tazza te`u biċċa kejk: My (very) improvised baked meatball recipe

Meatballs. What kind of picture springs to mind when you think of 'meatballs'?

For me it's not an image.

It's actually a childhood memory that pops up.

You may have heard this little sing along before... it goes something like this ....

"On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed, it rolled off the table, and onto the floor, and then my poor meatball, ran out of the door"

... it goes on and on about how the meatball ended up running out into the garden and eventually turning into mush.. but hey.. that little singalong is one of my early childhood memories.... it's definitely stuck in my mental corridor of memories ...

In essence, I think meatballs are a very convenient form of comfort food. The good thing is that they can be made in very different ways so that the end result is actually pretty healthy. Plus they make perfect left-over lunches or dinners.

They can be pan fried, grilled, baked, steamed, boiled... okay the end result will be very different in all cases and probably not all versions can be called 'meatballs'- lately I learnt that meatballs in soup can actually be called dumplings... but essentially aren't they all balls made of meat?!

Okay enough with my rambling :)

Here's my first attempt at making baked meatballs. As usual, I went along with what was available in my kitchen...

It's safe to say that these meatballs pack one mighty dose of protein and are also gluten free! I think it's also safe to say they score pretty low on the carb scale.

here goes...

prep time: not more than 15 mins

total baking time: 40 mins

baking temperature: i went with 250 degrees celsius

To make around 15 nicely-sized meatballs you will need:

500g ground (minced) lean pork

500g ground (minced) chicken breast (I'm pretty sure that minced turkey breast would also be great)

2 eggs

around 2 tbsps ground almond (inspired from Comfy Belly's Meatballs Parmesan Recipe)

2 tsp ground sea salt

approximately 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (or a mix of pepper corns)

a good pinch of cajun pepper

1 tsp garlic powder (more if you like)

2 small red onions - finely minced

around 2 tbsp olive oil - for oiling baking dishes

Preheat oven to 250 degrees celsius.

Mix together all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Prepare your baking dishes (I used two pyrex dishes) by adding some olive oil, to make sure your meatballs don't stick. I used a kitchen wipe to literally wipe the olive oil all the way around and to remove any excess.

Then comes the messy/fun part. Ideally you take an ice-cream scoop and you make your meatballs using this - I'm sure its much less fussy and messy. However, not having one, I resorted to just using a plain old tablespoon to help me shape my big meatball dollops. I enjoyed it! Space your meatballs apart by at least 1cm. At the very most if your meatballs do gang up in the oven, just cut them apart when they're done :)

Bake your meatballs for around 40 mins. I kept checking on them from time to time to make sure they didn't burn up. And I also switched around positions in the oven since I had two baking dishes.

To make sure they were totally done through, I just cut up one of my more "curvier" meatballs - just to be sure :)

I let them rest for a couple of minutes before serving them up.

We had them with a side of sliced sweet cherry tomatoes and some slabs of feta cheese.

Notes:

Some things I'll do differently next time round - cause I do plan on playing around with meatball recipes in the near future!

I will defintely add some 'green'. I'm thinking leeks, fresh chives, parsley, spring onions - they definitely need some green speckles!
I'm also thinking of using grated cheese (kefalotyri, parmesan, maybe even halloumi) next time round, to give them a cheesy kick and because these cheeses impart a unique salty flavour.
Sun-dried tomatoes. Need to try a version with those!
Need to come up with some 'salsa-on-the-side' ideas.
I'm also definitely gonna try different meat combinations, like ground turkey breast. And I also wanna make bifteki-style meatballs using ground lean beef.