fridaynightdinnerbox: recipe: albondigas, salsa de almendras

She's a hard road finding the perfect meatball, boy, but good fun looking. I took to my library of cook books for inspiration & pretty soon there was a huge pile of books & papers on my table, stories & recipes from all over the place. A couple of themes began to emerge. First of all, everyone cooks meatballs. Second of all, meatballs are sentimental & cooking meatballs is fun!

All the great chefs have their favourites. The meatballs on Ad Hoc's menu, Thomas Keller writes, were his father's favourite dish; Marco Pierre White talks about the magnificence of the Christmas turkey, seeing it come out of the oven, & the pleasure of that memory invested in his recipe for turkey meatballs; Jamie Oliver's take on meatballs, easy fun & fast, well there's loads of them, just see what googling brings up, I like the versions on his 15 Minute Meals & Ministry of Food shows...the list goes on.

Then of course there's the meatballs that appear in the cuisines of the world: fleischlaibchen, Austrian fried meatballs; in Belgium, ballekes made from a beef & pork mix with breadcrumbs & sliced onions; in China, the large sized meatballs of Shanghai cuisine, called lion's heads; Danish meatballs, made from ground pork & veal, are called frikadeller; in France, meatballs from Alsace, fleischpflanzeri (say that 10 times!!), are served with a cream sauce; in Germany, konigsberger klopse are made with anchovies & served with a caper sauce, meatballs in Greece are made with onions, bread, mint & often include rice; the small fried meatballs of Iranian cuisine are known as kal-e gonjeshi, which means sparrow heads... still with me??

Indonesian bakso are served in a soup; Italy's polpettines are marble sized, Polish klopsy are served with a thickened tomato or mushroom gravy; Swedish kottbullar are seasoned with white pepper & allspice, & served alongside pickled cucumber; called kofte, there are at least 50 different kinds of meatballs in Turkey, usually made from either ground lamb or a ground beef & lamb mix; & in Vietnam, xiu Mai, is a popular street food, pork meatballs grilled & served in a baguette...

BUT for the here & now, my heart is still longing for Portugal & Spain, for the flavours of pimiento & garlic, almonds, tomatoes, olive oil & lemon. Memories still fresh, ordering almondegas in a tiny little place in Lisbon, & albondegas were a common dinner along the Camino de Santiago in Spain, not to mention the pinchos & tapas bars everywhere.

(farofa - Brazilian, a tasty flour replacement)

Recipe: Albondigas
Ingredients:

1/2kg minced 50/50 pork/veal

about a cup of breadcrumbs or farofa

1 clove garlic/ 1/2 onion/ 2 Tbsp parsley

salt flakes/freshly ground red & black peppercorns

a few really finely chopped parsley stalks, 2 eggs
flour for dusting/ oil for frying

Method:

*farofa is added to the mince, in a bowl

*add also the minced garlic & onion, parsley, s'n'p, nutmeg & beaten egg,

then set aside so the same bowl can be used, putting a little seasoned flour in the bowl

*mix to smooth, using your hands, then form into small balls

*roll [the balls] in flour then fry slowly in oil, browning all over, in batches

*set the meatballs aside, draining of the excess oils/fats from the pan so the sauce can begin

Recipe: Salsa de Almendras, Almond Sauce
Ingredients:

50ml oil

15 almonds/2 slices of bread ripped up into croutons/ 2 cloves garlic

5 peppercorns/ 1/2 tsp saffron/ 1 clove/ 1/2 tsp salt

100ml white wine/250ml stock or water

Method:
before you get started

STOP!

*first, pour yourself an emergency glass of vino & have a sip before going any further

*fry almonds, bread & garlic until toastie, set aside

*motar & pestle peppercorns/saffron/clove/salt

*add almonds/bread/garlic & pound it down

...& down

*dilute with wine & work it some more

...& some more

*stir into the oil in the pan & fry for a minute or so, then add stock

...stir it in to get a good consistency, nice & saucy, then cook away for about 10 minutes

adjusting the amount of liquid to keep the sauce to the consistency you want

>I made my sauce in advance, mainly because there was an experimental process to go through: I wanted to try a few combinations to get to a sauce that worked for me. When I was happy, I left the sauce to cool & become firm then stashed it in the fridge in a container until I was ready. Then, at the drain-oil-after-cooking-&-setting-aside-the-cooked-meatballs stage, the pre-prepared sauce can be added directly. All round tidier, easier &, most importantly, quicker.

