familycharms

1st October, 1986. A family of four arrive at Stockholm Arlanda airport, at 10am, bleary-eyed, carrying all their important possessions in old hardcase Samsonsite suitcases, about to start their new lives very far away from everything they have known in Bombay, India. Luckily, this deer-in-headlights family was greeted warmly by Alfred, a soon-to-be colleague and dear friend. He drove them to a corporate apartment in Vaxjo, our first home in Stockholm for the next couple of weeks.

For this family, my family, everything about Stockholm was new, weird and intriguing. The air was cold and crisp. Dramatic white barren trees everywhere you turn. Cars bizarrely adhering to road rules. Landing up at the apartment, Alfred had to show my parents how to use the kitchen appliances which then naturally led us to ponder how to fill the empty cupboards and what to eat?? Once again, Alfred went above and beyond and took us to the nearest supermarket, Konsum. The food items were all in Swedish, and so many food items that were ready-prepared or frozen! At that time, this concept had not reached India. One of things that caught my mother’s eye were the frozen meatballs. Poor mans’ food in Sweden apparently but they looked sort of similar to kofte. So along with some other basic food stuffs, my mother bought the ingredients for our very first meal in Sweden – kofte curry using Swedish meatballs.

It’s now a little family charm that on the 1st October every year, whether together as a family, or in our individual lives, we recreate that evening, where four endearingly naive people huddle around a warming dish that is at once comfortably familiar and yet excitingly different. An ordinary day for many, but a quietly extraordinary day for my family.

Ingredients

500g meatballs – love or hate Ikea (I’m definitely a lover), its meatballs in the food section are perfect for this dish.
250g small potatoes
500ml water
1 yellow onion, chopped
2 tbsp ginger powder
2 fat cloves of garlic
200g chopped tinned tomatoes
1tbsp cumin
1tsp chilli powder
1 inch of cinnamon
4 cardamom pieces
4 cloves

You can improvise and add some other vegetables such as frozen peas, carrots etc. to add more texture and colour.

Method
• Parboil the potatoes
• While that’s going on, heat oil in a pan. When hot, temper the cinnamon, cardamom and cloves until they start to splutter
• Saute the chopped onions and garlic with the tempered spices
• Add the ground spices (ginger powder, cumin, chilli powder)
• Pour in the chopped tomatoes and simmer until water evaporates a little
• Add the potatoes and meatballs. Mix it all up so everything is coated in the spices
• Add some water
• Season with salt to taste
• Simmer until you get a nice thick gravy

Serve with rice.