Thai-style Chicken Meatballs with Sweet Chilli Dipping Sauce

Do you ever have something to eat where you think "I could go on eating this until I burst?".  Well, these wonderful meatballs were just like that.  I found them on the BBC Good Food site so the simplest thing is to link to their recipe.  We served them with a bowl of coconut rice noodles with asparagus and courgette.  We will most definitely make this again.  It was such a pleasant way to wind down at the end of the day - select a lettuce leaf, add a meatball, stuff with some coriander leaves, sprinkle with lime juice, roll up, dunk in sweet chilli sauce, repeat.  Excellent.  This would be an easy, relaxed way to feed friends - bung it all on a platter and let people help themselves.  Just make plenty!

Marrakesh Meatballs and Eggs

Thirty years ago, way before Nigella, we had a 'posh' cook in the guise of Josceline Dimbleby. She is a great, innovative cook and I can't understand why she isn't more widely known and more highly regarded. Sainsbury's published several of her books in the early Eighties, and I still find inspiration from them, nearly thirty years later. This recipe, spiced lamb meatballs in a thick spicy tomato sauce, with eggs cooked in with them, is a stunner. Make meatballs from 200g minced lamb with garlic, mint, coriander, chilli and cumin. Roll into small, marble sized meatballs, and brown in a little oil. Mix a tablespoon of tomato puree with 200mls of boiling water. Now, mix a teaspoon each of ground cumin, coriander and paprika with a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon and stir into the meatballs, followed by the tomato water. Transfer all to an ovenproof dish and bake for about 20 minutes. Now, break eggs into the dish (I'll leave you to decide how many) and return to the oven for 10 minutes until set. Serve with rice or crusty bread.

Chilli Meatballs with Sweetcorn

You know, some food just isn't very photogenic, and should be consumed in the privacy of one's own home, with lots of beer and napkins. This is certainly the case here. Not a pretty dish. But very nice! It is a little windy here (and that's BEFORE the chilli has been consumed - forgive me). So, a bowl of chilli is in order. We had some chilli meatballs from Waitrose in the freezer, so I knocked up a chilli sauce - onion, garlic, red chilli to taste, paprika, cumin and oregano, with a tin of tomatoes and a tin of kidney beans. The meatballs were browned and then cooked slowly for an hour in the sauce. Towards the end, I added some fresh sweetcorn kernels, stripped from an ear of corn that had arrived in the organic veg box. Served in a generous portion in a bowl with some soft, warmed flour tortillas, and some chilled Mexican beer, this was a lovely supper. You could add a dollop of sour cream, some grated cheese and chopped coriander if you wanted to gussy it up a bit, but we were just fine, thank you! No photo, so here is a nice shot of some sweetcorn.

Oriental Meatballs with Spicy Coconut Noodles [#211]

So, the first recipe from Ching-He Huang. Her approach to Chinese food is informed by a) being Taiwanese and b) being raised in the UK, so she isn't a purist. This recipe was taken from her 'East meets East' chapter, and was her interpretation of Meatballs and Spaghetti - a very loose interpretation, I would say! Very nice though. Imagine, if you will, slippery udon noodles, bathed in a coconutty sauce flavoured with garlic, ginger, chilli, lemongrass, shrimp paste and fish sauce, with masses of coriander. Buried in amongst the noodles are little meatballs, made with beef and seasoned with yet more garlic and ginger, chilli and coriander, chopped spring onions, fish sauce and Chinese wine. Are you hungry? You should be! Anyway, a very successful first dish, more Thai than Chinese. I added a spritz of lime at the end, just to lift the final flavours. The shrimp paste and fish sauce, by the way, should be used as chemical agents in wartime. I used considerably less than in the recipe, and they do fade to a savoury background flavour on cooking. I am looking forward to trying more from her book.

Spiced Chicken Meatballs and Cherry Tomatoes with Fusilli [#207]

The first Bill Granger recipe of the challenge - I LOVE Bill Granger's food - healthy, simple yet packed full of flavour. This one didn't disappoint - chicken thighs, smoked bacon, breadcrumbs, ground coriander, chilli, garlic, shallot and parsley, all sazzed in the food processor. After forming into small meatballs, they are sprayed with oil and baked in a hot oven for 20 minutes, next to a big dish of baby plum tomatoes. Brought together in a pot with a little stock, and then served with pasta and Parmesan, we had a wholesome, filling supper, with plenty for work tomorrow. Quite a lot of washing-up, but who cares? That's what husbands are for :o)