Mediterranean Meatballs with Tomatoes and Feta: A Work in Progress

Sometimes when I make up new recipes, they work out great the first time out, but that isn't always the case.  Occasionally they turn out so bad I give up on the recipe and move on to something else, but most of the time I think about what did and didn't work, rewrite the recipe and give the dish another try.   This post is about one such recipe.

I wanted to make a recipe featuring meatballs flavored with Mediterranean spices and served up with cooked tomatoes and a bit of feta.   Here's the recipe I started out with:

2         tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided, + 2 teaspoons
1         medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2         teaspoons minced garlic, divided
3         slices stale white bread, torn into 1-inch pieces
3         tablespoons milk
1 1/4   pounds ground lamb
1/4      cup chopped fresh parsley, plus additional for garnish
1         teaspoon dried oregano + 1/2 teaspoon
1         teaspoon ground cumin
1/2      teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1/2      teaspoon table salt
1/4      teaspoon ground cinnamon
2         pints graped tomatoes, halved
2         tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
1/4      cup plain yogurt
2         ounces feta cheese, crumbled
           warmed pita bread (for serving)

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Cook 1/2 cup of the onion until soft and lightly-browned, then add 1 teaspoon garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.  Remove from heat and transfer onion and garlic to a large bowl to cool.

Place the pieces of stale bread in a bowl.   Pour the milk atop the bread pieces, then use your hands to mash the bread and milk into a thick paste.  Add the bread paste to the bowl with the cooked onions and garlic and add the ground lamb, parsley, 1 teaspoon oregano, pepper, salt and cinnamon.  Wet hands and shape the lamb mixture into oblong, slightly flattened meatballs.

Heat another tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet.   Cook the meatballs until they are well-browned (8-10 minutes).  Transfer to a serving platter and cover with foil to keep warm.

Drain and wipe out the skillet and heat the final two teaspoons of olive oil.  Add the remainder of the onion and cook until it starts to brown.  Add the final teaspoon garlic and final 1/2 teaspoon oregano and cook 30 seconds, then add the tomatoes.  Cook, stirring often, for 5-7 minutes or until the tomato mixture thickens.  Transfer the tomatoes to the serving platter with the meatballs.

Add chopped mint to the skillet, cook 10 seconds, then remove from heat.  Stir the yogurt into the skillet, then pour the contents of the skillet over the meatballs.  Sprinkle with feta and parsley and serve with pita bread.

That sounded like a good starting place, but the results weren't everything I'd hoped.   The lamb was quite fatty, the meatballs didn't hold together very well, and cooking the meatballs left me with a lot of blackened bits, much of it burnt onto the skillet.   Just draining and wiping it out wasn't going to work, so I set that skillet aside and used a second one to cook the rest of the onions and garlic and the tomatoes.   Pretty quickly, I found yet another problem.  The amount of tomato was too much, and the halved tomatoes gave up so much juice that it would have taken a long time for enough liquid to cook off for the tomatoes to thicken significantly.  I decided to transfer the tomato pieces to the serving dish with the meatballs, but I didn't want to lose all the tomato flavor still in the skillet, so I stirred the mint and yogurt into the juice still in the skillet.  That was a mistake, as the sauce ended up being soupy and not very attractive. 

The final result was pretty disappointing, especially given the cost of the ingredients (lamb isn't cheap, and good feta is also a bit pricey).  Presentation-wise, it was a complete disaster, with the falling-apart meatballs rendered soggy by the mushy tomatoes and soupy sauce.   It looked quite unappetizing. 

But despite not looking very good and having a really disappointing texture, everything tasted pretty good.   There is clearly something here to work with, but I could tell right away it would need a lot of work, and some parts clearly needed to be rethought completely.

First off, I needed to do something different about the meatballs.  They hadn't held together very well.  One possibility was to use some other ingredient to try to bind them together, but an obvious candidate - eggs - was out, because adding an egg would weaken the lamb flavor so much it would be lost beneath strong seasonings, juicy cooked tomatoes and tart feta.  Considering the results of the trial run, I recognized one definite problem and another possibility.   First off, the ground lamb was too fatty.   I could offset that by mixing the lamb with some lean ground beef, though.  Second, I wondered if perhaps three slices hadn't been too much bread.   Next time I'd use less.  Plus, Juli had noticed some bread lumps in the meatballs.  I suspected these were pieces of the bread crust, so I decided to remove the crusts next time.  With less bread, I could also reduce the amount of milk.  Those two changes might result in sturdier meatballs without having to add an egg.