Finishing the dish, bringing it all together:

*add fried meatballs to the sauce, cook another 25 minutes

*test the meatballs at 20 minutes, they should still be a little pink inside

*adjusting the liquids to suit personal preference, if served as a tapas perhaps a thicker sauce, served with pasta or rice as an accompaniment perhaps a smoother saucier sauce would be better, bringing those components of the dish together

*gremolata to finish; zesting a lemon & a nice chop-chopping of parsley

...yeah, it's good.

The Meatballathon was the event that dominated the weekend though. Held in the picturesque Thames Valley, at the highly complimentary arena of Mirander Hot Springs' campground kitchen, contestants from around New Zealand & the world came together to compete for the greatest meatball of the day. Under the constraints of a two hour time limit, meatball dishes were prepared, cooked & presented to a panel of judges. Then they were gobbled up by the other contestants.

Some random meatball action...

Justin's classic meatball, serves over a dauphinoise of potato

David's venison meatballs, seasoned only with salt, serves with a cranberry jus

Thor's meatballs, equal measure of pork/beef/pork fat, an à la grecque approach
(yes, none in the photo, only sauce, cos I greedily launched into them & couldn't stop)
then my own offering: ahead of its time, the roast chicken & cheese sandwich meatball...
ahhmmm...yeah.

Missi's classic Italian meatball serves over pappardelle & a tomato sauce. Gorgeous ;)

Farah's pork meatballs, rolled in rice flour & served with a Thai dipping sauce

Basking in the glory, the triumphant trinity of mighty meatballers:

Farah (WMA World Champion & People's Choice), Rupes & Jules (1st&2nd Runners-up)

---

I contacted Farah to see if she'd divulge her recipe. Here is her reply:

Monday

2:10pm


Farah I----

Always happy to share recipes. 

Larb Inspired Meatballs

Ingredients

Meatballs:
250 lean pork mince
250 gram pork fatty mince
2 shallots, diced finely
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 green chilli, seeds removed, chopped finely
Juice 1 lime
Zest 2 limes
1.5 tsp gelatine
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 egg
1 round (25 gram) palm sugar, crushed
Lots of fresh mint (at least 20gram dry weight), chopped finely
Lots fresh coriander (at least 20gram dry weight, chopped finely
Short grain rice, toasted and ground

Sauce:
100ml lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
1/2 round  (12.5 gram) of palm sugar, crushed
2 red chillies, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Garnish:
Mint leaves, ripped if large
Coriander leaves
Shallot, very finely sliced into rings and separated
Red chilli, seeds removed and finely sliced
Roasted peanuts, crushed 

Make sauce by mixing all sauce ingredients together until sugar is fully dissolved and leave to develop flavour. The sauce needs to have a nice tart finish so extra lime may be needed.

Toast rice for the meatball coating in a frying pan over high heat. Remove from heat when starting to become a light golden colour. Allow to cool and then grind with a mortar pestle/processor to a nice grit, where small pieces of rice still remain but they are smaller than a quarter of the original size of the grain. Set this aside to roll your meatballs in once they are shaped.

Put lean and fatty pork into a bowl, add the shallots, garlics, chilli, mint, coriander, lime zest and egg. In a separate bowl dissolve the gelatine in the fish sauce, sugar and lime juice. Add the gelatine mix to the meat and mix together until all is combined. Put meat mix in the fridge for 30 mins to firm up. 

Use a dessert spoon full of meat mix for each ball, roll into a ball and then roll in the rice flour.

Deep fry meatballs in oil of 180c for 5 minutes. 

To serve, place mint and coriander leaves in tasting spoon, add a teaspoon of the sauce. Place meatball on, a wee drizzle of more sauce and then a slice of shallot, slice of red chilli and a scatter of peanuts.