Wednesday, February 07, 2007

I Shoulda Added The Spice!

No-one in my family really eats spicy food. When I say family I mean just my little family here in Red Dirt Central, the rest of 'em are very adventurous! Anyway, Hubby has an ulcer, I just don't like it and little kids and chillis don't always go together so well. Although I do know several families with kids who love spicy food I know many more who don't. My point, and yes I do have one, is that I purposely omitted the chilli from this recipe and, sadly, was left with a somewhat nondescript meal. If I was to make it again I'd add some of (though maybe not all) the chilli and give the kids baked beans for tea. Otherwise this seems an awful palavar for fairly ordinary meatballs!



Spicy Chicken Meatballs
Bill Granger's Every Day




Serves 4
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½ teaspoon ground coriander
1 red chilli, thinly sliced
500g minced (ground) chicken (I had 600g)
3 tablespoons fresh breadcrumbs (I used more, probably another 3)
50g pancetta, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat leaf (Italian) parsely
sea salt
500g cherry tomatoes, halved
freshly ground black pepper
125ml chicken stock

to serve
500g wholwheat fusilli, cooked (I used regular spirals)
parmesan shavings


Preheat the oven to 200˚C. Heat 1 tablesppon of the oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook ,stirring, for 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft. Add the coriander and chilli and cook for 1 minute.


Put the chicken in a bowl with the breadcrumbs, pancetta, parsley and salt. Add the spiced onion and mix well with your hands. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm the mixture. Wet your hands with cold water to stop the mixture sticking and roll it into small meatballs.

Put the cherry tomarotes on a baking tray lined with baking paper, drizzle with 1 tablespoon oilve oil and season with salt and pepper. Put the meatballs on a second lined tray and drizzle with the remailing oil. Roast the tomatoes and meatballs in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the meatballs are golden and the tomatoes are starting to pucker.

Put the stock and tomatoes in a saucepan and add the meatballs. Simmer for 5 minutes and season to taste before spooning over pasta and serving with parmesan shavings.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, if it's any consolation, they LOOK really yummy! LOL

I've never thought of making meatballs with ground chicken. I bet if you had some marinara sauce, that would be good over them. (Somehow I always equate pasta with marinara sauce!)

How is Ben's eye? Hope he's doing better. He is just adorable. I love to see his big smile. Do you have his school uniform yet? I'd love to see a pic of him in it. He's so sweet how he's loving school. I sure do miss mine being little. (sometimes) *S*

Anonymous said...

Looks and sounds good to me. We eat plenty of spicy stuff but after a few days of it, something more bland goes down a treat.

Red Dirt Mummy said...

HI JEN!!!!! Where have you been? I missed you! I think the marinara sauce would be good - we stuck sweet chilli sauce on them to liven them up a bit LOL. Ben's eye is much better, he was back to school on Wednesday and both he and I were well pleased about that! No uniform shirts yet - hopefully in the next couple of weeks - don't worry I'll post a photo when we get them. Can you email me? I wanted to 'talk' to you.

Thanks Kitchen Hand. We don't generally eat stuff this bland, I use lots of herbs and flavours just not spicy ones if you know what I mean?