Beef meatballs with broad beans and lemon

I am planning to do few post this week, atleast that is what my sister has asked me to do.
Hans is gone from tommorow for  a concert trip and he will be only back Monday evening.
So sis was like he is not home you should post then more in this week.

But knowing me I will be not doing, as I have already told Hans when he is not home I am not going to cook anything at all :-)
And he remarked I can be like the old lady who live above us in the apartment, when her husband was in the hospital for few weeks she hardly cooked.

By now you all know I am crazy for the cooking style or recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi .
And if you are not convinced you can check out all these post Chermoula Aubergine, Acharuli Khachapuri and I am sur eyou will find more similar dishes in my blog.

I made this dish when I did a Ottolenghi evening here at home together with the chermoula aubergine when i did a ottolenghi evening here at home.

This is what it is written in the book about the recipe and I must say I totally agree to it.

Fresh, sharp and very, very tasty, these meatballs are our idea of the perfect spring supper. Serve them with basmati rice and there isn't much need for anything else. Whole blanched almonds make a good addition, for texture as well as for taste – add them to the pan at the same time as the unshelled broad beans. 

Makes about 20 meatballs, to serve four

4½ tbsp olive oil
350g broad beans, fresh or frozen
4 whole thyme sprigs
6 garlic cloves, sliced
8 spring onions, cut at an angle into 2cm segments
2½ tbsp lemon juice
500ml  chicken stock
Salt and black pepper

For the meatballs
300g minced beef
150g minced lamb
1 medium onion, finely chopped
120g breadcrumbs
2 tbsp each chopped flat-leaf parsley, mint, dill and coriander, plus ½ tbsp extra of each to finish
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp baharat spice mix ( if you don't get this spice mix in the book there is a recipe,look below in this post for the recipe of this spice)
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp capers, chopped
1 egg, beaten

Put all the ingredients for the meatballs in a large bowl. Add three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper, mix with your hands and form into balls about the size of ping-pong balls. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in an extra-large frying pan for which you have a lid. Sear half the meatballs over a medium heat, turning them until they are brown all over – this will take about five minutes. Remove from the pan, add another half-tablespoon of oil to the pan and cook the other batch of meatballs. Once browned all over, remove these from the pan, too, then wipe it clean with kitchen towel.

While the meatballs are cooking, throw the broad beans into a pot with plenty of salted boiling water and blanch for two minutes. Drain, refresh under cold water, then remove and discard the skins from half the broad beans.

Heat the remaining oil in the meatball pan, add the thyme, garlic and spring onion, and sauté over a medium heat for three minutes. Add the unshelled broad beans, one and a half tablespoons of the lemon juice, 80ml of the stock, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper. The beans should be almost covered by liquid. Pop on the lid and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes.

Return the meatballs to the pan, add the remaining stock, cover again and simmer gently for 25 minutes. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. If it is still very runny, remove the lid and reduce a little. Once the meatballs stop cooking, they will soak up a lot of the juices, so make sure there is still plenty of sauce at this point. You can leave the meatballs now, off the heat, until you're ready to serve.

Just before serving, reheat the meatballs and add a little water, if needed, to get enough sauce. Gently stir in the remaining herbs, lemon juice and the shelled broad beans and serve immediately.

Baharat Spice Mix:

1 tsp of black pepper corns
1 tsp cirriander seeds
1 cinnamon stick (5 cm) roughly broken up
1/2 tsp whole cloves
2 tsp cummin seeds
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 nutmeg grated

Add all the ingridients in a spic grinder and powder to a fine powder.
You can keep this spice powder for 2 months in a closed jar.

Falafel -Ta'miya

 

First time I had Falafel or Ta'miya was 6 years ago when we visited Egypt. And I have to admit I fell in love with them when I took the first bite.

We were there for a bit more that 3 weeks and I think we must have had them so many times.
In restraunts, from the street vendour ( i think the best ones were from them) we did a 4 day trip in a Faluka from Aswan to Edfu which was so enjoyable, much better than the Cruise ships trip according to us. We had stop overs in villages, had food there sometimes we got fruits from the villagers and we shared the cookies and chocolates we had with their kids.

And during the lunch / Dinner time the guy who cooked for us in the faluka made these and I think the taste still lingers with us. Could be also the outdoors and beeing on the nile made one super hungry :-)

So while I was in Egypt I did buy a cookbook about food from there, I must say it was difficult to find a book in English aobut their cooking.
This book is written in Arabic, but it is translated to English so I was delighted to get hold of the translated version in one of the book shops there.
It is written by Samia Andennour and the book is called Egyptain Cooking and Other Missdle Eastern recipes.
And I have to say these falafels were as good as the ones I ate them there. They were greenish in color insdie, which you get from the green herbs you add into the mix.



Falafel is a deep-fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas, fava beans or both.
Falafel is a traditional Arab food usually served in a pita, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flatbread known as lafa; "falafel" also frequently refers to a wrapped sandwich that is prepared in this way.
The falafel balls are topped with salads, pickled vegetables, hot sauce, and drizzled with tahini-based sauces.
Falafel balls may also be eaten alone as a snack or served as part of a meze.
Generally accepted to have first been made in Egypt, falafel has become a dish eaten throughout the Middle East. The Copts of Egypt claim to have first made the dish as a replacement for meat during Lent. The fritters are now found around the world as a replacement for meat and as a form of street food. Thankyou Wiki for the info.



 

 

 



 

Ta'miya - Falafel
500 gm skinned fava beans.
1/4 cup dill leaves
1/4 cup fresh coriander leaves
1/4 cupflat leaf parsley
2 onions
10 garlic ( I used 6 as my garlics were really big)
1 tsp cummin seeds
1 tsp cummin powder
1 1/2 tsp of Sodium bi carbonate
1 to 2 tsp of cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
Cooking oil for shallow frying.

These are the extra things you need if you want to serve them mike i did .
Iceberd Salade
Home Made Hummus
Garlic Sauce
Chilli Sauce
Few slices of tomatoes


Soak the beans over night.
Drain and mince with dill, corriander, parsley,onions , garlic and cummin seeds.
You should not mince to a fine paste, the mix should have a fine crunch.
Add the mix into a bowl and then add the cumming powder, cayenne, soda bi carbonate and salt and give it a good mix . Leave the mix in the fridge for 1 hour.

Heat a pan with oil ( you don't have to deep fry you have to shallow fry)
With a wet spoon or wet fingers, scoop a small and shape into a disc  and shallow fry each side for few minutes.
Oil should not be too hot otherwise you will have a burnt outside and uncooked inside .
Drain them into a kitchen paper.
This is how i served them. Heated the pita bread according to the pack and opened up them ( so you have a pocket)  sppread a bit of hummus,added a bit of iceberg salade, garlic sauce, chillie sauce, pieces of tomato and few falafel and then enjoy eating them.

I used a gadget to make the falafel, thanks to Apolina, she and I went to a shopping street and it was like beeing transported to a another world, one woudn't think one was in Brussels as the shops were like the shops we fing in Egypt, Moroco etc.... and while we were in a shop she told me Finle buy this gadget it will be very handy when you make falafel and I am so glad I bought them as it is so easy if you have this gadget.