It also occurred to me that one way to keep the meatballs from falling apart might be to bake them, rather than frying them.  Without the risk of fallen-off bits of meatball burning, I could get by with one skillet.

Next I considered the obvious problem of the tomatoes.   I'd used way more tomato than I needed for this recipe, since I wanted the tomato to accent the dish, not drown it.   Next time I'd use only 1 pint of the small tomatoes.  The other problem was the sogginess.   Cooking these juicy little tomatoes down would take a long time, and adding cornstarch or some other thickener would blunt the flavor of the tomatoes.   Next time around, I decided, I'd cook the tomatoes whole, and only until some of them started to burst. 

Without all the tomato juice in the skillet, I figured the yogurt-mint sauce would probably be okay as is.   So, with the changes noted above, the beta version of my recipe ended up like this:

1         tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil + 2 teaspoons
1         medium yellow onion, finely chopped
2         teaspoons minced garlic, divided
2         slices stale white bread, crusts removed, torn into 1-inch pieces
5         teaspoons milk
3/4      pounds ground lamb
1/2      pound 90% lean ground beef
1/4      cup chopped fresh parsley, plus additional for garnish
1         teaspoon dried oregano + 1/2 teaspoon
1         teaspoon ground cumin
1/2      teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
1/2      teaspoon table salt
1/4      teaspoon ground cinnamon
1         pint graped tomatoes
2         tablespoons fresh mint leaves, chopped
1/4      cup plain yogurt
2         ounces feta cheese, crumbled
           warmed pita bread (for serving)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.   Place a wire rack on a foil-lined, rimmed baking sheet and spray the wire rack with nonstick cooking spray.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Cook 1/2 cup of the onion until soft and lightly-browned, then add 1 teaspoon garlic and cook for about 30 seconds.  Remove from heat and transfer onion and garlic to a large bowl to cool.

Place the pieces of stale bread in a bowl.   Pour the milk atop the bread pieces, then use your hands to mash the bread and milk into a thick paste.  Add the bread paste to the bowl with the cooked onions and garlic and add the ground lamb, parsley, 1 teaspoon oregano, pepper, salt and cinnamon.  Wet hands and shape the lamb mixture into meatballs.  Arrange the meatballs on the prepared wire rack and place in the oven.  Bake until browned, then remove from the oven and transfer the meatballs to a serving platter.

Meanwhile, add the remaining two teaspoons of olive oil to skillet and heat over medium heat.  Add the remainder of the onion and cook until it starts to brown.  Add the final teaspoon garlic and final 1/2 teaspoon oregano and cook 30 seconds, then add the tomatoes.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until a few of the tomatoes have started to burst.   Transfer the tomatoes to the serving platter. 
When the meatballs and tomatoes are both cooked, heat the skillet over medium heat.  Add the chopped mint, cook 10 seconds, then remove from heat.  Stir the yogurt into the skillet, then pour the contents of the skillet over the meatballs and cooked tomatoes.  Sprinkle with feta and parsley and serve with pita bread.

So, that's the version I'll be working with next time I try out this recipe.

< to be continued >

Hearty Slow-Cooker Beef Stew

We made up a big batch of beef stew recently, using our crock pot.   We used a recipe that first appeared in the October 2005 issue of Cook's Country and whilch has since been reprinted here and there among other America's Test Kitchen products (I first saw it in the Best-Ever Recipes collection).  Having made it ourselves, Juli and I understand why this recipe is so popular.   It is, with no hyperbole ever, easily the best beef stew either of us have ever had, and it's among the best things I've ever see come from a slow-cooker.

And even better, trying out this recipe got us to try out a new vegetable!

The much maligned parsnip.

The word "parsnip" conjures up thoughts of an old-fashioned, icky-tasting vegetable.They're a little tricky to grow in Iowa, because they hate heavy clay soil.  

I was a little squeamy about adding parsnips to the stew, because I imagined that their flavor would be unpleasant.  Silly me!  In the cooked dish, they're identical to the potato chunks in appearance, and virtually identical to the carrot chunks in flavor- maybe a little sweeter.  Jeffrey thought that it would be cheaper and easier to just add carrots, but I liked having them in the finished dish.

Some people think that parsnips are so named because they're a cross between parsley and turnips, but that's just an old wive's tale.  They do look a lot like carrots, but they are a pale yellow or white instead of the typical carrot orange.  Apparently you can eat them raw like a carrot, but the raw bite I tried was very fibrous, and I have to say I've never seen a recipe that called for raw parsnip.  If you have a recipe, please share!

