Join Culinate

With a free Culinate membership, you can:

  • Create your own recipe collections
  • Queue recipes for later use
  • Blog your culinary endeavors
  • Be part of our online community of cooks
  • And much more…
Join Now

Lamb and Prune Meatballs (Boulettes D’Agneau Aux Pruneaux)

From the book Chocolate & Zucchini by
Serves 4 to 6

Introduction

Serve these meatballs with couscous and a cup of Greek-style yogurt for dipping.

Ingredients

1 lb. ground lamb meat, preferably from the shoulder
12 good-quality prunes, sometimes called dried plums, pitted and finely chopped
2 small shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
¼ cup (packed) fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves, finely chopped, plus a few for garnish
1 Tbsp. (packed) freshly grated and finely minced orange zest, from about 2 organic oranges
¼ tsp. allspice
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
½ tsp. fine sea salt
¼ tsp. freshly ground pepper

Steps

  1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the meat, prunes, shallots, garlic, parsley, orange zest, allspice, egg, the 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well with a fork. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or up to 8 hours. (If you don’t have that kind of time, refrigerate for just 10 minutes.)
  2. Remove the bowl from the refrigerator. Wash your hands well and keep them damp. Scoop out rounded tablespoons of the mixture and roll them into balls between your palms. Set aside in a single layer on two plates until you’ve used up all the meat. Wash your hands thoroughly again.
  3. Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add half of the meatballs in a single layer without crowding. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring the meatballs gently around the pan to brown them all over. Set aside on a clean plate and cover with foil while you cook the second batch. Return the first batch to the pan, cover and reheat for 2 minutes. Transfer to a serving dish, sprinkle with parsley, and serve with couscous and Greek-style yogurt.

This content is from the book Chocolate & Zucchini by Clotilde Dusoulier.

Subscribe
Comments
There are no comments on this item
Add a comment
Unrated
Rating

Think before you type

Culinate welcomes comments that are on-topic, clean, and courteous. For the benefit of the community we reserve the right to delete comments that contain advertising, personal attacks, profanity, or which are thinly disguised attempts to promote another website.

Please enter your comment

Format: Bare URLs are automatically linked; use this style: [http://www.example.com "place text to be linked here"] for prettier links. You may specify *bold* or _italic_ text. No HTML please.

Please identify yourself

Not a member? Sign up!

Please prove that you’re not a computer


Advertisement
Dinner Guest

Cooking phases

Change in our kitchens

Reflections on cooking — and a career that’s based largely at the stove.

Subscribe
Graze: Bites from the Site
The Culinate 8

Breads of India

Flatbreads from around the continent

Local Flavors

Using the whole vegetable

Leaf love

The Produce Diaries

Leeks

Beyond a supporting role

First Person

La Cosa Nostra

The great Sicilian-Neapolitan kitchen rivalry

Editor’s Choice