Recipe: Turkey Meatballs with Tomato Chipolte Sauce

I will apologise in advance for:

1. The lack of posts as I have broken my elbow so have had to learn to type one handed, which is not very productive!
2. Spelling errors (see above)
3. The quality of the photos are not great as I took them on my phone, one handed. Lesson learnt & the camera will be brought out for all future pictures!

Turkey Meatballs with Tomato Chipolte Sauce

• Servings: 3-4
• Time: Preparation: 10 mins / Cooking: 25 mins
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

• 500g Turkey Mince
• Breadcrumbs of 2 slices of bread
• 2 red onions
• 1 thinly sliced Orange or Yellow Pepper
• Small bunch of coriander
• 2 garlic cloves (crushed)
• Small packet of passata (400ml / 500g)
• Chipoltes in adobo (you can buy from delis) or store bought chipolte paste

Macros	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein
Per serving, based on 4 servings	315	12	17	28

 

First up is assembling the meatballs. To do this, you need to finely chop the top part of the coriander, leaving the bulk of the stems aside. I used my food processor for this but you can easily use a knife. In terms of how fine, it’s a personal thing as I don’t mind the leaves not being too fine which is how I left them. You will also need to finely chop 1/4 of an onion but I would recommend making this as fine as you can.

Throw together the coriander, onion. turkey mince, breadcrumbs & egg into a large bowl. Using your hands mush together so that it’s all combined.

Once combined, it’s time to roll! Depending on how big you want your meatballs & how many mouths you are feeding, roll the meatballs into even sized balls. The recipe can generate about 16 meatballs, although as you can see on the picture, ours were on the large size!

Using either a little oil or oil spray, brown the meatballs in a frying pan. Set aside once browned.

Put the meatballs aside, finely chop the coriander stalks & finely slice the red onions. Cook these along with the garlic & peppers for 5 minutes.

The next part depends on whether you are using paste or chipoltes and your spice preference. If you’re not a big fan of heat, add a tablespoon of paste or the adobo sauce. If, like us, you like heat, add more. We used chipoltes in adobo & whizzed up 2 of them, along with some sauce to use. Add this along with the passata to the pot.

Add in 100ml of water to the sauce & simmer for 10 minutes.

Throw in the meatballs (not literally or they will break) & make sure they are coated in the sauce. Leave to cook for 5 minutes.

You can serve the meatballs with spaghetti, rice or since they are so full of flavour, you can eat them on their own!

Hanoi Bike Shop

Hanoi Bike Shop has made a name for itself in the West End, occupying the former site of Stravaigin 2 & serving up a range of Vietnamese dishes. It’s somewhere that’s been on my hitlist for a while so we decided to pop along one Saturday night.

The only word to describe the restaurant is quirky. It’s split over 2 levels & filled with lots of bric a brac type artifacts such as wheel spokes, tin cans & metal signs. It all merges together to give the feel that you’re actually eating in a street food shack type place. It’s also pretty cosy, which does have the disadvantage that you can overhear the people next to you without much effort, especially if they’ve had a few!

In terms of dishes, most are of a sharing/tapas size, with 3 or 4 dishes recommended along with a side dish or 2. There is  a wide range of street food dishes ranging from rice paper rolls to sweet potato & soy bean cakes & grilled mince wrapped in betel leaf. The remained of the menu is made up of curry, stews, grills & traditional Vietnamese Pho. I shouldn’t forget to mention that Hanoi Bike Shop also makes all of their tofu in-house – the only restaurant I know who does so!

Given the wide range of dishes as well as the specials on offer, it was really hard narrowing it down to a few dishes to share between us. We first went for the rice paper rolls filled with prawn & omelette. Being naive & never having had rice rolls before, I fully expected them to be similar to spring rolls. When I took a bite & it was a cold, I did get a bit of a shock! However, the roll was filled to the brim & the filling was full of flavour, enhanced by the fresh coriander throughout. The accompanying vinegar chilli dip gave it a bit of a boost.

