Lamb meatballs over cucumber yogurt sauce
A Middle Eastern-ish dish for summer, if summer ever arrives
I’m not a chef, and I’ll be the first person to tell you that. It’s an important distinction, I think, because chefs have been carefully taught the correct way to do things, and I have not. While a chef can easily explain elegant-sounding French cooking techniques and carefully explain the difference between a chop and a dice and a mince, I’m one to turn to Google for help or, more often, just go on assumptions.
Instead of culinary school, I learned how to cook from the school of Food Network. My professors had unfamiliar names and extravagant personalities: Emeril Lagasse, Ina Garten, Giada de Lauretiis, and Sandra Lee. “Bam” and “garbage bowl” were the vernacular that permeated my early forays into cooking, alongside words I picked up in my own family’s kitchens: “achki chap,” or an eye’s worth, and “meg tuhkal” meaning one spoon, the size of which was always a mystery.
I’m lucky in that I grew up in a house where cooking was an everyday ritual and I was able to meld the TV-taught techniques (I truly will never forget my father’s reaction the first time I chopped an onion by first slicing it horizontally and then vertically) with real-life observations. I saw my mother make substitutions on the fly, I saw my grandmother eyeball ingredients. I always say I learned by osmosis because watching the natural way the cooks in my life moved around the kitchen taught me to enjoy and respect the process in a way that a recipe never has.
As I grew up and began cooking for myself, I found that I preferred to forego ingredient lists for cravings and instructions for intuition. My cooking style is now based mostly on these two things. What I make and how I will make it is governed by my mood, the seasons, the time of the day. Cooking is an art, and art is always up for interpretation, and doesn’t that just make being in the kitchen a little more fun?
That being said, there are a few loose rules I have defined along the way that tend to make their way into more dishes than not. Let’s call them directions for deliciousness.
A sauce improves almost everything. While some dishes can stand on their own, I think most can benefit from a dip into something. Chicken is all the more delectable when bold, creamy toum is added, a taco is nothing without salsa, and even the best soups can become better when something herbaceous or acidic (or both) is swirled in.
More textures = more fun. A sandwich with just soft things – deli meat, cheese, tomatoes, hummus – is not the same as a sandwich with all of these things, plus a pile of crisp iceberg lettuce and a good sprinkle of crunchy shredded carrots. And on the other side of the spectrum, a slaw with just celery is not as pleasurable to me as, say, a slaw with celery and avocado. The same can be said about hot and cold, because while both are good on their own, the combination creates something that satisfies on a cellular, soul-ullar level.
Lastly, layers. If I had to define my cooking style, it would probably be things on top of things. Veggies on top of grains, salads on top of proteins, and, of course, sauces on top of, or below, everything.
Which brings me to today’s recipe: lamb meatballs over minty cucumber yogurt. It’s got a sauce, a hot and a cold element, a softer main with a creamy-crunchy counterpart, and things on top of things. In other words, it’s got it all – at least according to me.
Lamb Meatballs Over Cucumber Yogurt Sauce
These meatballs combine some elements of Italian meatballs with decidedly Middle Eastern flavors, plus a few techniques I learned from my mother-in-law. I wouldn’t call it fusion, because I hate that word, so let’s just call it Middle Eastern-ish (another term I would handily use to define my cooking style).
My mother-in-law, who was Armenian but grew up in Azerbaijan during the Soviet Union, was known for her cutlets. These meat patties are a staple in many Slavic households, and there are as many variations as there are cooks. Most people who tried Zhasya’s would agree, though, that hers were the best. Light, fluffy, moist, and jam-packed with flavor. The secret? Onion. Grated onion tenderizes the meat, she told me, and a light hand when forming the patties ensures they don’t get too compacted and tough.
Unlike Italian meatballs, this recipe calls for a slice of bread soaked in milk – another trick I picked up from my mother-in-law and her cutlets. If you don’t have milk, use water instead (she usually did).
The warm, juicy meatballs are baked in the oven for ultimate ease and served atop a cucumber yogurt sauce, which is the perfect juxtaposition. In Armenian, we call this sauce jajukh, and it’s very similar to tzatziki. It’s simple in its ingredients but the taste is so vibrant and punchy. You can use Greek yogurt or labneh, but dried mint is essential here – it just doesn’t have the same taste with fresh, in my opinion.
This dish was inspired by one I had at Botanica in Silver Lake a few years back. The meatballs are no longer on their hyper-seasonal, ever-changing menu, but they have been on my mind ever since. And if the weather in LA ever cooperates, I think these would make the perfect summertime meal alongside some rice or french fries, lots of fluffy, warm pita bread, and a big salad.
For the meatballs
1 pound ground lamb
1 pound ground beef
1 slice bread (I used Dave’s)
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 cup mint, finely chopped
1/4 cup dill, finely chopped
1/2 white onion, grated or processed in food processor
2 eggs
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Add the slice of bread and the milk to a small bowl and let the bread soak for 5-10 minutes until it has absorbed some of the liquid and is very soft and almost falling apart. Add the bread to the beef and lamb along with the rest of the ingredients, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper. Mix everything well with your hands, and then cook a small amount in a pan to see if it needs any more salt.
Form the mixture into 2-tablespoon balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, then broil for 2 more minutes to get a nice brown color. (Internal temp should be 160.)
A couple notes:
For the herbs and onion, I usually blitz them in a small food processor to ensure everything is nice and chopped.
If you don’t like lamb, you can use all beef or sub in pork (or use all lamb!). I have not tried this recipe with ground chicken or turkey yet.
This recipe yielded 28 meatballs for me. I always end up freezing some for easy toddler meals – they keep well in the freezer and Sasha loves them!
If you’re going to be serving all of the meatballs at once, you’ll likely want to double the sauce.
For the cucumber yogurt sauce
1 cup finely chopped cucumbers
2 garlic cloves, microplaned, crushed, or made into a paste using mortar and pestle
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried mint
1 1/4 cup Greek yogurt or labneh
Mix all ingredients together. If you prefer a looser sauce, you can add a little cold water.
To assemble, add a big swoosh of the sauce onto a plate and top with the meatballs. Finish with fresh herbs and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.