Thai Meatballs

Thai-seasoned meatballs in a flavourful coconut peanut sauce.

Meatballs

1 1/2 lbs ground beef
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 unseasoned bread crumbs
3 tbsp minced green onions
1 tbsp minced fresh cilantro
1 egg
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced gingerroot
1 tsp sesame oil
salt and pepper

Sauce
1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup hoisin sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp peanut butter
2 tbsp minced cilantro or basil
1 tbsp minced gingerroot
1 tsp lemon zest
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 400 F. Spray a rimmed baking sheet with non stick spray.
Combine all meatball ingredients in large bowl and mix well. Form mixture into 40 small (1 inch) meatballs and place on sprayed pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until cooked through.
While meatballs are cooking, prepare sauce. Whisk all sauce ingredients together in skillet or pan and heat over medium-high, stirring, until mixture boils. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 3 minutes until thickened. Add meatballs to sauce and serve hot.

The combination of ingredients may sound odd, but trust me on this one, the flavours work together. Tony was especially impressed with these meatballs. Well either that or he was just trying to convince Cole to eat them. After a lot of Tony’s gushing about the food, Cole finally tried a bite. He wasn’t overly thrilled but he did eat a few more bites. Bennett ate most of his dinner, which was great, except for one little thing…he ate without his clothes on.

I don’t know what it is with him lately, but he just won’t keep his clothes on!
Anyway, this meal was good but I thought it was a little heavy on the ginger. It’s probably just because I have a strange aversion to ginger. When I was pregnant I tried drinking ginger tea because I heard that it can help with morning sickness, but it just made me even more nauseous. Since then, it makes me feel a little sick when I taste or smell too much ginger. A hint of ginger is fine, but unfortunately these meatballs had a tad too much for me. I was alright when I was eating them, but afterwards I felt a bit queasy. Ugh. Please don’t let my weird thing for ginger stop you from making this; it really is a good recipe. It’s from Eat, Shrink, and Be Merry, which is pretty much my cooking bible. Every recipe I’ve made from that cookbook has been fantastic. Whenever I make something really good, Tony will ask, ‘is it from that shrinking book again?’ And the answer is most often yes.