SWEET CHILI CHICKEN BALLS
It’s suddenly quite chilly by dinnertime in our part of Western Australia, so my thoughts turn to hot, tasty dinners. This time I made Sweet Chili Chicken Balls. Try them, they’re quick and easy and taste great.
INGREDIENTS
To make 16 balls, you need
500g chicken mince
2 finely chopped cloves of garlic
I tspn ground ginger
1/4 tspn of each salt and ground pepper
4 tbspn chopped spring ( green ) onion and some more to serve
1/3 cup breadcrumbs
1/4 cup sweet chili sauce.
METHOD
Mix all the ingredients together until well combined. The chicken mince I used must have been very moist as I eventually added half a cup of breadcrumbs to get a good, firm consistency. Roll to the size of golf balls and cook in 160°C F/F for 20 minutes. Pour 1/2 cup of sweet chili sauce over the chicken balls and return to the oven for 5 minutes.
I served the chicken balls with roasted potato cooked in duck fat with rosemary and sea salt plus cauliflower and beans. Very nice dinner.
I microwaved the potato wedges for 6 minutes, added a little more melted duck fat, rosemary and sea salt then roasted them in the oven.
NOTE I used spring onion in this recipes as they are growing enthusiastically, but chives would be nice, too.
POTATO SALAD
This easy potato salad can be served warm or cold but I like to leave it to cool so the potatoes really absorb the flavours. Potato salads made with mayonnaise always seem more appropriate for warm weather meals. I’ll serve this tonight, slightly warmed, with German sausages and fried cabbage. It is a cold night dinner.
To make this Potato Salad boil about a 1.5 kg (3lbs) of any potato cut into biggish cubes. Add a generous teaspoon of salt to the cooking water once it is boiling. After about 10 minutes cooking, insert a knife to test if the potatoes are slightly soft, but not mushy! While they’re boiling gather a handful of herbs. I used basil, chives and a small leaf parsley, but just finely chop whatever you have on hand. Dice half a red onion ( I store the remaining half in the fridge in a glass jar)
Marinate the potatoes in 3 tablespoons of vinegar, stirring every now and then for about half an hour. The potatoes absorb most of the vinegar and this adds to the clean flavour of the dish. Then pour half a cup of extra virgin olive oil into a jar, add 3 tablespoons of Dijon mustard and 2 tablespoons of vinegar, screw the lid on and shake until the dressing is amalgamated. Strain off any remaining vinegar. Pour the dressing over the potatoes, stir in the onion and herbs and let it sit for a while before serving.
Heat slightly in the microwave before adding the dressing if you prefer to serve the salad warm.
NOTE. I used 25 %food grade acetic acid, known as essig essenz, to marinate the potatoes, which is what would be used in Germany. It breaks down the cell walls and is absorbed effectively into the potatoes. Readily available overseas, harder to access in Australia. This recipe works with ordinary white vinegar too.
Delicious!
CHELSEA GARDEN WEEK NEWS
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The main message from the Chelsea Garden show this year seems to be WEEDS are good! Yes, I reeled in shock, too, especially as I had a massive weeding session planned for the weekend. We’ve been away for two weeks and returned to a tsunami of weeds. Apparently, bees love weeds, they are an important source of nectar. I think it will take me a while to digest this news!
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Another feature noticeable in many gardens is the inclusion of dead wood. Pieces of dead wood, normally tidied up and burnt, should be left to create insect habitats. Insects are key species in healthy ecosystems and need our support to thrive. They are threatened by the removal of trees around houses which are bulldozed to allow high rise apartments. This is particularly relevant in Perth where multiple old houses on big blocks are being bulldozed along with every feature of the landscape. These are replaced by huge blocks of apartments with no gardens.
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The plot-to-plate theme continues to gain popularity. Many of the gardens incorporated herbs and other edibles in their designs. These edible ornamentals even have a name; they are called edimentals. This trend is easy to achieve, too, and the benefits are enormous. Fresh herbs and vegetables are delicious. I also have a couple of quite compact blueberry bushes, too, along with lots of herbs. Nasturtiums as edimentals were big too. I have lot of orange and yellow nasturtiums but have never eaten them. Have you?
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Another trend is growing your own mushrooms. I have done this a few times in the past and not been overly impressed by the harvest. Also, I am the only one in the family who eats mushrooms but I think I’ll try it again this year. My favourite self grown mushrooms were oyster mushrooms. They look like baby aliens when they first germinated but they taste great.
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Do you have any special gardening plans?