Moroccan Meatballs

I have to say, with a certain level of pride, that this is one of my go-to meals that I’ve honed down to a tee. The boss thing about this recipe is that you can switch up so many of the ingredients to make the dish Italian, Spanish, Swedish or filled with cheese American stylee!

I first tried this recipe after buying some minced lamb at a reduced price and, using my old faithful, stumbled across this idea. I wasn’t sure how I’d react to this meal and this combo of spices. Firstly, even though cooking was still relatively new to me, I’d never seen cinnamon in a savoury dish before. And with mint and cumin (what even was cumin?) this was going to either be a massive hit or a horribly-tasting flop.

But I was intrigued. Something about this recipe made me want to waste my student bursary buying new spices. It was way out of my comfort zone, not least because I’d never encountered Moroccan cuisine before.

Fast forward eight years and tonight they’re taking the form of Albondigas or Spanish meatballs. So you can tell it went pretty well. Even better, when I was in Morocco recently I had meatballs out there and it was very similar to the one I make. So I can almost say that this is an authentic recipe too!

Versatility is something I love with a recipe and meatballs is one of the best for this. But today, I’ll tell you what goes into my Moroccan Meatballs.

Ingredients (for two people)

For the meatballs:

400g minced lamb

4tsp mint

1tsp cumin (this makes them averagely spicy)

2tsp cinammon

2 garlic cloves, minced

half an onion, finely diced.

For the sauce:

200ml chicken stock

400g chopped tomatoes

2tsp cumin

1tsp cinnamon

1tsp chilli powder

So we start with making the meatballs. Add all the ingredients into a bowl and form into balls. I find a lot of recipes like this use breadcrumbs and egg but I don’t feel it needs it. Fry the meatballs in batches until browned and then put to one side. You don’t even need oil for this as lamb mince will usually give off enough fat too. So if you’re following a macros diet these meatballs are an ideal meal giving a higher % of protein to fat and carbs. The sauce will increase the carb ratio though with the tomatoes.

That’s them done!

In the same pan add the cumin, cinnamon, and chilli powder to the meat juices and stir them into it for a few minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and chicken stock and when heated add in the meatballs. Leave to simmer for around 20 minutes and season to taste.

I’ve said to use the frying pan but you can stick them in the slow cooker and leave them while you’re at work, or I use my tagine which works in a similar way to a slow cooker but just works a lot quicker! Once again, versatility is key and once you’ve mastered the basic recipe, add whatever you want or have in to make loads of different meals.

Crunchy Cornflake Chicken

So I have a confession to make. I’m a massive fan of that Feed Your Family for £20 page on Facebook. It is choc-full of recipes but that’s not why I love it. I feel like it’s a nice community to be part of. You ask questions and people share hints and tips. In fact, the page actively promotes this by asking questions anonymously on behalf of people, or by simply asking out on a post what people struggle with or, their most common one, what’s cooking?

I take a lot of the credit for teaching myself to cook. I’ve actively tried different things and watched and read so many recipe things that it’s almost hard not to know instinctively what is going to taste well together. But this page has taken my kitchen skills to a new level. It has taught me all about what freezes well, about batch cooking, hints and tips to save money such as making my own spice mixes. If you haven’t seen this page, I’d recommend giving them a follow. You can find their website here.

Anyway, I digress. But it is all relevant, I promise. So I had this huge box of cornflakes sat in my kitchen and, apart from cornflake bars, I had no idea what to do with them. Eating it as cereal was out of the question since soggy cornflakes make me heave! I’d bought them to make cornflake cakes for a bake sale and then didn’t use even half as many as I’d thought I would. Scrolling through Facebook I saw that Feed Your Family had asked if you had an ingredient that needed using and needed ideas on what to do with it so I told everyone about my lonely box of cornflakes. Unused and unloved.

Overwhelmingly, people suggested I use them in place of breadcrumbs. Especially with chicken.

I’ve made this twice now and both times as different meals and flavours and it seriously is just so easy to jazz up a piece of chicken. What’s more, because you’re making the chicken pieces bigger with the cornflakes, one chicken breast gives you a lot of crunchy chicken pieces. So it’s a good money saver or meal for when you’re close to the bottom of your freezer!

So how did I make it?

Time for confession number two: I’ve never stuck breadcrumbs on anything before so I did have to double-check that it was just an egg dunk followed by the crunchy dunk. Last thing I wanted to do was waste a perfectly good chicken breast!

