curried chicken meatballs + yoghurt dipping sauce

I am not a patient person. So I'm often deterred from rolling things into little balls (unless it's bliss balls or a dessert, in which case I suck it up). So why the meatball recipe? Well, these are baked. You roll them into balls, place on a tray, then it's into the oven and that's it. No fiddling around trying to turn them in a frypan without breaking them (which usually leaves me cursing).

The meatballs are nice warm or cold, so handy as a starter dish if you're having a dinner party. I also pick at them from the fridge as a snack or post-workout protein source. Leftovers are also good thrown into a roast vegetable salad, with some of the yoghurt sauce drizzled on top. If you can't do dairy, you could use tahini in place of the yoghurt.

To make the meatballs, I use free-range chicken thigh mince (from Cannings Free Range Butchers) and Ayam Curry Powder. I'm a fan of Ayam Curry Powder because it doesn't contain any fillers, preservatives, sugar or MSG (which can often be found in off-the-shelf spice mixes). It just contains coriander seed, dried chilli, aniseed, cumin seed, turmeric, cinnamon, star anise, white pepper, fenugreek, nutmeg and cardamom. I keep a tin of it in my pantry for times when I can't be bothered concocting my own mix of spices.

ingredients

For the meatballs

• 500g free-range chicken mince
• 2 tsp curry powder or spice mix
• 1 egg
• pinch of sea salt

For the yoghurt sauce

• 1/2 cup thick Greek or natural yoghurt, organic if possible
• 1/4 - 1/2 clove of garlic
• squeeze of lemon juice
• sea salt

preparation

1. Preheat your oven to 200�C and line a baking tray with baking paper.  

2. To make the meatballs, mix the mince, curry powder, egg and sea salt in a large bowl until everything is well combined. I start off with a spoon and then get my hands in there to really massage it all together. Wet your hands first so they don't get too sticky. 

3. Roll the mixture into balls (about a tablespoon of mixture per ball) and place on the tray. I wet my hands after rolling every couple of balls to stop the mixture from sticking to my hands.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until browned.

5. To make the yogurt sauce, tip the yoghurt into a bowl and grate or crush about a 1/4 clove of garlic into the bowl. Go easy on the garlic to start with, as it can sneak up on you. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and pinch of sea salt and stir together. Taste and add more garlic, lemon juice and sea salt if needed.