Page 390 - YC Cooking School

Easy Entertaining

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Top tips for spicy lamb meatballs

Keep the fat intact
When making meatballs, a good ratio of fat to meat is about 20%. Most of the mince flavour
actually comes from the fat. Ask your butcher to mince meat for you or do it yourself using a
home mincing tool. You can use just about any meat to make meatballs. You can also mix
different meats together for an interesting combination of flavours.

Scaling up to feed a crowd
One of the challenges of entertaining is having the right equipment. A meatball dish is easy
to scale up to feed a hungry crowd. If you don’t have a large enough pot, first brown the
meatballs in a pan and then transfer them to a large oven-proof dish to finish them in their
sauce, in the oven. Start by covering the dish with foil, and then remove the foil after about

30 minutes to allow the cooking juices to reduce and evaporate a little. This will intensify the
flavour of your dish. The same applies when cooking on a stovetop.

Chop your onions finely
The secret to chopping onions without crying is to work as quickly as possible. Chop the

onions up finely – anything too chunky in the mince could cause the meatballs to fall apart
when you fry them.

Crush and chop the garlic
A pro chef move is to crush garlic with a knife, so separating the outer skin from the inner

flesh of the garlic is easier. Be careful when trying out this technique at home: the palm of
your hand should only make contact with the blunt side of the knife.

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