Tomato-free Meatballs
Meatballs are a great thing, obviously, and we don't get to have them as much as I'd like in our house as Rich insists on disliking tomato based sauces. Very sad. Sometimes I force them upon him anyway, but this week I thought I'd kindly try and make an alternative to the usual Italian style spaghetti/tomato sauce/meatball combo. So, I took half minced veal, half minced pork and added in some crushed fennel seeds (new obsession since the Beer Butt Chicken marinade), some fresh coriander and parsley, some smoked garlic and some smoked paprika and mixed it all together. Using an egg to bind the mixture, I then split it into chunks and rolled each ball in flour before putting in a frying pan to cook. It took about ten minutes, with me turning each ball throughout and finally slightly deglazing the pan with a splash of lemon juice and the tiniest amount of tomato puree (shushhh) to bring it all together.
I made a very quick yoghurt sauce of natural yoghurt, mint, coriander and lemon juice blended together in my whizzer, and served it all with the ubiquitous cauliflower rice and some grilled aubergine. (If you're ever grilling aubergine or courgette, do it in a dry pan and add the olive oil once its cooked, they're much better - tip stolen from L'Atelier des Chefs).
Sorry there are no measurements for anything; measuring things is not for me. Just bung in what you think looks about right as you can't really go wrong.*
* This is why baking never works for me and you will never see a successful cake story on here :(