Anyhow (I’m good at this digressing aren’t I!?)

1. Whisk an egg and in a separate bowl give the cornflakes a damn good bashing. The finer the crumb, the less crunchy it would be though leave the cornflakes too big and they won’t stick to the chicken. It’s about trial and error. Start big as you can always make the cornflakes finer.
2. Cut the chicken into pieces and dip firstly into the egg and then into the cornflake bits. *As an add-on here, if you’re keeping the chicken pieces dry i.e. no sauce you may want to add some salt to the cornflakes*
3. Arrange on a baking tray and stick it in a preheated oven to 200 degrees C for around 20 minutes, turning half way.

See! How easy is that!

As I said before, I’ve made these twice now on request from my six year old. So if he loves them I’m onto a winner! Tonight, I made these dry with some wedges and a sticky barbecue sauce for dipping. Last week I went Chinese and stuck them from the oven into a wok with a hot garlic sauce and served with noodles and stir fry veg.

I love meals that are so versatile and this one is hooking up to be a firm favourite with me and my son. Easy to make and different enough to not get bored of it. Let me know what you think and if you have any other recipes you’d use these in. And, most importantly, enjoy it!

Cornflake Chicken with a sticky barbecue sauce.

My Perfect Roasties

For me, there’s nothing better than sitting down to a full Sunday Roast with all the trimmings on a cold Winters’ day. I think everyone will agree that their mum’s roast dinner is the best on the planet and I have memories of standing by the roasting dish picking out the crispiest ones with the brownest bottoms from the meat juices. The roasties are an implicit part of the dinner and so it’s important they’re done right.

So no pressure then…

Roast potatoes were the first thing I attempted after deciding I was going to shift my bum and teach myself to cook (if you’re interested, see the full story here). I found a recipe on my old faithful BBC Good Food that didn’t seem too long-winded or difficult and followed it to the letter. Whenever I find a recipe I’d like to try I always follow it precisely the first few times before experimenting and switching it up myself. I honestly couldn’t believe just how well they turned out. Perfection, almost!

Now I’m not going to go into a big debate about what potatoes work best here. Truth be told I’ve used all sorts of different varieties over the years depending on what’s in my cupboard from King Edwards to baking potatoes to new potatoes. Truth be told, my favourite way is to use new potatoes to make mini roasties. I think because they’re smaller they crisp up nicer and I do like the flavour of them roasted. Also, they’re done quicker. Ideal for a quick accompaniment to whip up after work and the school run.

So what do you need to make the perfect roasties?

Potatoes, oil/fat, and salt.

That’s it. That’s honestly all you need to make the best roast potatoes you’ve ever tasted (just don’t tell your mum!)

In total they take around an hour and 10 minutes from prep to plate so if you’re doing a roast dinner I usually time them to start about an hour and a half before you’re planning to serve up dinner. Just so you’re not rushing.

Method:

1. Par-boil the potatoes. I put them in the cold water and leave it to warm up and then boil for 10 minutes before removing from the heat. Drain and leave to dry out for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile add the oil or fat to a roasting dish and put in a preheated oven. I heat to 200 degrees C.
2. Give the potatoes a shake to loosen up some of the outside and create the crispy bits. You can also use a fork around the edges.
3. Put the par-boiled potatoes into the dish and sprinkle salt over them. Then cover in the oil/fat.
4. Turn roughly every 20 minutes. 15 for smaller varieties. They should only need turning twice and so should be cooked and nice and crispy after roughly an hour in the oven.

That’s it. That is literally how to make the most amazing crispy on the outside fluffy on the inside roast potatoes. How easy is that!?

Variations:

Instead of using just salt, use a mix of salt, spices, and herbs to create different tastes.

Cumin and chilli seeds make spicy ones. Ideal for summer garden parties with a cool dip or with spicy meals such as chilli or curries. You could also use chilli oil rather than a plain one.

Garlic salt is one of my favourite variations on the regular roast potato. It goes really well when making Patatas Bravas and other Mediterranean dishes.

Rosemary and potatoes go really well together. Some roast potato recipes instruct you to use it when making your every day ones but I find the taste too strong so only use rosemary when making a lamb roast dinner.

If you have any variations to the above I’d love to try them so please leave a comment or a link to your own recipe because I do love to try out new recipes. Also, if you try this out and it works please comment your feedback. I’m still new to all this recipe-writing so I’d appreciate it.