You start this stew by cutting chuck roast into chunks, removing unnecessary, large chunks of fat as you go.  As written, this recipe calls for a lot of meat - 5 pounds of roast - so we ended up using two small roasts.  The beef is thoroughly browned in batches, then transferred to the crock pot.

Next you fry up some onions in a skillet.  When they're done, you stir in some tomato paste, chicken broth and soy sauce, then pour that into the crock pot atop the cooked beef along with a couple bay leaves and some tapioca (to thicken the stew juices).

Next you peel and slice potatoes, carrots and parsnips, toss them with a bit of oil and thyme and wrap the vegetables up in a foil packet, which is placed atop the beef/broth mixture.  After that, you cook it for about 6 hours, open the vegetable packet and stir its contents into the stew.   This technique is one of the things that makes this stew so good, in my opinion.  Cooking the vegetables in the packet, rather than in the stew itself, and then stirring them in toward the end preserves the flavor of the vegetables more than does cooking them in the stew the whole time.  As a result, each major ingredient of the stew - the beef, each of the vegetables - maintains some of its own distinct flavor, while all are joined together by the stew juices.   Plus, this method keeps you from ending up with mushy or fallen-apart vegetables.

Finally, you add a bit more seasoning and some frozen peas to the mix.  After 15 minutes, you ditch the bay leaves, season to taste with salt and pepper and enjoy a delicious stew.

This recipe makes a lot of stew, so we got a lot of great leftovers out of the deal, which we've been enjoying for lunch at work.

African Chicken Peanut Stew

The theme for the latest potluck lunch at my place of employment was soup and chili.  Several people, including myself, signed up to bring various sorts of soup, stew and chili, while the remainder of my coworkers signed up to bring crackers, bread, desserts, bowls, condiments, drinks and so forth.  It was probably the best potluck we've had yet.  All of the main courses looked and smelled delicious, and all the ones I tried were quite good.

You start by browning chicken thighs in batches.

When the theme of this potluck was decided, I knew right away what I wanted to make.  One of our favorite food sites, Simply Recipes, had featured a recipe awhile back for African Chicken Peanut Stew.  This is a variant of a dish common to many African nations; the recipe is noted as having origins in Ghana, but I've had more or less identical dishes prepared by acquaintances from Liberia and Ethiopia.  In fact, I have other versions of the same dish among my recipe collection, but I've never been particularly pleased with the results.  The version at Simply Recipes looked pretty good, so I thought I'd take another shot at the dish.

Then you saute the onions, and later some ginger and garlic.

Next you add chicken broth, tomatoes, peanuts, peanut butter
and some seasonings and return the chicken to the pot.
I took the chicken off the bone at this point.

I was very pleased with the result.  It is pretty easy to make, and not really very time-consuming, since all one has to do most the time is occasionally stir the stew as it cooks.  Although the soup is based around chicken broth, the most prominent flavor is that of peanuts, provided by both roasted peanuts and peanut butter.   Other seasonings include ample amounts of ginger, garlic, cayenne and black pepper, giving the soup a nice warmth that helps balance out all the sweetness.  Round it out with sweet potatoes and chicken and you've got a delicious stew, tender and flavorful.   The heat is prominent but not overwhelming, though I should note that I used only 3/4 teaspoon of cayenne, rather than the 1 teaspoon called for, as I wasn't sure how some of my colleagues felt about spicy food.  Other than that change, leaving cilantro as an optional garnish (since I know many people don't like it) and substituting diced tomatoes for crushed, I made the recipe as-written.

I made it a couple days ahead, transferred it to the
slow cooker, put it in the fridge and warmed it up
at work in plenty of time for lunch. 

Juli and I both really loved it when we sampled it, and it was also well-received by my coworkers.  Every comment about the stew was positive, and several asked about the recipe.  I noted that it was not my recipe, but promised I'd include a link to the recipe on my blog.   And, in keeping my promise, here's the link.

This is a winning recipe.  I'm sure we'll be making it again sooner rather than later.

Turkey Pot Pie with Savory Crumble Topping

An excellent recipe for Chicken Pot Pie with Savory Crumble Topping was published in the September 2010 issue of Cook's Illustrated.   The recipe has also been featured on the America's Test Kitchen TV show on PBS.  As written, it's a great recipe - it's as good as anything CI has ever published, in our opinion, and it's well worth trying out.   That recipe also inspired me to do a version using turkey stock and leftover turkey from last time I roasted a turkey.

