Friday night spicy meatballs
Early this week I saw a tweet about a Smitten Kitchen post from last year for braised ginger meatballs in coconut broth which looked excellent and I was excited to try it when I got home. Then I got home to find I was missing most of the key ingredients. Not to be putt off, I replaced some bits and cracked on. It ended up far less “meatballs in sauce” that “meatballs” though. I’ve never been good at reductions.
You will need
- About 300g of beef mince
- An egg
- A couple of handfuls of breadcrumbs
- A couple of blocks of frozen spinach
- A couple of blocks of frozen ginger
- A couple of blocks of frozen garlic
- A lime (zested and juiced)
- A fresh chilli (finely sliced)
- A teaspoon of turmeric
- A tablespoon of fish sauce
- A can of coconut milk
- A couple of teaspoons of stock powder
Do
- Stick the oven on as high as possible
- Mix half the ginger, half the garlic, half the fishsauce, the mice, the breadcrumbs and the mince
- Shape into small balls (less than a ping pong ball)
- Stick in the oven
- In a large pan fry the rest of the garlic and ginger
- Add half the chilli, lime zest, turmeric, stock, coconut milk and an equal amount of hot water
- Let it all bubble and reduce by half
- Add the spinach, turn the heat down and pop a lid on so it doesn’t reduce more
- Once the meatballs are cooked (about 15 minutes) add them to the pan, stir and let it all mellow.
- Squeeze the lime over and add the rest of the chilli before serving (I piled it onto plain white rice)
Result
I wasn’t going to write this up, so there’s only one photo. The sauce coated the meatballs beutifully, the heat comes though, the turmeric gives a great earthy depth to the flavours.