Sticky, Glazed 'Meatballs' | With Pomegranate Seeds, Fresh Mint and Cucumber Yoghurt
This recipe was inspired by a fantastic cookbook Chriskitch. I have spoken about the book and restaurant more in this previous blog post. I recently found out that a second Chriskitch restaurant is opening nearer me in central London, so I am really excited for that. Hopefully, there will be lots of vegetarian/fish options for me. Based on the book, I am sure there will be. Meanwhile, this recipe was inspired by a roast chicken recipe. I think its a misconception that as a vegan or vegetarian you can't get anything out of meat-featuring cookbooks. It is much easier than you think to tweak recipes to suit your diet. For this particular recipe, I took the roast chicken glaze and came up with a glaze sauce to coat the 'meatballs' in. Furthermore, the addition of pomegranate, fresh mint and yoghurt paired so well, lifting the the spicy, sweet and decadent flavours of the 'meatballs'. Despite looking tricky, this a surprisingly quick meal to put together that still looks fantastic for guests.
Serves 3-4
**For a vegan alternative simply use vegan meatballs. If you can't find any I would recommend simply chopping up a vegan sausage into meatball sized pieces.**
Ingredients
- 300g of meatballs (I used vegetarian Quorn Swedish 'meatballs' from frozen)
- 1 large red onion
- 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary, removed from the stem and finely chopped
Glaze:
- 125g of soft dark brown sugar
- 150ml of balsamic vinegar
- 50g of raisins
- half a tsp of chilli flakes
- 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp of garlic granules
- 1 tsp of salt
- 1/2 tsp of pepper
To serve:
- the seeds from one large pomegranate
- a handful of fresh mint, chopped
- half a cucumber
- 200g of greek yoghurt (or vegan alternative such as Alpro plain soy)
- couscous for 4 people (according to packet)
Preparation
- In a blender, add all the sauce ingredients and blend until smooth.
- Pour the blended sauce into a small sauce pan.
- Chop the onion into thin, half moon slices. In a large frying pan, sauté the onion with a glug of olive oil on medium high heat until softened and slightly golden. Remove the onion from the pan, set aside.
- Add another glug of olive oil to the frying pan, add the meatballs and finely chopped rosemary. On a medium heat, cook the meatballs until golden brown and warmed all the way through.
- Meanwhile, bring the sauce to a gentle boil. Immediately reduce to a simmer, keep stirring until reduced by just less than half.
- When the meatballs are done, add the red onion, warm through. Then pour the glaze on top. Allow the glaze to simmer for a few minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the couscous and dice the cucumber.
- Add the cucumber to the greek yoghurt.
- Finally, serve the meatballs and sticky glaze on top of the couscous. Garnish with the cucumber yoghurt, fresh mint and pomegranate.
- Enjoy!