Since the only real changes I made from Cook's Illustrated's recipe were to use already-cooked turkey and turkey stock in place of chicken breasts and chicken broth, I'm not going to claim this as an original recipe, and as such, I can't print the recipe here.  I can show you the preparation process and the results, though.  As with all CI recipes, Chicken Pot Pie with Savory Crumble Topping is available with a paid (or free temporary) membership to http://www.cooksillustrated.com/, so you can check there if you want the recipe.

First off you make the topping.  It's wonderfully flaky, and rich and a bit spicy due to Parmesan cheese and cayenne pepper.   Really, it's just plain delicious.  This topping is the primary factor that elevates this recipe beyond "good" to "truly excellent."

Next up, you cook onion, carrots and celery, then mushrooms.  After that, you melt some butter, stir in flour and whisk in turkey stock and milk to make a thick sauce.

The sauce is combined with the cooked vegetables and the cooked turkey, all of which is poured into a casserole dish.   The topping is sprinkled on top and the whole thing goes into the oven. 

After about 15 minutes of baking and a sprinkle of parsley, it's ready:  Bubbling filling, nicely-browned topping, the whole thing delicious and absolutely satisfying.

In addition to a really, really nice dinner, we got four servings of leftovers.  This was just as good warmed up as it was hot out of the oven.

Making this finished off the last of our leftover turkey, but next time I bake a turkey, it's very likely I'll make this recipe again.   In the meantime, I can always make the recipe as-written.  All that's different is that you simmer chicken breasts in broth, chop up the chicken and use the broth as the base for the sauce.  I'm guessing the results will be equally delicious.

Lamb Loaf with Indian Spices

The current issue of Fine Cooking features an article about meatloaf.  More specifically, it discusses how to make a close-to-endless array of customized meatloaf recipes by mixing and matching a range of different ingredients.   The article starts by breaking down ingredients into certain classes - meats, aromatics, herbs and spices, flavor boosters, glazes and so on - and then gives suggested ratios and amounts of these different ingredients to use in making a meatloaf.   I found the article itself quite interesting, and I was intrigued by some of the suggested meatloaf varieties.  

One that really caught my eye was for an Indian-Spiced Lamb Meatloaf.   I had some ideas how to do it a bit differently than suggested in the article, but the article seemed a good place to start in developing my own recipe.  In the end, I ended up going with a slightly different ingredient ratio than that suggested by the article.  I also included a bit of one of my favorite flavor enhancers - tomato paste - which wasn't mentioned in the article at all.   Still, credit where due to Allison Ehri Kreitler.  Her article has gotten me thinking about meat loaf in whole new ways, and I expect I'll be going back to that article for ideas a lot in the next couple months.

More credit where due:  One of our favorite ATK recipes is the 30-Minute Meatloaves one originally published in Cook's Country.  I love how they are cooked on a broiler pan, which allows excess fat to drip away from the meatloaf, so I used a variant of that technique here, and it worked great. 

This meatloaf was wonderful - tender, flavorful and a bit spicy, and it held together well and wasn't the slightest bit soggy or greasy, due to being cooked on the broiler pan rather than in a loaf pan.  The honey glaze was a nice touch, adding a bit of sweetness without being cloying or overpowering.   The various flavors balanced and complemented each other nicely, but despite some strongly-flavored ingredients, the meat flavor remained the dominant one. 

The next meatloaf I make will be an Italian-inspired one, and I'll probably experiment with some other types of meatloaf over the next several weeks, but this version is a winner, and we'll definitely be making it again sometime. 

We served our Lamb Loaf with Curried Skillet Cauliflower, from the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Third Edition.   Also Indian-inspired, the cauliflower went nicely with the meat loaf.  We'll be making it again as well.

Lamb Loaf with Indian Spices

yield = 6-8 servings

2          tablespoons canola oil

1          medium yellow onion, chopped

3          medium carrots, peeled and minced

1          jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced

2          tablespoons tomato paste
2          teaspoons minced garlic

2          teaspoons garam masala

2          teaspoons ground cumin

2          teaspoons peeled and grated ginger

1/2       teaspoon cumin seed

1/2       teaspoon black mustard seed

5          ounces (4-5 slices) stale white bread, torn into small pieces

1/2       cup whole milk

2          pounds ground lamb

2          eggs, lightly beaten
2          tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1          tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2          teaspoons kosher salt
1/2       teaspoon freshly-ground black pepper
2          tablespoons honey

Heat the canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the chopped onion and carrot and cook, stirring often, for three minutes.  Stir in the jalapeno and continue to cook until the onions and carrots are soft and the onions have started to brown.  Add tomato paste, garlic, garam masala, ground cumin, grated ginger, cumin seed and black mustard seed and cook 1 minute, stirring frequently.  Transfer to a large bowl  and allow to cool. 

