He added garlic.
He made them large.
Those two things alone completely disqualify this dish as Swedish meatballs. This is heresy. He made meatballs, sure, but them things ain't Swedish meatballs.
He made them large.
Those two things alone completely disqualify this dish as Swedish meatballs. This is heresy. He made meatballs, sure, but them things ain't Swedish meatballs.
Larger Swedish meatballs are not uncommon in restaurants (and frankly neither is garlic). Kenji's video and recipe uses a lot of nutmeg and even says they are normally eaten with potatoes and lingonberry sauce. Not sure how much more 'Swedish' you can eat your meatballs.
The original Swedish meatballs were flavoured with allspice, but I think most people today think allspice has an old-fashioned taste.
I'll even forgive the marmite which is about as un-Swedish as you can get, because he's right about its purpose. I mean, no-one is batting an eye at adding soy sauce, but that's also available in Sweden, unlike marmite.
All of these changes are fine, he's still in the territory of "Swedish meatballs" despite having deviated quite far.
But adding garlic makes it a completely different dish. It is now garlic meatballs or Italian meatballs or whatever. We're in the territory of Southern Europe now, not Sweden.
The size of the things also moves them from meatballs to frikadeller. That's Denmark, not Sweden.
So he's made Italian-Danish garlic frikadeller. Great. I'm sure they're super tasty. But they're not Swedish meatballs.