More meatballs,but....

Everyone I know seems to love meatballs. I could theorize about the why of this, but I think I would fall into the butterfly trap I wrote about recently: if you sit down and dissect a butterfly to try to figure out how it flies, or why it captures your imagination, you'll destroy the magic. So, as the cook who supplies all these people with meatballs, and gets the smiles back in return, I'll just "rest" on that, as they say in the law.

My basic meatball recipe has beef and pork in it. Pork is problematic for some of my friends. So I look for variations that can bring these little guys to other people. Some time ago, I made a chicken meatball, which was ok, and in the past, I've used guinea hen legs, and made meatballs from them, trying to track a recipe from my favorite Oliveto's.

About a week ago, Keith and David asked me if I would think about making a meatball combining turkey and lamb. Hmmmmm. Turkey meatballs seem to be the "rage," because turkey is inexpensive, and low in cholesterol, and if you add enough "stuff" to them, you can almost fool yourself into thinking you're eating "the real thing."

ALMOST. In my opinion, eat them as turkey meatballs, not as a substitute for beef meatballs. Trying to pretend something is, what it isn't, is going to disappoint you, each and every time.

Middle Eastern cooking uses ground lamb in a lot of dishes. The geography, I guess, makes it much easier to raise sheep than cattle, so that's the meat of choice. Indeed, one of my favorite dishes in the world is a slow cooked stew of lamb and quinces, with persian spices. It's delicious. It takes a while to cook, but it's worth it.

When you cook with lamb, there is no doubt that it's lamb. The flavor is very distinct. Some people find it too gamy and strong, and their number is very high. So high that you will NEVER find it on a hospital menu, or on an airlines menu, or any place where you have to feed a lot of people, and you look for a "common denominator." But for those who like, and in fact LOVE the taste of lamb, it's a regular part of our diet. Keith's favorite meat is lamb. I don't know if it is David's, but I know he likes it a lot. Keith's mom won't eat red meat, so he gets way more turkey than anyone should have to eat. Still, I guess the idea of the lower fat content, and the taste of the lamb, encouraged my puppies to ask if I could give it a try.

SURE. Here are some things I learned.

For anyone who won't eat red meat, because it's so strong, but will eat turkey, have you ever SMELLED the stuff? Turkey meat is STRONG. Oi, is it STRONG. I swear I thought it was bad, it smelled so much more strong than the lamb did. In fact, my biggest challenge in this new recipe, was trying to balance the recipe and eliminate that stench. The actual cooking is what did it, but just keep that in mind if you try to make this. The meat WILL smell like it's gone rancid. It hasn't. Bear with it.

I took two pounds of ground turkey (this is almost always from the leg, because turkey breast is very sellable as a turkey breast. Legs are more difficult), and combined it with a pound and a half of ground lamb (in contrast, ground lamb comes from all over the animal. Mostly, though, it's shoulder that's used). Then, I did my usual for meatballs: I had three pounds plus of meat, so I added three whole eggs. I worked this with my hands until it was distributed well, and then it was nice and sticky. I added bread crumbs and worked them in, just until the stickiness disappeared. Now, it was time to season. And here was the challenge: lamb takes well to very spicy seasonings: cumin, red pepper, that kind of thing. Not all of my friends take well to it, however. I was feeling a bit of a mental block, and since the taste of the lamb was really what I was after, I decided to leave out anything but salt. And I salted well. There was over a tablespoon of salt in the final mix.

Tomato sauce and lamb just don't seem to work "right" to me, so I decided that I would fry these guys. I formed the three plus pounds of meet into about 40 meatballs. This should give you an idea of how big they were. 40 meatballs, about 55 ounces of meat, so you're looking at a bit more than an ounce of meat per ball. With the other stuff added, these are not small. My fat for the frying was just plain old vegetable oil, because I didn't want to add the element of the olive oil flavor. I used plenty of the oil, and waited until it was hot, to fry the meatballs about 12 at a time. I browned them all over, then put them on a tray, and baked them in a 350 oven for fifteen minutes to finish off the cooking. Frying meatballs until the center cooks, is a guaranteed way to burn them.

While they were baking, I began thinking about sauce. Since I had middle eastern flavors on my mind, but no middle eastern spices, a middle eastern sauce was in order. I had a started jar of tahini, and this seemed like a good start, but not enough by itself. It's too thick, and too strong. But I also had plenty of sheep's milk yogurt, which is sort of "of the same culture" as the other ingredients. When I combined them, I liked the flavor, but equal amounts of the two of them made a sauce that was really thick and viscous. (NOT VICIOUS). So I doubled the yogurt. The sauce was still thick, but it was workable.

When the meatballs came out of the oven, I dumped them directly into the sauce, and we were DONE. And they're good. Maybe as good as the beef and pork ones I make, but in a different way.

If you like spicier food, you should consider adding some spices to the meatballs. Or, perhaps you would like to add the spices to your sauce. You could also add some fresh, chopped mint, or something like that, to the sauce, or even the meat itself.

So, if you find yourself wanting meatballs, but for whatever reason cannot handle the combo of beef and pork, or either one of them individually, here's your out. They're really good.