Welcome to our latest blog post. Today we will be focusing on our new series, which we are calling Chef At Home (#chefathome). During these posts, I will share recipes and ideas that I love to eat when I'm not at work. The focus is usually on healthy, nutritious and flavour packed dishes.
The first dish I am going to feature is a Vietnamese meatball recipe, which is fresh, light and served with Nuoc Cham (serves 4 with salad or rice).
Ingredients:
- 1lb - 1.5lbs ground pork, or chicken or turkey
- 1/2 cup cooked (leftover) rice
- 1 shallot, finely minced
- 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
- 1/4 cup of fish sauce
- 3 tbsp. organic cane sugar, or agave syrup
- 10-12 mint leaves, chopped fine
- Sea Salt and Black Pepper - 1tsp. of each
- 1 bunch of cilantro (coriander) (ADD TO SERVING BOWL THAT YOU WILL PUT THE MEATBALLS INTO)
Serve on the side:
- Nuoc Cham Sauce (I make my own, its pretty easy)
- Cucumber Slices with a healthy glug of rice wine vinegar, and splash of sea salt
- A whole butter or gem lettuce - split into mini "bowls" that you can put in your meatball, sauce, cilantro.
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- Put the first 8 ingredients onto a bowl and mix well until fully blended. Shape into balls and place onto a baking sheet with parchment paper. You should have 20-26 meatballs. Don't worry if they are smaller or larger, they will be loved just the same!
- Place meatballs on the upper rack in the oven that was pre-heated to 350F, and cook for 14-16 minutes until 165F temperature is achieved in the meatball (you can just cut one in half to check its cooked if you don't have a thermometer).
- Place in a bowl with the cilantro to the back, somewhat propping up the meatballs for a cool display.
- I like to serve these with a gem or butter lettuce.
- You can add and serve extra rice if you want to, but i find these little bites super refreshing and kick things up a notch in heat as well.
There you go. Delicious, healthy and spicy! Don't forget to buy your proteins, and choose
- ground pork, or chicken or turkey
Finally, we'd like to announce that we have successfully reduced the price on many of our items, now that we have divested of the Vancouver store and all of its expenses. Check out your favourite items. For example, ground chicken and turkey are now down 30% in price.