It’s the 9th day of Lent.
Meatless Meatballs
It’s been nine days without meat or chicken.
While my choice to give up meat for Lent is on some level a spiritual and ethical one, I was really just curious to see if I could do it.
Sometimes you need the constructs of a tradition or ritual to help motivate you to try something that otherwise seems too difficult. It’s the same with New Year’s Resolutions: Our little hupstootjie to make the transition easier.
I launched into my vegetarian diet with something that at least looked like meat. I took food24′s lentil burger recipe and adapted it for frikkadels.
I’d like to introduce you to meatless meatballs. Take that, Fry’s!
The Close Up
Lentil Frikkadels
Makes about 12
1 cup of brown, dry lentils
3 cups of water
1 stock cube/tbs stock powder
1 onion, chopped
1 baby marrow, grated
1 small green pepper, grated
2 tbs tomato paste
1 tbs garlic and ginger paste
1 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup of raw oats/breadcrumbs
Extra stock/wine/water
Oil for frying
Right. Rinse the lentils and cook them in the water and stock for about 15-20 mins until soft. Puree or mash them until you’re left with a thick paste. It can be really thick. Like, so-thick-it-broke-my-blender kind of thick.
Fry the onion in the oil until translucent. Mix the lentil paste with the onions and the rest of the ingredients and incorporate. Use extra liquid – like wine:) – to make the paste more malleable so that you can form it into small balls.
Roll the “mince” into “meat”balls.
Heat about 30ml of oil in a pan. Place the meatballs slowly into the oil and fry. You don’t need to worry about them being done or not – no raw meat to worry about! So fry them just until they are golden brown.
Serve with a cucumber raita and a green salad.
And so the journey to the veg of the earth continues…
