Sunday, March 13, 2016

Persian Lamb Meatballs

Tart barberries give these lamb meatballs or koofteh berenji a subtle edge, mellowed by the addition of lentils and rice. This is a tasty one-pot meal to feed a hungry family.

This week Sunday Supper is celebrating National Meatball Day, albeit just a little late. My attitude is that anytime is a good time for meatballs, and I’m sure our host this week, Sue of Palatable Pastime, would agree. Almost 50 Sunday Supper tastemakers certainly do! Make sure scroll down to check out the link list below for an amazing array of meatball recipes.

A couple of years ago, when my sister and a friend were visiting me here in Dubai, we went on a foodie tour with Frying Pan Adventures, something I would highly recommend to anyone who travels here and has an interest in foods of the world. One of the stops was a lovely little shop that sold all manner of Persian and Arabic ingredients, including barberries. I had never heard of barberries so, of course, I had to buy some. They are used in many traditional Iranian dishes, especially rice pilaf and lend both a tart flavor and a beautiful ruby highlights.

This meatball recipe is adapted from one in Delicious. magazine’s March 2015 edition.

Ingredients
For the meatballs:
3/4 cup or 150g basmati rice
1 teaspoon sea salt, plus more for seasoning
Scant 1/2 cup or 100g green lentils
1 lb 1 1/2 oz or 495g ground lamb
Small bunch parsley
Small bunch cilantro
3 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 large onion
2 handfuls dried barberries, stems picked out and discarded, if any are present
3 eggs
Black pepper

For the sauce:
Olive oil for frying
1 large onion
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons tomato purée
14 oz or 400g can chopped tomatoes

To serve:
Chopped green onions or more cilantro and parsley
Plain yogurt
Flatbread

Method
Finely chop your parsley and cilantro. Chop one onion finely and slice the other as thinly as you can manage. Finely mince the garlic or put it through a garlic press.

Bring one liter or 4 1/4 cups water to the boil in a large pot. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and add in the rice. Boil for seven minutes then drain the rice and set aside to cool.

Repeat the process with the lentils but reduce the heat to medium after you add them to the boiling, salted water and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the lentils are just cooked. Drain, rinse and set aside to cool.



In a large mixing bowl, combine the cooled rice, lentils, ground lamb, herbs, flour, turmeric, and a generous sprinkling of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.



Shape the mixture into 12 large meatballs. Traditionally, they should be rugby ball-shaped but I made mine round.

Drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil into a large deep saucepan with a lid and gently fry the sliced onions until they soften and start to color slightly.

Add in the teaspoon of ground turmeric and the garlic and fry for a few more minutes.



Pour 1 liter or 4 1/4 cups water into the saucepan then add in the tomato purée and stir well. Sprinkle on some more fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.



Add the can of chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil, then turn the fire down to a medium heat. Carefully add the meatballs to the pan, one by one.

Partially cover the pan with the lid, leaving it slightly ajar, and cook the meatballs for 1 1/4-1 1/2 hours.



Once the cooking time is done, taste and add more salt and pepper, if necessary. Sprinkle on some chopped green onions. Serve with yogurt and flatbread.


Enjoy!



You might also like my Sopa de Albondigas, Easy Meatballs á la Jamie Oliver, Porcupine Balls or my grandmother's favorite spaghetti sauce with meatballs.

And here are all the wonderful Sunday Supper recipes:

Meatball Appetizers and Soup
Main Dish Meatballs
Meatball Desserts



Posted by at 4:36:00 AM 0 comments
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Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Honey Balsamic Carrots #BloggerCLUE

Roasting brings out the natural sweetness in carrots, which is complemented by a beautiful balsamic honey glaze. 

This whole year is already going by in a flash, a sensation that is further emphasized by how early Easter is. The liturgical calendar starts with the four weeks before Christmas with Advent as the first season. But as Easter must follow Passover - when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper - and Passover is determined by the first full moon after the vernal equinox, Easter moves around according to the lunar calendar. So there are logical reasons but that doesn't help me get over that rushed feeling. One the plus side, since it’s almost Easter and it's also Blogger C.L.U.E. Society time again, our clue this month is to look for recipes in our assigned blogs for the upcoming celebration.

