This is a very tasty meatball-dish, serve with rice the Persian way or pasta!
We have many different kinds of meatballs in Iran. One of them is made with chickpea flour – not the chickpea that most of us are used to but the chickpeas that can even be enjoyed as nuts. See the picture below. I sometimes add bullion and sometimes I use concentrated stock in the sauce, the most important thing is for you to taste and adjust seasoning to your liking.
Ingredients for 6 – 8 servings
Meatballs:
600 grams of ground meat (you can choose between beef, lamb, veal or turkey)
1 egg
1/2 yellow onion
2 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
5 tablespoons chickpea flour
2 dl well-chopped parsley (can be excluded)
A mixture of oil and butter for frying
Sauce:
1 yellow onion
2 – 3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 /5 teaspoon black pepper
1 – 2 tablespoons chickpeas flour (do not take everything right away – taste and adjust)
1/2 – 1 dl squeezed lemon
A little sugar
Water
Concentrated stock or bullion (optional)
Oil to fry in
Sauce
- Peel and chop the onion.
- Fry the onion in a pan for 5 – 7 minutes, add the rest of the ingredients for the sauce and mix well.
- Let it simmer for about 15 minutes, taste, adjust seasoning, add some sugar if needed.
- Allow the sauce to simmer for another 30 minutes.
- Add more water if necessary. If you want a thicker sauce, take some more chickpea flour.
Meatballs
- Peel the onion and run it in the food processor, add eggs and run a few laps to make the mixture really smooth.
- Add the rest of the ingredients.
- Measure the meatballs with a tablespoon, roll the meatballs and fry it in a mixture of oil and butter.
- Put it aside. During the summer, it’s a good idea if you put the finished meatballs in the fridge while you are making the sauce.
All this can be done in advance. About 30 minutes before serving, you can remove the meatballs from the fridge and put in the sauce and let simmer in order for the meatballs to get the taste of the sauce vice versa.
Serve either Persian rice and yogurt, or pasta of your choice.
Enjoy!
You can find these wonderful nuts in middle eastern stores. They are called nochoodchi in Farsi!
