Thai Meatballs

Since I've been craving Thai lately, I thought I experiment with using the ingredients I usually use to make meatballs.

While I always use : onions, garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce, a bit of sugar, and salt and pepper, I thought I add or replace a few things here and there with ingredients that are in some of my favorite Thai dishes.

This recipe makes about 2-3 dozen meatballs. I usually cook all the meatballs all at once, and then freeze half of them for another day.

Ingredients:

Meatballs

-          1 pound of lean pork

-          1 turkey

-          2 cups of grated zucchini

o    squeeze the juices out using a clean kitchen towel or cheese cloth

-          I or 2 large shallots, finely minced

-          2 large garlic cloves, finely minced or grated

-          1 T ginger, grated

-          1 cup of cilantro or parsley, finely chopped

-          ½ cup green onions, thinly sliced

-          1 ½ T of oyster sauce

-          1 T fish sauce

-          2 T red curry paste

-          1 T sugar

-          S & P

-           1 T of grated lime zest

Sauce

-          2 t olive oil

-          ½ inch of ginger, julienned or grated

-          1 or two pieces of garlic, minced

-          1 T tomato paste

-          2 cups of coconut  milk

-          ½ cup of chicken stock

-          ½ T of fish sauce

-          1 or 2  t  of sugar

Method:

1)      For the meatballs, combine the ingredients listed above, and make about 1 inch size meatballs.

2)      Fry them in a pan with a bit of oil over medium heat. Cook them for about 10-15 minutes on each side.

3)      Once all the meatballs are browned, set them aside.

4)      In a sauté pan (big enough to hold how many meat balls you want to serve), heat the oil over medium heat, and add the ginger and garlic.

5)      After three minutes, set aside the garlic in the pan, and add the tomato paste. Let the paste get thick and turn a darker shade of red. This may take about 5 minutes or so.

6)      Once the paste is ready, combine it with the ginger and garlic, and add gradually add the chicken stock.

7)      Turn the heat to med-high, and leave it at that setting until it boils. Once it boils, turn the heat back down to medium

8)      Add the coconut milk, fish sauce, and sugar. Stir well, and raise the heat to med-high. Once the sauce boils slightly, lower the heat to med-low, add the meatballs and simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve with rice or noodles with a bit of cilantro on sprinkled on top.

Hope you’ll like it!

As always, thanks for reading!