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I’ve got an easy recipe for delicious ginger, garlic, lime and cilantro Asian meatballs with coconut rice here today. My starting point for this recipe was a pound of beef from the round that I had in the fridge and didn’t know what to do with. Beef round cuts are very tough so I knew I had to resort to extreme measures and that extreme measure was the food processor. I just ground it all up and voila, the toughness problem was solved.
Next, the flavor. I like to marinate beef in soy sauce, ginger, garlic, lime juice and cilantro but instead of marinating, I just mixed all that good stuff into the beef here (I soaked the lime juice into bread cubes along with some milk, a trick I learned from America’s Test Kitchen). For a little bit of heat I fried these guys in chili pepper-infused vegetable oil. I served some coconut rice (recipe courtesy of the Food Network) to go along and altogether got a fantastic meal.
More delicious Asian-inspired recipes:
- Spicy Edamame
- Asian Noodle Salad
- Stir Fry Sauce
- Sweet and Sour Ginger Roasted Mushrooms
- Thai Chicken Curry
- Cold Sesame Noodles
- Fried Coconut Rice with Shrimp
- Ginger-Glazed Bok Choy with Tofu and Noodles
- Ginger Lime Cilantro Chicken Wings
- Hot and Sour Soup
- Chicken Noodle Stir Fry
- Sesame Tofu
- Shrimp Coconut Curry
- Shrimp Coconut Soup
- Steak Stir Fry
Asian Meatballs
Ingredients:
For the coconut rice:
- 1/2 cup jasmine rice, white or brown
- water
- coconut milk
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
For the meatballs:
- 1 pound beef, from the round
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon lime juice
- 2 slices sandwich bread
- 1/3 cup finely chopped cilantro
- 4 teaspoons soy sauce
- 2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
- 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
- 1 egg
- 5 dried chili peppers, whole
- 1-2 tablespoons peanut oil or vegetable oil
Instructions:
For the coconut rice:
- Cook the rice according to package instructions but substitute 1/3 of the water with coconut milk.
For the meatballs:
- Cut the beef into about 1-inch cubes and put in the freezer for 20 minutes to make it easier to process.
- Meanwhile mix milk and lime juice together in a large bowl, cut the sandwich bread into 1/2-inch cubes and soak in the milk mix for 10 minutes.
- Take the beef out of the freezer and process in a food processor until you have finely ground beef.
- Mash up the soaked bread cubes with a fork.
- Mix the beef into the bread.
- Mix cilantro, soy sauce, garlic, ginger and egg into the beef/bread mix.
- Form small meatballs (about 1.5 inches in diameter).
- Heat vegetable oil and dried chili peppers in a cast iron pan until the oil is shimmering.
- Fry the meatballs until crispy and brown on the outside and cooked on the inside.
Nutrition
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MINOUCHKA:
Amazing good! Similar to my old quick recipe with ground turkey. I bake my meatballs au lieu of frying, and served them over the coconut rice garnished all with chopped cilantro and crushed garlic for extra taste. It was a YUMMY meal and/or served for cocktails! Thanks Nicole for bringing back this great recipe, and which I have shared many times.
So lovely to hear that, thank you so much! :)
is a perfectly prepared so as flavors and the texture. thanks for the recipe
Nicole,
I always love seeing your gorgeous work! You create the perfect lighting, every time. Love love love this shoot. And obviously this recipe sounds just as delicious!
Thank you so much, Aubrie! :)
What a delicious idea! I love the use of coconut rice, especially with all those Asian flavors.
Thank you, Amy! :)
Love asian meatballs and often make them – never thought to serve them with coconut rice before though. What a delicious idea!
Thank you, Thalia! :)
I almost broke my laptop reaching in to grab one of those babies….this is my kind of flavours!! My kind of food!!
You probably get sick of hearing me say this but I love your photo…as usual….in particular, I like that this one is pulled back compared to most that you share which is basically just you showing off the breadth of your skills ;) Thanks for the tips as well!
Aw, thank you, Nagi! (I actually would have liked to step back even further here but couldn’t because the metal tray in the background wasn’t wide enough). :)
Oh my do these look amazing! I love the flavors in the meatballs and to serve them over coconut rice is just perfect.
I did really like the coconut rice with these too. Thanks so much for coming by, Marissa! :)