Unballed Chicken with Lemon & Kale

Earmarked this recipe for allergy-friendly Boston cookings:

Recipe

2 shallots, minced
1 scallion, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1 lb ground chicken
1 lemon, thinly sliced, seeds removed
2 c chicken broth
olive oil
salt & pepper

Heat a tbsp of oil in a pot or large, deep skillet.  Add one shallot, plus the scallion, garlic, and red pepper. Cook until soft and fragrant.  Next, add about a third of the chicken and cook through, breaking up and mixing in.  Transfer to a bowl, and mix in the remaining chicken with some salt and pepper.  Clump into about 8 (soft, loose) meatballs, 2+ inches each.  Wipe out your pot/skillet and heat another tbsp oil, brown your meatballs on all sides, and set them aside.  Cook the lemon with the remaining shallot a couple minutes, then add broth and meatballs back in.  Cover and simmer until meatballs cook through, then add kale and braise about 5 minutes until tender and bright green.  Season, divide, and serve.

Notes

As expected, with no binding agent (egg, bread crumbs, etc.), the meatballs ended up more as loose clumps that either fell apart as we put them in the skillet or would have as soon as we tried to pick them up and turn them.  So, we broke them up and ended up with more of a chili or soup.  And no regrets!  It simplified the process a bit - once the meat is browning, add the lemon, then broth, then kale.  And in the end it was still delicious!  The lemon tang goes great with the meat, and kale is always a nice element.

Asian Turkey Meatballs

I found a new bunch of recipes online courtesy of (the kind of hilariously-named) Eat to Perform.  Here's the first one.  It's Asian, so insert a meathead "ninjas really know how to perform" joke here, maybe?

Recipe

1 lb ground turkey (they say lean...)
2 tbsp grated ginger
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 c bread crumbs
1 egg

1/4 c scallions, chopped
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 c stock

1/2 tsp sesame oil
3 tbsp vinegar
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp honey
1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp dried chili flakes
1/4 c scallions, chopped

Combine the first group of ingredients and make some meatballs, about 2".  Heat your oil over medium-high and brown the meatballs on both/a few sides, about 2 minutes each.  Move the meatballs to a pan for the oven and pour in the stock.  Heat at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the bottom set of ingredients in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, then simmer until it thickens.  Drizzle the glaze over the meatballs (once they're out of the oven, maybe over some rice) and you're ready to eat.

Notes

A few things:

• I un-paleo-ed the original recipe a little bit but I hope it's still healthy!  Cause it's pretty good. 
• I also used the old cast-iron skillet to brown the meatballs, flipped 'em a last time, poured in the (veggie) stock, and popped the skillet in the oven.  Even cutting out the extra pan, it's still a lot of dishes to clean up.
• The recipe is a little ambiguous on where the scallions go.  In the meatballs?  Into the glaze?  Sprinkled on top?  I went with option B...

Lamb Meatballs

Recipe

Thanks Natalie for the Best Meat Recipes cookbook a few Christmases back!  Unfortunately, most of the recipes involve equipment beyond what my humble NYC kitchen supports (e.g., grilling) or premium cuts of meat you just can't get at Morton Williams.  This one took two tries on the latter point, but was well worth the effort.

1 lb ground lamb
1 tsp cumin
1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
3 tbsp cilantro, chopped
1 cup + 3 tbsp yogurt
1 slice of bread, crumbled
1 clove garlic, minced
oil
fixin's (pita, pasta, rice, greens, etc.)

Combine the lamb, cumin, cayenne, 2 tbsp cilatro, 3 tbsp yogurt and bread crumbs in a large bowl - get in there up to your elbows to mix it up.  Then gently roll into meatballs of about an inch.  Freeze for a few minutes.  Heat oil in a pan (medium-high), in go the balls.  Brown about two minutes, flip, lower heat (medium), cook another six minutes; couldn't help rolling them around a little to make sure they cook through.  Combine the yogurt, garlic, remaining cilatro and a bit of cayenne and salt as a sauce.

Outcome

Technically I did this recipe with about .88 lb of meat and didn't hold back too much on the cayenne, so it came out very flavorful.  I ended up with about a dozen meatballs, enough for two with some pasta and spinach to go with.  Most were cooked about right - little to no pink, with a nice brown crust.  Fun and not too difficult to put together!