Moroccan-Style Meatballs with Couscous
Ingredients
- For the meatballs
- 3 dried Apricot
- 2 Tbsps Pine nuts
- 2 scallions
- 2 garlic cloves
- 400 grams mixed Ground meat
- 1 egg
- 1 day-old White roll
- ½ tsp ginger (freshly grated)
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
- 1 generous pinch ground allspice
- salt
- freshly ground peppers
- Tabasco sauce
- vegetable oil (for frying)
- For the sauce
- 1 can Diced tomatoes
- 1 paprika (red)
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 Tbsp parsley (finely chopped)
Preparation steps
For the meatballs: Soak apricots in warm water. Toast pine nuts in a dry frying pan, stirring constantly. Finely chop pine nuts and apricots.
Soak roll in warm water.
Rinse, trim and halve scallions lengthwise. Thinly cut scallions crosswise. Peel and finely chop garlic cloves. In a bowl, combine ground meat, egg, pine nuts, apricots, scallions, garlic, bun (squeezed to remove water), ginger, cinnamon and allspice. Season with salt, pepper and a few dashes of Tabasco. Mix well. With wet hands, form mixture into ping-pong sized meatballs. Fry in hot oil until golden-brown.
For the sauce: Peel and finely chop onion and garlic; cook in remaining oil with tomatoes. Add a little water if needed. Simmer sauce over medium heat. Halve pepper, remove seeds and ribs, and dice. Add to sauce.
Meanwhile, cook couscous with saffron, according to package directions. Stir in the chickpeas shortly before the end of cooking.
Place the meatballs into the sauce, and heat until meatballs are warmed through. Divide couscous among plates and top with sauce and meatballs. Garnish with parsley and serve with minted-yogurt.
