I rolled thirty-one meatballs by hand last month. Counted them, documented them, wrote a whole post about their journey from 1970s American dinner parties back to a Finnish kitchen. It was a lovely afternoon project — meditative, even. The kind of cooking you do when you have time and something to prove.

This is not that post.

This is the post where Sunday afternoon brain looked at a kilo of ground venison and said: what if we just… didn’t?

Same spices. Same cream gravy. Same venison from the same university student who hunts with his father — the one I buy a whole deer from and stash in my freezer like someone preparing for a medieval siege. (I wrote about him in Hunted, Foraged, Traded, Inherited. He’s still hunting. I’m still hoarding.)

The difference is that instead of standing at the counter shaping countless tiny spheres, I just… browned the meat. In crumbles. Like a person who has things to do.

Here’s what happened: I had a kilo of venison to use, a jar of bacon fat that needed emptying, and yesterday’s leftover hybrid pasta (I ran short of fettucine and subbed in a good handful of spaghetti to cover the difference) Alfredo sitting in the fridge looking like it needed a purpose in life.

The Repatriated Meatballs used ham fat from an ice cream box in the kitchen freezer. This time it was bacon fat left over from my rendering two packets of bacon to make a very aggressive quiche (I’ll explain some other day). You work with the rendered animal fats you have, not the rendered animal fats you wish you had. This is a life philosophy.

The seasoning is identical to the meatball version — allspice, nutmeg, white pepper, garlic and onion powder, parsley. That particular combination is what makes Swedish meatballs taste like Swedish meatballs, and it turns out you don’t need to roll the meat into spheres first to unlock the flavor. Revolutionary, I know.

Brown the venison in the bacon fat. Pull it out. Make the gravy in the same pan — more fat, flour, beef stock, a smaller echo of the same spices, a squeeze of lemon juice that nobody expects but everyone benefits from, and of course the ruokakerma. Because this is Finland, and cream isn’t an indulgence, it’s bedrock.

The real trick, though, was what happened to the pasta.

Leftover fettuccine Alfredo has a certain identity. It’s creamy, it’s garlicky, it knows what it is. But that heavily-spiced cream gravy doesn’t care about your pasta’s previous life. Pour it over yesterday’s Alfredo and the Alfredo just… surrenders. Becomes “noodles under meatball sauce.” Identity: completely overwritten.

I’m not saying this is a metaphor for anything. But as someone who moved from California to Finland and had to completely change her way of life, I found it relatable.

The verdict: unprompted approval from both my husband and my son. At the same meal. For the same dish.

If you don’t live in this household, you might not understand the magnitude of this event. These two share DNA and a mailing address, but their food preferences overlap in a narrow Venn diagram sliver that mostly consists of “meat” and “bread.” Getting simultaneous enthusiasm is the culinary equivalent of a solar eclipse — you know it’s theoretically possible, but you don’t expect to witness it on a random Sunday.

My son, who once rejected an entire meal over the presence of visible herbs, ate venison crumbles in cream gravy over recycled pasta and declared it good. My husband, who expresses culinary approval in the Finnish style (eating seconds without being asked), went back for seconds without being asked.

The original meatballs had a biography. These crumbles have the same biography — Finnish ingredients, American spice profile, Californian cook — but with a drastically reduced labor chapter. Same story. Fewer paragraphs. Sometimes the abridged version is the better read.

---

Deconstructed Meatballs (Venison Crumbles in Cream Gravy)

Everything you love about Repatriated Meatballs, minus the rolling.

Serves 4-5

For the venison crumbles:

• 1 kg ground venison
• ~1/3 cup bacon fat (or ham fat, or whatever rendered fat your jar situation provides)
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp allspice
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp sea salt
• ½ tsp white pepper

For the cream gravy:

• Pan drippings from the venison + Oivariini (or butter) to make ~½ cup total fat
• ½ cup flour
• 4 cups beef stock
• 1 tsp sea salt
• ¼ tsp white pepper
• ¼ tsp allspice
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 200ml ruokakerma (Finnish cooking cream — heavy cream works in a pinch)

Method:

Mix the spices into the ground venison. Brown in the bacon fat over medium-high heat, breaking into crumbles as it cooks. Don’t crowd the pan. You want browning, not steaming. Remove the meat and set aside.

In the same pan: add Oivariini to the drippings until you have about half a cup of fat. Whisk in the flour. Cook the roux for a minute or two until it smells nutty. Slowly add the beef stock, whisking constantly to avoid lumps.

Add salt, white pepper, allspice, nutmeg, and lemon juice. Let it simmer until it thickens — maybe 5-7 minutes.

Stir in the ruokakerma. Return the venison crumbles to the gravy. Let everything get acquainted for a few minutes over low heat.

Serve over whatever carbs need a purpose: egg noodles, mashed potatoes, rice, or (if you’re feeling particularly resourceful) yesterday’s leftover fettuccine Alfredo, which will not complain about being repurposed.

Notes:

The lemon juice sounds odd but it brightens the whole gravy. Don’t skip it.

If you don’t have venison, beef works. If you don’t have bacon fat, butter works. If you don’t have leftover pasta, literally anything starchy works. The gravy is the point. The gravy is always the point.

Adapted from The Modern Proper’s Swedish meatball recipe, further deconstructed by a woman who has rolled her last meatball. (Probably. We’ll see.)