The remainder of our dishes were:

• Black pudding & salt n pepper squid – this was delicious! The salt n pepper seasoning was not so overpowering that it detracted from the black pudding & complemented it well
• Spiced Pheasant Curry – the flavour of this really reminded me of a massman curry which is my favourite Thai curry. I’ve never had pheasant in a curry before & can say it won’t be the last time!
• Caramelised Sardines – this was a special on the night & the brown sugar caramelisation made the sardines so moreish. However, eating these with chopsticks proved very difficult!
• The side we had were jasmine rice for the curry & seasonal greens wok fried with garlic which were very garlicky

I am a bit gutted that we didn’t try the tofu but there was so much choice that it wasn’t what we felt like on the night. Plus, it gives me an excuse to go back! We only had a glass of wine & a beer with our meal & the total came to just over £40, which was pretty reasonable. The one drawback was that because of where we were seated, we didn’t catch the price of the sardines so were shocked to find out it was £10 for the 4 sardines we ate. A bit pricey in our opinion.

I will definitely be back to Hanoi Bike Shop since there’s so much more on the menu I have to try!

BRGR

Burgers, burgers, burgers – that’s all that seems to be happening with the Glasgow food scene at the moment. I have to admit, when I heard yet another burger joint was opening, my heart sank a bit. But as with any new establishment, I was intrigued to see what they can offer that’s different to others & was happy to be invited along to a blogger event they were holding.

BRGR should not be mixed up with the London chain, BRGR co. The name BRGR actually stands for Black Rabbit Great (Western) Road, keeping the spirit of the prior Black Rabbit premises alive through the name. BRGR is the brainchild of Chris who decided to replace Black Rabbit into a burger place following a flood which ruined much of the interior of Black Rabbit in June.

Although not a large venue, BRGR already has it’s own character that it evident when you walk in. This is in part thanks to the reclaimed furniture & decorations used to kit out the venue. The lights are reclaimed & refurbished, the chairs are old school chairs & my favourite part is the crates used to border the stairs. Not only are these old crates, but they are actually antiques which were handpicked by Chris himself & then broken up to create this amazing structure.

Now down to the food. I’ve actually been talking with a few people about this since I visited BRGR. When you go to a burger place, you often find it’s either the burger itself or the overall package that seals the deal for you. For me, BRGR won me over with the overall package. The menu is relatively small, with 8 burgers ( 3 beef, 2 chicken, 1 lamb & 1 veggie), a kid’s menu & a host of sides. Some thought has went into the burger names to give them a quirky, tongue in cheek name such as “A Special O’Cajun”, “The Shroom with a Pew” & my favourite, “The Barbie…Ken?”.

I opted for “The Hot Coo”, which as the name suggests was their spicier offering with a spicy beef patty, salami, cheese, chipolte mayo, roast jalapenos & salad. The patty itself was slightly salty, which I quite liked & was clearly made from steak mince as it was a bit meatier than other burgers I had. The salami again was slightly salty but has such a nice, almost smokey flavour to it that it nicely accompanied the chipolte mayo. My favourite part of it was the use of fresh jalapenos. Most restaurants think nothing of opening a jar & flinging on a few pickled jalapenos & charging £1+ for it but BRGR have went the extra mile, using fresh ingredients.

Now the sides, where do I start? There are loads to choose from- fries to wings to slaw & salad – & we were lucky to try all of them. The stand-out sides for me were:

• Sweet Potato Fries – crispy yet fluffy & pre seasoned. Possibly the best I’ve ever tasted
• Onion Rings – the batter was like, almost tempura like & it didn’t fall apart as soon as you bit into it
• Corn on the Cob with Jalapeno Butter – you may automatically think it would be spicy because of the jalapeno butter but it actually provided a nice, sweet & smokey flavour that worked so well with the natural sweetness of the corn
• Coleslaw – another place that has put a lot of thought & refinement into their coleslaw recipe. It is creamy with a hint of garlic which makes it stand out from the rest

As you can tell I was really impressed with BRGR & the amount of thought that has went into each element of every dish they have. But it doesn’t end there! No, they also have created a “Hawder”, which if you’re Scottish, is as it sounds, it’s a holder for your burger to stop it falling out & your hands getting so messy. A total ingenious invention & worked a treat!! Their milkshakes also deserve a mention – 4 scoops of Crolla ice cream with some milk, with flavours from traditional vanilla & chocolate to modern classics such as kinder & cookies & cream (Oreo) available, not to mention some boozy options with spirits such as Kahlua & Kraken Rum.

Given its location, I think BRGR has a promising future as there are no dedicated burger outlets in that area of the West End, given Ketchup is a good 15-20 mins walk away. Coupled with the fact that they do take away, it is sure to be a hit with local businesses for lunch time munchies! I’m already planning my next trip as I have to try the cajun chicken burger (I have a slight obsession)!