Although after the last blog, you might think the Accidental Locavore had enough meatballs to last for a while (and you would be right, clever reader), however I made these shortly after seeing April Bloomfield speak at the James Beard House. She said she obsessed over them in writing her cookbook, so I do feel a little guilty not sticking to the recipe she felt she perfected, but I was trying to speed up the process. This feeds 2 generously.
[gmc_recipe 2501]
My verdict: these were really tasty, if a little dense. April has you grind the lamb with the breadcrumbs and that might make them a little more tender. However, I had ground a bunch of lamb myself earlier (for merguez), so I’m not convinced that’s the issue. During the Meatball Madness, the lamb meatballs I had there were also a little tough, so it could just be that lamb doesn’t have the fat content that beef or pork does. Next time I might add a little beaten egg to the mix to see if that would help. The sauce was good, and might have been great, if I had done what the recipe said, and used whole coriander and cumin, toasted them and ground them, but remember I was trying to save some time. Homemade yogurt helped (and do not try to substitute reduced fat yogurt, you’ll have a mess on your hands!) and Frank liked the addition of the (slightly overcooked) egg. I’ll definitely make these again in a couple of months when I’m ready to re-embrace meatballs.
