{"id":195,"date":"2014-03-10T20:44:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-10T20:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitemporaryblog.wordpress.com\/2014\/03\/10\/a-short-leap"},"modified":"2015-12-16T17:34:49","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T22:34:49","slug":"a-short-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangette.net\/2014\/03\/a-short-leap\/","title":{"rendered":"A short leap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our friend Ben is in town for a visit, and this past Friday, while we waited in line for lunch at Il Corvo<\/a>\u00a0– always worth the wait, in case you ever walked by and wondered – I told him about some lamb meatballs that I wanted to write up, but that I had a problem: the only photo I have is of the raw meat and seasonings in a bowl. Ooh<\/i>, Ben said sharply, sucking air between his teeth, which I took to mean, That\u2019s going to hurt.<\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>And yet. \u00a0AND YET.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Maybe it will ease the blow to know that the reason why I have no meatball photo is that, by the time they\u2019re done cooking, they smell so irritatingly good, and I\u2019m so irritable and hungry, that my claws come out and I throw myself on the pan. Anyway, I think my mother will love this recipe, and if I hold off on posting until I have a proper photo, it\u2019ll be almost like I\u2019m depriving my mother, my very own mother, of happiness.<\/p>\n

I am not the first person in the world to own The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook<\/a><\/i>, by the brilliant Deb Perelman<\/a>, and I am also not the first person to be tempted by her recipe for Sesame-Spiced Turkey Meatballs. \u00a0Deb mentions in the sidebar that the recipe can be made with ground lamb instead of turkey, and what I am, in fact, is here to report that, yes, absolutely, it can! \u00a0I\u2019ve done it myself five or six times now. There is probably no meat that doesn\u2019t go well with toasted sesame seeds, garlic, cumin, coriander, and chile, but in most such cases, lamb would be my intuitive choice. The meatball that we\u2019re talking about here has the basic flavor profile of falafel, right, and since lamb shows up in cooking across the Middle East, falafel to lamb is a short leap. \u00a0I don\u2019t know, but I sort of want to call these Falafel-Spiced Lamb Meatballs. \u00a0Deb, I\u2019m screwing up everything.<\/p>\n

In any case, it\u2019s nothing more complicated than mixing up ground meat and seasonings in a bowl and rolling them into balls. It\u2019s the kind of cooking that can be accomplished with only minimal attention, while the rest of your brain is lulled to sleep by the sound of the waves crashing on the white noise machine in your kid\u2019s room on the other side of the wall. \u00a0(Or, you could listen to\u00a0Spilled Milk<\/a>.\u00a0Did you know that we\u2019re going weekly? And that you can donate to the show<\/a>, which helps us buy ingredients and pay for hosting\u00a0and wins our devotion to the grave and beyond?) The resulting meatballs are juicy, fragrant with cumin and coriander and garlic, and when you chew, there\u2019s a faint, wonderful crackle of toasted sesame seeds between your teeth. The crackle might be the best part.<\/p>\n

Deb serves hers with a smashed-chickpea salad that\u2019s bright with sumac and lemon, and the combination is delicious. I like them with anything, though most often a pile of roasted vegetables. They would be perfect with couscous, or stuffed in a pita with shredded cabbage and chopped cucumber and some yogurt or tahini sauce, or even just heaped on plain rice with a cucumber salad on the side. \u00a0The main thing to know is,\u00a0they would be perfect<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n

\n
\n
Recipe<\/div>\n

Falafel-Spiced Lamb Meatballs<\/h2>\n

Adapted slightly from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook<\/a><\/i>, by Deb Perelman<\/h3> \n \n <\/header>\n\n
\n <\/figure>\n \n
\n