As all 15 of you know, I made way too many meatballs last week, and I ran the risk of over-salting my blood if I continued eating Swedish meatballs all week, so I replaced salt with low sodium soy sauce, and bing bang kitchen magic: spicy Thai peanut sauce meatballs in bowls of rice with pickled veggies and lime-tossed peanuts, or at least that's the nonsense name I gave it. It has nothing to do with actual Thai food. It's basically just spicy with a little bit of sweetness like most Thai food. But it doesn't have any fish sauce or shrimp paste or any of that stuff, so it's basically American food. Anyway, it's good.
Butter Count: 1 Tbsp
INGREDIENTS:
Canola oil
3/4 cup brown onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 tsp salt, separated
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp fennel seeds, roughly chopped
pinch crushed red pepper
Cooking Spray
1 1/4 lb lean ground beef
3/4 lb lean ground pork
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 1/2 Tbsp sugar
1 cup shaved carrot ribbons
1 cup radish, thinly sliced
4 Tbsp cilantro, finely chopped
3/4 Tbsp beef stock
1 1/2 Tbsp gluten-free soy sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp sriracha
1 1/2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
1 Tbsp
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups white rice
4 Tbsp peanuts, chopped
2 Limes
DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat about 2 Tbsp canola oil over medium heat. Add the next 6 ingredients (through crushed red pepper (only 1 tsp salt)) and cook about 10 minutes, stirring often, until the onions are tender. Remove from heat and cool completely.
2. Line two baking sheets with foil and spray generously with cooking spray. Gently mix the cooled onion mixture and meat in a bowl. Shape the mixture into about 16 small balls and place them onto they baking sheets.
3. Preheat the broiler. Broil the meatballs about 9 minutes, switching racks half way through, until all of the meatballs are cooked all the way through and browned on top.
4. Add the vinegar, water, and sugar to a saucepan and bring to a light boil. Remove from heat and add the carrot ribbons (I used a vegetable peeler to ribbon the carrots) and sliced radishes. Let stand for 20 minutes, tossing halfway through. Drain the mixture and toss the cilantro into it.
5. While the carrots and radishes pickle, add the rice to a rice cooker bucket and add water until the rice is covered by 1 inch. Turn the rice cooker on and allow the rice to cook according to the rice cooker's instructions.
6. Add the beef stock, soy sauce, sriracha, peanut butter, butter, garlic, and cooked meatballs to a small pot. Toss the meatballs to coat, and cook over medium-high heat, covered about 5 minutes. Cook over high heat, about 3 more minutes, until the sauce boils and thickens. Roughly cut the meatballs in half with a spoon, re-toss in the sauce, and remove to a separate bowl.
7. Add the chopped peanuts to a small bowl and squeeze half of a lime over them. Drain them.
8. Add the rice evenly to four bowls. Pour the 1/4 of the sauce over each bowl. Top each bowl with 1/4 of the carrot-radish mixture as well as 8 meatball halves. Sprinkle 1 Tbsp of the chopped peanuts over each bowl. Serve each bowl with 2 lime wedges.