Steamed meatballs: low fat, gluten-free, casein-free, yummy, versatile and they freeze like a dream.

I've been experimenting with steamed dishes lately, and got to wondering what would happen if I steamed some meatballs. What happened was some tasty magic. These meatballs steamed up beautifully, and tasted so delightful that I couldn't stop eating them as they came out of the steamer. The first time around I made only 40 meatballs, and they didn't even last until suppertime. So here's the recipe and method for making about 110 meatballs. That's enough to eat as many as you like as they come out of the steamer, enough for soup later on, maybe a few for breakfast, then freeze the rest to be popped into soup at another time.

I tried this recipe using various kinds of meat. The recipe below calls for 1.5kg of pork, but you can use chicken, or any combination of pork/beef/lamb. It also calls for cooked rice, so it is a good idea to cook some rice the night before, or at least a couple hours before you need to mix everything together.

Before getting started, wash and trim enough cabbage or romaine lettuce leaves to completely line your steamer.


Ingredients:
-1.5 kg raw boneless pork with fat trimmed off
-2 medium onions finely chopped
-3 medium carrots finely chopped
-1 extra-large egg, or 2 small eggs lightly beaten
-400 gm cooked white rice (arborio or other risotto-type rice is good)
-2 tablespoons dried and crushed thyme leaves
-1 teaspoon salt
Optional: 20 large leaves of swiss chard (blitva), washed (I'll explain later)

Method:
Get your butcher to coarsely grind your meat. I don't recommend using store-bought pre-ground meat because it tends to be too fatty and too watery. But if that's all you've got, then give it a try. If your butcher doesn't grind meat, then cut your meat up into small cubes, and in small batches, finely chop the meat in your food processor.

Put the meat in a large mixing bowl. Add your chopped onion and chopped carrot, salt and thyme. Add your beaten egg to the mixture. Mix thoroughly with a large spoon or with your hands. Then add the rice and use your hands to thoroughly mix the rice into the meat mixture.



Cover the bowl and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (2 hours is better) to let the flavours blend in.

Preparing your steamer:
Add hot water to the bottom of your steamer pot, then place the steaming basket on top of the water. Using your cabbage or romaine lettuce leaves, cover the steamer basket (this will ensure that your food does not stick to the steamer basket). Place lid on steamer, and allow the water to boil.


Remove meat mixture from the fridge, and using a teaspoon, scoop a bit of meat into your hand, and use the spoon to fashion a 2-3cm ball in the palm of your hand. Put the ball on a platter, and continue making balls until all of the meat is used up.



When the steamer is ready, place as many meatballs in the steamer basket as you can, making sure that none of the balls is touching the other balls. Put the lid on and steam for 30 minutes.




Optional: if you like swiss chard (blitva), then you can trim the swiss chard leaves like this:



Then add a meatball to the centre of the leaf,



and roll



Place these little swiss chard rolls in the steamer basket. It is okay if they touch each other. Put the lid on, and steam for 30 minutes.



Here's how it all looks when it is done.



Here's what the swiss chard rolls look like when you cut them open:



And here are the steamed meatballs added to my homemade minestrone and cabbage soup. Add a wee bit of salt to taste, and a generous drizzle of olive oil, and you've got an entire meal in a bowl. Healthy. Tasty. Really tasty.

Grab your defibrillator, it's CVARCI time!!!

There is a special snack eaten in these parts around this time of year that is made from pure pork fat. Yup. Just plain old fat. The snack is called CVARCI (Čvarci pronounced chvartzy) and involves pork fat getting cut into cubes, deep fried, pressed, dried out, then eaten usually at room temperature with a bit of salt. Normally, people add a bit of milk to the hot oil to give the cvarci their golden brown color, but I can't handle the milk, and often can't eat cvarci prepared by others because there's a great chance of gluten cross-contamination due to the incredibly delicious pairing of crusty bread with the cvarci. So, if I want to eat these yummy snacks, I need to make my own (no bread for moi.)

Here's the recipe. Method. And pictures.

Ingredients:
Pork fat

Equipment:
Big pot
Slotted spoon
Potato ricer (also known as a squeezer)
Big bowl lined with paper towel
Large pan lined with paper towel

A special note: DO NOT EAT these in large quantities. There's a seeeeeeerious amount of fat and cholesterol in these babies. One handful is good as a serving. Also, DO NOT add salt to these until you are about to eat them because the salt will make them rather rubbery and kinda mushy. Only add salt to the handful (one handful) that you are eating.

Here's what the pork fat looks like. These pieces weigh about 2 pounds or 1 kg each. I bought 5kg for my session. Make sure that the skin has been removed.



The fat is about 1 inch or about 3cm thick.




Slice the fat into strips about 2 inches or 3 cm across. Then cut those strips into cubes about 2 inches or 3 cm. Don't worry if some are slightly bigger or smaller.




Put all the cubes into a cold, empty big pot. My pot holds 8 litres, and I filled it to the 6 litre line. Don't over-fill because you need to leave quite a bit of room for the fat to render out, and bubble up.




Once you have all your fat cut up into cubes, and you've put all your cubes into your pot, move the pot to your heat source, and put the heat up to about medium. You'll have to watch the heat constantly and adjust accordingly to keep this to a medium heat. Don't let it get too hot or else everything will burn. Using a large spoon or spatula, keep turning the cubes so that they don't stick to the bottom. It'll look like this:



Keep turning them, and after about 15 minutes, you'll be able to see the fat bubbling up like this:




Keep turning the cubes. They will start to brown. And they'll look like this after just another 5 or 6 minutes:



Until finally they will get really golden brown (but not burnt!) and they will float to the top like this.:




Using a slotted spoon, carefully scoop out the cubes and put them into a big bowl that is lined with paper towel to soak up some of the oil.



Now, you've got to scoop 5 or 6 cubes into the squeezer. Hold the squeezer over an empty bowl, and squeeze out as much oil as you can. Be careful because the oil will be very hot.




Then open the squeezer, and using a fork, loosen the flattened cubes, and shake out onto a large pan lined with paper towels. Remember DO NOT salt these.




In batches of 5 or 6 cubes, squeeze the oil out of all the cubes. Shake all your squeezed cubes onto the paper-towel-lined pan, leave the pan out on a table and let everything cool down and dry somewhat. You can eat the cvarci at this point...however, it is best to let them cool right down to room temperature for best results. In about an hour, they'll look like this and be ready to eat:






Once all cooled down (after a couple of hours), put the cvarci in a ziploc bag or in a container and keep them in the refrigerator. I've kept them for 2 weeks in the fridge with no problems.

Enjoy!