Spiced lamb meatballs with cucumber and yoghurt sauce
A Middle Eastern inspired lamb meatball, packed full of flavour with fresh parsley and seven-spice mix. Served alongside a wonderful cucumber yoghurt sauce - a sort of tzatziki but more similar to a Lebanese khyar bi laban.
Servings: 4 servings (16 meatballs and plenty of yoghurt sauce)
Ingredients
For the meatballs
- 500 g lamb mince
- 1-2 cloves of garlic grated/minced
- An entire bunch of parsley finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 45 g breadcrumbs dry
- 1 egg
- Pepper to taste
- 1/2 tbsp 7 spices I make a blend of equal parts black pepper, cumin, coriander, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and all spice - also found sold as Baharat spice)
For the cucumber and yoghurt sauce
- 200 g pot set Greek style yoghurt
- 1 garlic clove grated/minced
- 1 Lebanese cucumber grated and set over a strainer for 20 min to remove as much liquid as possible
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp dried mint
- 2 tbsp olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180c /160c fan-forced.
- For the meatballs, combine all of the ingredients and shape in a large bowl and using your hands, squeeze and knead the mixture until well combined.
- Use an ice cream scoop to measure a ball of the mince mixture, then roll this between your hands to form a meatball - make sure to roll until smooth.
- Heat olive oil in a large pan and working in batches of 8, sear the meatballs for 2 minutes on each side before transferring to an oven dish.
- Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes.
- Meanwhile make the cucumber and yoghurt sauce by combining all of the ingredients.
- Serve the meatballs on a bed of the yoghurt sauce and enjoy.
