Spiced Bean Meatballs

Spiced Bean Meatballs recipe which is simple, tasty beyond imagination, and easy to make. Contains vegetables and offers good nutrition. Freezes very well.

These meatballs are so outrageously tasty that my visitors are always hunting another one up. I serve them with a rich brown gravy usually but sometimes I’ll use one or two from the freezer and chop them into a fried rice dish.

The trick is to cut everything as fine as you can – onion should flavour a meatball throughout, not act as a vegetable lump amongst meat.

I always cook my own lima beans but I’m sure these meatballs would be just as successful with canned ones. If you’re going to cook your own, soak them in boiling water and leave stand for at least 24 hours. Drain and rinse the beans and then boil them until they are soft enough to eat without being mushy. I usually do several times the amount I need and freeze them so next time I want to make meatballs, there are lima beans ready in the freezer.

Ingredients for Spiced Bean Meatballs

• 1 kg premium ground beef
• 2 free range eggs
• Large cup cooked lima beans
• 2 medium brown onions
• 2 large cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
• 2 Tsp salt
• 1/2 Tsp white or black pepper
• 3 Tsp ground cumin
• 3 Tsp Sambal Oelek or minced Chilli
• 3 Tsp dried sweet marjoram or oregano

These amounts make 14 large meatballs – two is plenty for an adult serving.

Meatballs Method

Beat eggs with salt and pepper. Meat becomes tough if salted before it is cooked and I think this is a way to get the salt through without affecting the quality of the meat.

Chop onions very very finely and the garlic, and saute them gently in olive oil until they become almost transparent. Try not to brown them. Once cooked put them with the meat and eggs. Add cumin, sambal oelek and marjoram. Sambal oelek, an Indonesian ground chilli paste with salt, is much tastier than plain minced chilli, but if you have nothing else, use minced chilli. I use marjoram because I like it, but any green herb, preferably dried, which you think will work, should be fine. Oregano is a natural substitute for majoram.

Now mash your lima beans and add them to the meat mixture and mix everything very thoroughly. Add the breadcrumbs and mix through. The mixture should be quite stiff and hold together easily when formed into a ball. If it is too loose, add more breadcrumbs.

Fry your meatballs gently on all sides in olive oil until they are nicely browned and cooked through. These are marvellous served with potatoes, gravy and greens, but work equally well with a good pasta sauce. When they’re cold from the fridge, they’ll slice thinly and are delicious for school lunches.

Spiced Bean Meatballs freeze very well although it’s good to freeze them on a plate slightly separated first so that they don’t all stick together.

Enjoy!

©Theresa Sjoquist