My first recipe in a long while! And clearly, this is not soup. Since my personal circumstances have changed so drastically (moved to India, set up a new - spartan - home, got pregnant, etc.), I'm going to propose a slight shift in focus. Food will still be our topic, yet what I'm hoping to do now is gain an arsenal of recipes that I can make given the different ingredients, equipment, climate (and, I suppose, nutritional requirements) with which I am now faced. And I'd like your help, Mom, Ellen, Nathaniel, and anyone else who might be reading!
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I don't have to rely solely on myself for food any longer. As is customary here, we have an amazing housekeeper who, among other things, cooks us delicious Indian food a few times a week. She has befriended the vegetable wala down the road and brings back produce that is so much nicer (and cheaper) than I can manage to find myself. She's charming and pretty and always gets some free things thrown in, too. It's definitely odd to have someone else working in my home, doing things I am accustomed to doing myself, but it's also nice to have someone to eat lunch with and who knows the ropes here.
All of that being said - I'm physically unable to eat Indian food every day, and I'm also trying hard to eat in a way that wouldn't overly upset an obstetrician. My current mission is to increase my iron, dairy, and protein intake, as I'm almost halfway along in my pregnancy(!) and one's daily requirements of all three increase considerably in the second trimester. I'm not accustomed to either cooking or eating much meat, and obviously beef isn't readily available here. I do, fortunately, live right across the road from a decent butcher, and chicken is abundantly available. Unfortunately, chicken is one of the few things I've consistently despised over the last four months.
I have discovered, however, that eating it ground - or minced (keema), as they say here - is tolerable. I looked up a variety of chicken meatball recipes online, shrugged off what I was unable to procure, and created my own recipe based on
those things I have in my kitchen. My mother suggested I start adding citrus to my leafy greens so as to better absorb the iron, and once I added a lemon (or is it a lime? all we have here are pale greenish yellow fruits about the size of a key lime, and people use the terms interchangeably) I decided to go for a slightly Greek twist, so added oregano and made a yogurt sauce for the side.
I rather liked the results, and thought it would be a good idea to write the recipe down. And then I started thinking that, given that I'll likely find myself eating ground chicken on a very regular basis, I'd love some inspiration from you. So instead of us all making variations on a particular soup, maybe you could send in some poultry meatball inspiration?
Chicken Keema Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce
For meatballs:
1 pound ground chicken
1.5 cups chopped and cooked spinach
1 small onion
1 egg
juice of 1 small lemon or lime
crushed crackers
garlic salt
oregano
crushed red pepper flakes
black pepper
For yogurt sauce:
1 cup Greek yogurt
torn mint leaves
lime juice to taste
salt (I used paprika salt)
Put all the meatball ingredients in a bowl and stir well to combine. Brush olive oil on baking dish, form meatballs to desired size with hands, and nestle as many as you can next to each other in the baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes, or until brown on top and cooked all the way through, at about 400 degrees.
(Note: I baked most of these and pan-fried what I had in excess. The baked ones are much better - moister and I think more aromatic.)
As the meatballs cook, combine the ingredients for the yogurt sauce and refrigerate.
When all is ready, spoon some sauce over the meatballs, enjoy... and feel the iron pumping through your veins!
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| My cute little oven. It's rather unusual to have an over at all, so I need to make sure to use it! |
All of that being said - I'm physically unable to eat Indian food every day, and I'm also trying hard to eat in a way that wouldn't overly upset an obstetrician. My current mission is to increase my iron, dairy, and protein intake, as I'm almost halfway along in my pregnancy(!) and one's daily requirements of all three increase considerably in the second trimester. I'm not accustomed to either cooking or eating much meat, and obviously beef isn't readily available here. I do, fortunately, live right across the road from a decent butcher, and chicken is abundantly available. Unfortunately, chicken is one of the few things I've consistently despised over the last four months.
I have discovered, however, that eating it ground - or minced (keema), as they say here - is tolerable. I looked up a variety of chicken meatball recipes online, shrugged off what I was unable to procure, and created my own recipe based on
those things I have in my kitchen. My mother suggested I start adding citrus to my leafy greens so as to better absorb the iron, and once I added a lemon (or is it a lime? all we have here are pale greenish yellow fruits about the size of a key lime, and people use the terms interchangeably) I decided to go for a slightly Greek twist, so added oregano and made a yogurt sauce for the side.
I rather liked the results, and thought it would be a good idea to write the recipe down. And then I started thinking that, given that I'll likely find myself eating ground chicken on a very regular basis, I'd love some inspiration from you. So instead of us all making variations on a particular soup, maybe you could send in some poultry meatball inspiration?
Chicken Keema Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce
For meatballs:
1 pound ground chicken
1.5 cups chopped and cooked spinach
1 small onion
1 egg
juice of 1 small lemon or lime
crushed crackers
garlic salt
oregano
crushed red pepper flakes
black pepper
For yogurt sauce:
1 cup Greek yogurt
torn mint leaves
lime juice to taste
salt (I used paprika salt)
Put all the meatball ingredients in a bowl and stir well to combine. Brush olive oil on baking dish, form meatballs to desired size with hands, and nestle as many as you can next to each other in the baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes, or until brown on top and cooked all the way through, at about 400 degrees.
(Note: I baked most of these and pan-fried what I had in excess. The baked ones are much better - moister and I think more aromatic.)
As the meatballs cook, combine the ingredients for the yogurt sauce and refrigerate.
When all is ready, spoon some sauce over the meatballs, enjoy... and feel the iron pumping through your veins!
