Beef meatballs with broad beans and lemon

I am planning to do few post this week, atleast that is what my sister has asked me to do.
Hans is gone from tommorow for  a concert trip and he will be only back Monday evening.
So sis was like he is not home you should post then more in this week.

But knowing me I will be not doing, as I have already told Hans when he is not home I am not going to cook anything at all :-)
And he remarked I can be like the old lady who live above us in the apartment, when her husband was in the hospital for few weeks she hardly cooked.

By now you all know I am crazy for the cooking style or recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi .
And if you are not convinced you can check out all these post Chermoula Aubergine, Acharuli Khachapuri and I am sur eyou will find more similar dishes in my blog.

I made this dish when I did a Ottolenghi evening here at home together with the chermoula aubergine when i did a ottolenghi evening here at home.

This is what it is written in the book about the recipe and I must say I totally agree to it.

Fresh, sharp and very, very tasty, these meatballs are our idea of the perfect spring supper. Serve them with basmati rice and there isn't much need for anything else. Whole blanched almonds make a good addition, for texture as well as for taste – add them to the pan at the same time as the unshelled broad beans. 

Makes about 20 meatballs, to serve four

4½ tbsp olive oil
350g broad beans, fresh or frozen
4 whole thyme sprigs
6 garlic cloves, sliced
8 spring onions, cut at an angle into 2cm segments
2½ tbsp lemon juice
500ml  chicken stock
Salt and black pepper

For the meatballs
300g minced beef
150g minced lamb
1 medium onion, finely chopped
120g breadcrumbs
2 tbsp each chopped flat-leaf parsley, mint, dill and coriander, plus ½ tbsp extra of each to finish
2 large garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp baharat spice mix ( if you don't get this spice mix in the book there is a recipe,look below in this post for the recipe of this spice)
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsp capers, chopped
1 egg, beaten

Put all the ingredients for the meatballs in a large bowl. Add three-quarters of a teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper, mix with your hands and form into balls about the size of ping-pong balls. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in an extra-large frying pan for which you have a lid. Sear half the meatballs over a medium heat, turning them until they are brown all over – this will take about five minutes. Remove from the pan, add another half-tablespoon of oil to the pan and cook the other batch of meatballs. Once browned all over, remove these from the pan, too, then wipe it clean with kitchen towel.

While the meatballs are cooking, throw the broad beans into a pot with plenty of salted boiling water and blanch for two minutes. Drain, refresh under cold water, then remove and discard the skins from half the broad beans.

Heat the remaining oil in the meatball pan, add the thyme, garlic and spring onion, and sauté over a medium heat for three minutes. Add the unshelled broad beans, one and a half tablespoons of the lemon juice, 80ml of the stock, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and plenty of black pepper. The beans should be almost covered by liquid. Pop on the lid and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes.

Return the meatballs to the pan, add the remaining stock, cover again and simmer gently for 25 minutes. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. If it is still very runny, remove the lid and reduce a little. Once the meatballs stop cooking, they will soak up a lot of the juices, so make sure there is still plenty of sauce at this point. You can leave the meatballs now, off the heat, until you're ready to serve.

Just before serving, reheat the meatballs and add a little water, if needed, to get enough sauce. Gently stir in the remaining herbs, lemon juice and the shelled broad beans and serve immediately.

Baharat Spice Mix:

1 tsp of black pepper corns
1 tsp cirriander seeds
1 cinnamon stick (5 cm) roughly broken up
1/2 tsp whole cloves
2 tsp cummin seeds
1 tsp cardamom
1/2 nutmeg grated

Add all the ingridients in a spic grinder and powder to a fine powder.
You can keep this spice powder for 2 months in a closed jar.