welcome friends welcome back to the
kitchen um
this is a recipe that i'm kind of sad
that i'm making we're going to do
a meatball and rice pilaf dish
there was a restaurant here local to us
family run restaurant
that made a dish like this and
i'm sad that i have to make it at home
but because of kovid they have
gone under so i'm left trying to figure
out how to make this at home
so we're going to start out with ground
beef an egg
and some of our homemade rascal hanuts
spice mix
i'm going to put in a little bit of
pepper
and some salt
and then i'm going to grate in one onion
which grater do i use this one let's try
this one
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i think that's about all the grated
onion i can take my eyes
are watering so i'm going to end it
there
get most of this into the bowl or as
much as i can
into the bowl now they made this in
their kitchen in the back
in a giant hobart mixer and really
beat that meat down to a really
fine consistency so i know i could do it
in one of the kitchenaid mixers i have
but i'm going to use a wooden spoon
and just go old school and see how it
comes together
so just keep mixing until the meat is
almost a really
fine paste that looks pretty good
so i'm going to make these into little
meatballs now sometimes they would come
out and they'd be
tiny little patties kind of like that
1930s recipe we did a little while
back but i think i'm looking for actual
meatballs so wet my hands
a little scoop of meat
and i'll roll those into balls
about that size now
i'm going to stick these in the fridge
for an hour or two
just to let them chill down and come
together before i cook them and move on
to the rest of the dish
but you could stick this in the freezer
and freeze these and then transfer them
to a sealed container
and keep them for up to a month probably
before you cook them
so this is something you could do on the
weekend and then make a quick weeknight
meal
later on okay i've got a cast iron
brazer here on
sort of medium high heat i'm going to
hit it with a little bit of olive oil
i've got the meatballs from the fridge
and i just want to gently
fry them off in the olive oil get them
browned on all sides and kind of cook
them
maybe half to two thirds of the way
through
just shake them around turn them over
get them brown on all sides now
the oven is preheated to 350 degrees
because we will be putting the rice dish
in there
okay these look about right so i'm gonna
pull them out
and set them aside okay now you want
about
three tablespoons of oil left in the
bottom of the pan for the next operation
so at this point take a look and adjust
it if you need a little bit more oil put
in a little bit of olive oil if you
think it's
fine with what's in there leave it and
if you think there's too much
obviously take some out so got a
diced onion and a diced yellow pepper
and you just want to saute that in the
oil in the bottom until it's kind of
translucent and softened
there's no significance to the color of
the pepper i'm using use whatever color
you like
orange is the one that i was able to get
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next in two bay leaves got some
cinnamon turmeric
and cumin now you can grind the cumin if
you want i usually leave it whole
we just want to bloom those spices in
the bottom
and that doesn't take long at all as
soon as you start to really get that
aroma
move on to the next thing and that is
some
garlic
and move better on the bottom of the pan
pretty much right away we move on to the
next thing and that is basmati rice now
this is basmati rice that has been
rinsed
now you just want to stir that around in
the bottom of the pan get it coated with
the spices
and the oil and you just want to cook it
until it starts to
get a little bit translucent around the
edges
a little salt and pepper just to taste
now in with some stock and you can use
whatever stock you want beef stock of
course would be probably best i have
chicken stock
vegetable stock would work and of course
water works
just as well and i'm putting in some
dried fruit so i've got currants but you
could put in dates if you wanted to
raisins whatever dried fruit
you like as this
comes up to a simmer
the meatballs go back in and all of the
juices from the plate
lid on and into the oven
hey jules hey glenn hey friends
what no one gets to win the bay leaf
apparently
i heard that's lucky i've also heard
that they get to do the dishes so
oh well you've got both of them
congratulations that's got to be a
month's worth of dishes
i feel like i do a month's worth of
dishes every day
okay so it's basmati rice and meatballs
that's for me okay thank you now you can
finish it with some pine nuts
or slivered almonds i'm amazed we have
pine nuts
you could put a little bit of
parsley in there if you wanted to so
okay
yeah nice it's pretty good rice's got
good flavor
we both taste like meatballs i don't
know what that means but you know
it's like okay yeah and meatballs got it
so you could ramp that
rascal hanut up a little bit
it's one of those things that you need
to play with to figure out what you like
and how much you want to put in so it's
pretty good and it's the kind of thing
where you can make the meatballs ahead
of time
stick them in the freezer and then on a
weeknight pull them out
and within about an hour you've dinner's
finished because it only cooks in the
oven for about 15 minutes
and then it sits for about 15 minutes on
the counter top and i of course will put
a plug in and it says you can always add
other vegetables
yes you could you can play with this you
can do whatever you want i didn't have
celery today normally i would put celery
in it but
couldn't get any celery at the grocery
store so
um take this and do what you want with
it
i think it's really good it's fast it's
easy thanks for stopping by
see you again soon
you