

• 1 packet (1 kg) of IKEA meatballs (I used beef-pork version)
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 150g bacon
• 2 mid-sized onions (300 g)
• 4 cloves garlic
• 4 mid-sized carrots (400 g)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• salt and pepper
• 2 cups red wine
• 300 g cremini mushrooms
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons thyme
• 5 small (or 3 large) bay leaves
• a bunch of parsley
• 150 g pickled pearl onions (optional)
• 1 pomegranate (totally optional, in fact it was a sudden idea along the way to stir the arils in, that’s why it does not appear in the photo, but its acidity worked really well)

For the creamy mashed potatoes:

• 1300 g potatoes (about 1200 g peeled)
• 120 g butter (room temperature)
• 250 g mascarpone
• 50 g parmesan
• 1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/3 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/3 teaspoon nutmeg, grated
• 1/2 cup milk/cream for a thinner version

Tools:

• baking tray
• parchment paper
• cutting board
• cheese grater
• knifes, wooden spoons
• pot

Let's start with the meatballs. Set the oven to 190 °C. Line a baking tray with a piece of parchment, drizzle with a tablespoon of oil, dump the meatballs and bake them in the preheated oven for 20 minutes (as it is indicated on the package) until golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Prep your veggies while the meatballs are sitting in the oven.

Onions - peel and dice.

Garlic - crush, remove the skin and chop finely.

Carrots - peel, wash and chop.

Mushrooms - clean and slice.

Pomegranate - remove arils. (How to do it would be a whole new Instructible. There are a number of methods you can come across the Internet, I tried a few, the least messy proved to be for me to remove the top of the fruit, then score the skin from stem to end along the white sections, then pull the wedges apart and remove the arils.)

(A general hint to using cutting board: if you do not have one those really heavy ones, put a damp kitchen towel underneath to stop it from moving while working on it.)

Let's carry on with the sauce.

First of all, cut the bacon into 1 cm stripes.

Pour 1 tablespoon of oil into a cast iron (or thick-bottomed) skillet, add bacon and cook it over medium heat until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pot but leave the grease.

Add the chopped onion and cook over medium heat stirring occasionally until translucent and soft. At this stage, add garlic and cook for another 2-3 minutes until you start to smell it. Stir in the carrots.

Add tomato paste, season with salt and pepper, add thyme and bay leaves, stir and cook for 2 minutes. Add red wine, bring it to boil and simmer until it thickens a bit. Add broth and keep cooking until the carrot is tender.

I like to add mushrooms when the carrots are done, they cook a lot faster.

Gently stir in mushrooms, cook for 2-3 minutes, Chop parsley.

Add meatballs and bacon, stir, bring it back to boil, cook for 3 minutes. Pull it off the heat, stir in parsley and about 2/3 of pomegranate arils. That's it.

I think saucy metballs go really well with this light, almost frothy puree.

Peel and wash potatoes, dice them, then cook in salted water until tender (20 minutes roughly, depending on the size of potato pieces). Strain well.

Grate parmesan.

Take a hand held whisk, add in butter, mascarpone, then break the potato pieces and whisk until creamy. (You may add 1/2 cup of milk or cream if you want to thin it.)

Stir in freshly ground pepper, nutmeg and grated parmesan.

Serve the saucy meatballs with mashed potatoes, add pickled pearl onions if you please and scatter with more pomegranate arils. Enjoy!