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Prepare a broiler pan by lining the inside of the pan with foil and spraying the top rack with nonstick cooking spray. 

Arrange the bread pieces in a shallow dish, then add the milk.  Soak the bread in the milk for a few minutes, stirring it occasionally so the bread is uniformly soggy, then squeeze a handful of bread at a time to squeeze out some of the milk, leaving the bread wet but not drenched.  Crumble or finely chop the bread, then set aside.

When the vegetable mixture has cooled, add bread, ground lamb, eggs, cilantro, Worcestershire sauce, kosher salt and black pepper to the large bowl.  Wet your hands and use them to gently mix all the ingredients until just combined.  Do not tightly pack the mixture. 

Transfer meat mixture to a sheet of waxed paper and shape it into rectangle approximately 10x4 inches.  Transfer to the broiling rack, reshape if necessary, then brush the top and sides of the meat mixture with honey.

Bake approximately 45 minutes or until a thermometer inserted in the center of the meatloaf reads 160 degrees.  Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes before transferring to a cutting board.  Cut loaf into inch-thick slices and serve.

Glazed Orange Ginger Carrots

Last week I was craving a vitamin C boost, and carrots seemed like an easy way to get that.  I made the tasty glazed orange ginger carrots featured on the Iowa Housewife blog recently, and they really hit the spot!  The glaze, which features brown sugar, ginger, caraway seed, orange juice and orange zest, was very flavorful.  The dish as a whole was good, but the carrots ended up overcooked and under-flavored.  I followed the recipe as written, and that was the problem, as the recipe directions said to cook the carrots for a period of time at a full boil.  This over-cooked the carrots, and a lot of their flavor ended up in the cooking water.   They were still good, but the glaze overpowered what was left of the carrots' flavor.

I mentioned this  to the recipe poster, Myrna, who stated that she didn't exactly follow that part of the recipe as written, as she cooked the the carrots on a low simmer, not a full boil.  Next time I make these, I will do that, or maybe do a carrot saute or stir-fry with the same glaze.  As is, this is still a very tasty, colorful and easy-to-make side dish.   It's well worth trying out. 

Fairy Gingerbread Cookies

Last weekend, I made three recipes featured in the current  (February/March 2011) issue of Cook's Country, all written by the same author.   I've already discussed two of these, Heavenly Hots and Easy Chocolate Pudding.  The third recipe is Fairy Gingerbread Cookies. 

The author, Erika Bruce, discusses how she found the recipe hers is based upon in a classic cookbook from the late 1800s, and notes that at one time, Fairy Gingerbread was quite popular, especially in Boston.  Having made this, I can see why.  What's puzzling is why it ever faded into obscurity, because these are truly wonderful cookies.  The cover blurb refers to Fairy Gingerbread as "the best, most delicate ginger cookie we've ever tasted."  The "we" in that quote refers to the America's Test Kitchen staff, but after trying this, it applies just as much to Juli and me.

These cookies are incredibly delicate... thin wafers that melt in your mouth, and which are prone to shattering when you bite them.  Despite the physical delicacy, Fairy Gingerbread Cookies pack truly potent ginger flavor, thanks to the combination of powdered ginger and grated fresh ginger. 

The recipe itself is pretty straightforward.  The difficult part of making these has to do with how you end up with such an incredibly thin, crunchy cookie:   You spread a pretty small amount of dough thinly enough to cover a cookie sheet.    I found this pretty tough, possibly because I didn't have an offset spatula, which is the recommended tool.   I've since bought an offset spatula, because these were so good that I'm planning to make them again soon. 

The cookies bake for a little while in fairly low heat (325 degrees).  Immediately upon removing a sheet from the oven, you have to score the sheet in servings.  This is necessary because once they cool, they're too brittle to cut, and they're so thin, it doesn't take long at all for them to cool.   A few minutes later, you break the sheet apart to individual cookies.

The important fact about these cookies, though, is that they are just plain wonderful.   Crispy, delicious... these are truly like no other sort of cookie I've ever had, and they are among the very best cookies I've ever eaten.   This recipe gets my highest recommendation.   If you try these out, you will be glad you did.  I guarantee it.