Sunday, July 17, 2011

Lebanese-Spiced Spaghetti & Meatballs

I LOVE Lebanese food.  It's flavorful without being spicy (although I like spice as well, don't get me wrong:)).  A friend in grad school, who had lived in Jordan for 20 years, introduced me to this awesomeness.  My mom gave this two-thumbs up and said I could make this anytime.

Ingredients:
  • Spaghetti squash
  • Onion
  • Ghee or other appropriate oil
  • 2 lb ground beef
  • 2 Tbs Spice mix*, divided
  • 1 bunch parsley
  • 2 cans no-salt added tomato sauce
Directions:
  1. Preheat oven and begin cooking spaghetti squash (I admit that I often cook it in the microwave...).
  2. Peel and chop onion. 
  3. Add ghee to a large sauce pan (big enough for sauce and meatballs) and when melted, add onion.  Cook until onion is caramelized.
  4. Once the onions are caramelized, add tomato sauce and 1 Tbs spice mixture.  Stir, and reduce heat to simmer.
  5. Meanwhile, chop parsley.
  6. Mix together beef, parsley, and 2 Tbs of spice mix.  
  7. Make meatballs. 
  8. Heat another pan and brown meatballs on all sides.  You don't want to cook the meatballs all the way through, just get a nice brown on the outsides.  [You could also broil in the oven or you can skip the step entirely - I just happen to like my meatballs a little browned:)]
  9. Once meatballs are browned, add to the tomato sauce mixture and let simmer until meatballs are cooked.
  10. Serve over spaghetti squash.
*  Spice blend
Combine together equal parts (probably about 1 tsp each) of the following:
  • Ground Nutmeg
  • Ground Ginger
  • Ground Allspice
  • Ground Fenugreek (methi)
  • Ground Cloves
  • Ground Cinnamon
  • Ground Pepper
  • Sea Salt

1 comment:

  1. Sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing this on Chowstalker. :-)

    ReplyDelete