Lamb Meatballs with Orzo Risotto
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground lamb
- 1/2 cup finely diced onion
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp coriander seed ground with mortar and pestle
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 egg beaten
- 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
Instructions
- Place the ground lamb in a medium bowl and break it apart with a fork. Add onion and garlic and mix thoroughly with your hands. Add remaining ingredients and mix, again with your hands, until the seasonings are evenly distributed throughout the meat.
- Preheat oven to 425F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a dessert spoon or an ice cream scoop, take up about 1 1/2 tablespoons of the lamb mixture, roll it into a ball and place on the prepared baking pan. Repeat with the remaining mixture. (You should get between 24 and 30 meatballs.)
- Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until meatballs are browned and sizzling. Remove from oven and keep warm under a tinfoil tent until ready to serve.
Notes
Orzo Risotto
Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 Tbsp butter
- 1/2 cup finely diced onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 Tbsp lemon zest zest of one large lemon
- 1 1/2 cups orzo
- Juice of one lemon
- 2 1/2 cups Parmesan stock substitute chicken or vegetable stock
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 2 Tbsp chopped cilantro
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese for serving
Instructions
- While the meatballs are cooking, prepare the orzo (or pasta of your choice.)
- Melt butter and oil in a 10-inch cast iron frying pan over medium heat. When sizzling, add onion and sauté for 3 minutes, just until softened. Add garlic and lemon zest and sauté for another 2 minutes, until aromatic. Add orzo, stir to coat with oil, and cook for 3 or 4 minutes before adding lemon juice, stock, and wine.
- Keep heat at medium and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed and the orzo is soft. The mixture should be creamy but not soupy — cook for a little longer if there’s still too much liquid. Stir in chopped cilantro.
- Spoon into bowls, set 4 or 5 meatballs on top, add crumbled feta and serve with tomato sauce on the side.
Notes
Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 28- oz can of stewed whole plum tomatoes In tomato season, use 2 lbs ripe tomatoes, peeled, cored and diced.
- 5 Tbsp butter
- 1 medium onion peeled and cut into quarters
- 1 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Place all ingredients in a medium sized pot, cover, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once bubbling, reduce heat to medium low and simmer, uncovered, for about 1 hour, until sauce has reduced slightly.
- Remove from heat and blend with an immersion blender. Use in any pasta dish, in chicken cacciatore and other tomato-based dishes, and homemade pizza. Will keep for several days in the fridge or up to 3 months in the freezer.
Notes
Parmesan Stock
Ingredients
- 1 lb Parmesan rinds
- 8 cups water
Instructions
- Place rinds in a large pot and add water. Cover and bring to the boil over high heat. Once boiling, reduce heat to medium low and simmer uncovered for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally. (The rinds tend to stick to the bottom of the pot.) Strain, cool, decant into containers and freeze for up to 6 months.
Notes
Forty-five years ago, I stood in a small kitchen on a Greek island and watched an elderly man do something crazy. He sauteed garlic in oil until it was sizzling and then he poured in a grain that looked like rice, but was not rice, and stirred it until it was coated in oil and beginning to brown. He added water, cup by cup, waiting until each cup was absorbed before adding the next.
To my sheltered, 24-year-old North Toronto mind there was one way to cook rice, or anything that looked like rice: simmered, in water, at a 4:1 ratio. I tried to show this elderly man he was doing it all wrong, but he batted my hand away.
When the rice-not-rice was creamy and bubbling, he tasted it and nodded. He poured the mixture into two bowls, crumbled feta over top and exhorted me to sit and eat, in Greek, a language I did not yet understand, but I did understand the fierceness with which he pointed at the chair. I sat, dipped my spoon into the bowl, and tasted my first ever orzo risotto. Delicious. Perhaps he was not so crazy after all.
The elderly man was my boyfriend’s father, and this was the first of several cooking lessons he gave me — He lived with us, one of many odd things I got used to in my first year there.
Orzo is called “manestra” on that island, and I would learn to cook it in many dishes — in a casserole with tomatoes, allspice, and goat or beef, or combined with ground pork, mint, tomato, and cinnamon — gorgeous dishes, the like of which I’d never tasted.
At Easter I’m always reminded of Greece, where it is by far the most important celebration in the calendar year. Easter has come and gone, but my taste for local lamb has not, nor has my memory of that first cooking lesson, so recently I put them both together, with a few embellishments. The tomato sauce is optional, but do keep the recipe on hand for later, it’s dynamite.
