I am cooking for our interns again this season, and one of them can't have gluten, dairy or eggs, so when I found this meatball recipe that doesn't use any of those ingredients, I had to try it! I tripled the original recipe and ended up with 100 meatballs so I left some at home for my husband and they were all gone when I got home - he loved them! I served them with basmati rice.
The original recipe recommends serving them with parsley salad, but I needed something more filling so I didn't make that. I used Urfa pepper flakes for the intern's meatballs, and Cobanero for my husband's. Urfa is a Turkish red pepper that is fairly mild. Cobanero is much hotter.
Original recipe: Adana Meatballs
Turkish Meatballs made with Beef and Lamb
Photo from NYTimes.
Makes 24 to 33 one-inch meatballs
INGREDIENTS
- 1 small red bell pepper, halved, seeded and cut into 1" pieces
- 1/2 medium white onion, thinly sliced
- 5 garlic cloves, divided (4 chopped and one grated on a microplane)
- 1/2 pound ground lamb
- 1/2 pound ground beef
- 2 t. cumin
- 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I used Urfa and Cobanero)
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 2 T. olive oil
- 1 cup Greek yogurt (for serving)
- 1 T. lemon juice
- 2 t. sumac
DIRECTIONS
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
In the bowl of a food processor, combine in the following order: the 4 cloves of chopped garlic, the sliced onion, and the bell pepper. Pulse just until the vegetables are finely chopped but not pureed.
 | |
| Chopped garlic on the bottom, sliced onions on top |
 |
| Red peppers on top of the onions, and finely minced on the right. |
Transfer the vegetables to a large bowl and add the lamb, beef, cumin, crushed red pepper, 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper. Mix with your hands or a flexible rubber spatula until well combined, until it is almost sticking to the bowl.
Cook a small piece and taste it. Adjust seasoning if necessary.
Line a baking sheet with parchment (I didn't do this because my baking sheet is stainless) and grease it with 2 T. olive oil. Using lightly oiled hands, form 1" meatballs, roughly 1 heaping tablespoon each (I used a 1" disher and made about 33 meatballs) and place them on the oiled parchment, spacing 1" apart.
 |
| Turkish meatballs about to go into the oven. |
Bake until they are golden brown and cooked through, 25-30 minutes (in our oven, they were ready after 20 minutes.
While the meatballs bake, whisk together the Greek yogurt and the lemon juice. Grate the remaining garlic clove and stir it in. Season with salt and set aside.
(While the meatballs baked, I made the rice, and they were both ready at the same time!)
Serve the meatballs sprinkled with the yogurt and dusted with sumac.