Sew You Think You Can Cook is written by Lauren, who is one smart cookie and one fabulous wife and mother. She’s put her aerospace engineering career on hold to stay home with two button-cute boys and support her husband as he has been studying for his Masters. I am really not sure how, but she also finds the time to cook delicious dishes and share them on her blog. When I plugged Easter into her search bar quite a few things came up. It was hard to decide between the soft carrot cake cookies, her Easter Bundt Cake and her Citrus Roast Chicken with four different citrus fruits! That chicken was closely rivaled by her Strawberry Pork Roast. I finally settled on Lauren’s Honey Balsamic Carrots because I needed a delicious, flavorful side dish to go with the fish I was making for dinner - for yet another group blogging event. I can assure you they were an excellent choice.

Ingredients
6-7 carrots (Mine weighed about 1 lb 2.5oz or 525g) 1 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup or 60ml balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon butter

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and line large baking pan with foil.

Peel your carrots, trim the ends and cut them into 1 in or 2 1/2cm pieces.



Pile up the cut carrots on a rimmed baking sheet and drizzle on the olive oil. Stir them around to coat.


Spread the carrots out so they aren't touching and sprinkle them with some salt and black pepper.


Roast carrots in your preheated oven for 40 minutes. Give them a stir halfway through.



When there are 10 minutes left on the timer, combine the honey and vinegar in a small pan.


Cook over a medium heat until the sauce is thick and getting really sticky. Keep stirring because you don’t want it to burn. A spoon dragged through the middle should leave a space that closes back up again slowly.


Remove from heat and stir in the butter until melted.



Pour the carrots in and then stir well to coat them with the glaze.



Enjoy!



Check out the other Easter dishes from the Blogger C.L.U.E. Society this month.
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Posted by at 4:52:00 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Chocolate Filled Bundt Bread #BreadBakers


This lovely Bundt loaf boasts loads of dark chocolate in a slightly sweet yeast bread, with a thick chocolate glaze. Perfect for a decadent breakfast or even dessert.

This month my Bread Bakers are pushing out the cacao boat, using cocoa, chocolate or carob in a variety of breads. Many thanks to my fellow Dubai blogger, Shireen from Ruchik Randhap, who is hosting this great event.

I bookmarked this recipe from Just a Pinch more than a year ago, renaming it Chocolate Filled Yeast Bundt Cake so maybe Bread. From a quick read through, it sure sounded more like bread than cake. I ended up adjusting a few ingredients so it's even more bread-like than the original but whatever you call it, it's good and chocolatey.

Ingredients
For the dough:
4 cups or 500g all purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
1/4 cup or 50g sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/3 cup or 315ml warm milk (110°F or 43°C)

Note: If you are using organic or unpasteurized milk, heat it to 180°F or 82°C and then cool down to the right temperature. Read more about how, why and when to scald milk here at Pastry Chef Online.

For the filling:
12 oz or 340g dark chocolate

For the glaze:
6 oz or 170g dark chocolate,
2 tablespoons butter, plus extra for greasing Bundt pan
1 tablespoon golden syrup

Optional: Sprinkles for decorating

Method
Grease a 10-inch  or 25cm Bundt cake pan with butter and sprinkle with flour.

Sift the flour into the bowl of your stand mixer and add salt, yeast, sugar, eggs and warm milk.



Mix with the bread hook until all of the flour has been incorporated into the wet ingredients and you have a sticky dough.



Cover the dough bowl with a kitchen towel and leave it in a warm place for about an hour or until the dough doubles in size.



When the hour is almost up, melt the 12 oz of dark chocolate either in a double boiler or in the microwave with a few short zaps. Set it aside to cool a bit.



Sprinkle your clean work surface with flour and knead the dough for a few minutes.

Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape that is 12 x 16 in or 31x41cm. Spread the cooled chocolate on it.


Roll the up the dough, jelly roll style, starting from the longer side. Pinch the ends together.



Quickly move the roll to your greased Bundt cake pan, trying to make sure the seam side is down. Sprinkle with flour and then cover with a towel for 30 minutes.



Start preheating your oven so it will be at 350°F or 180°C when the 30 minutes are up.

After half an hour


Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes. Leave plenty of headroom for the bread to rise. Because rise it certainly will!


Leave to cool for about 15-20 minutes and then turn out onto a wire rack. I had to trim some off of one side of my bottom to get it to stand up straight.


For the glaze, warm up all ingredients in a double boiler or with a few good zaps in a microwaveable bowl until chocolate is melted. Let it cool a little and pour over the bread.

Decorate with sprinkles, if desired.



Enjoy!




Breads with Cocoa, Cacao or Carob in any form
Posted by at 4:48:00 AM 1 comments
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