Mediterranean Meatballs With A Twist
Mediterranean Meatballs With A Twist come with some surprising ingredients you probably wouldn’t expect.
While I was intending to make a very traditional German dish called “Koenigsberger Klopse” I realised that I was missing the most characteristic ingredient in my cupboard, the capers. Therefore, I decided to improvise and as I was going to mess with that German classic anyway I thought I might as well come up with a more nutritious variant.
Why Mediterranean Meatballs With A Twist Are More Nutritious Than Regular Meatballs
Recently I started incorporating more healthy, oily fish into my diet and came across anchovies. Due to their intense salty flavour, they turned out to be a great seasoning. Once in a while, rather than adding salt to a dish I will throw in 2-3 anchovies. I am aware that these little fish tend to polarise and even though I am very fond of eating fish I admit that I was sceptical myself about adding them to certain dishes such as minced beef. By now, I have become quite accustomed to the flavour and appreciate the extra nutritional kick it delivers.
While trying to enhance its nutritional profile even further I decided to stretch the meat with 2/3 cup of ground almonds.
A 28 grams or small handful serving of almonds contains:
- Fibre: 3.5 grams.
- Protein: 6 grams.
- Fat: 14 grams (9 of which are monounsaturated).
- Vitamin E: 37% of the RDA.
- Manganese: 32% of the RDA.
- Magnesium: 20% of the RDA.
- They also contain a decent amount of copper, vitamin B2 (riboflavin) and phosphorus.
To enrich the sauce with vitamins I added lots of red peppers, olives, lemon juice and fresh herbs. Voila, Mediterranean Meatballs With A Twist were born, it is probably one of the most unusual flavour combination that my kitchen has seen so far, but the end result tastes smashing. The flavours blend together perfectly and it is a fabulous dish for everyone who likes experimenting in the kitchen. If you fancy traditional dishes with a twist check out my Vegan Shepherd’s pie recipe with sweet potato mash.
Your turn
What about you, would you be adventurous enough to try it? I’m looking forward to finding out in the comments. 🙂
Sign up to our Newsletter to get healthy recipes and my eBook “10 Easy Dessert Recipes ” for FREE.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest for more updates.
Enjoy 🙂
Mediterranean Meatballs With A Twist
Ingredients
Rice
- 1 1/2 cups brown basmati rice
- 3 cups water
- 1 teaspoon salt
Meatballs
- 2/3 cup raw almonds
- 1 clove garlic
- 3 anchovies
- 1 onion
- 2 slices sandwich bread gluten-free
- 1/3 cups water
- 17.5 oz organic minced beef
- 1 organic egg
- 1/2 teaspoon mustard
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/4 teaspon pepper
- 2 tablespoons oil
Pepper-Olive-Sauce
- 3 peppers red, yellow and green
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup buckwheat flour
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 cups water
- 1 cube gluten-free vegetable stock
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 3 twigs of parsley
- 3.5 oz black olives
- 2 tablespoon lemon juice
Instructions
Rice
- Use a medium-sized saucepan with a lid to bring the water to boil, add rice and salt and simmer until all the water has evaporated.
Meatballs
- Meantime put almonds, garlic and anchovies into a blender or food processor and pulse until they form a paste.
- Quarter the sandwich bread and onions, add them to the paste and pulse again until combined.
- Fill the paste into a big bowl and add 1-3 cup of water, the minced beef, egg, mustard, salt and pepper, mix well.
- Wetten your hand and form about 18 meatballs.
- Heat up the oil in a big pan and fry the meatballs until they are well done.
Pepper-Olive-Sauce
- Chop the deseeded peppers into small pieces.
- Heat up the butter, flour and milk in a small saucepan and let it simmer for 2 minutes.
- Dissolve the vegetable stock cube in the water and add it along with salt and pepper, let simmer for a further 3 minutes.
- Meantime chop up the parsley and olives, add them together with the lemon juice to the sauce. Let simmer for another minute and serve straight away.
- Enjoy
Nutrition
