Saucy Asian Meatballs recipe

There was a day in early December last year that involved a small round turning table, a batch of beautifully styled Saucy Asian Meatballs from Ali's Gimme Some Oven blog, one of my favourite white serving plates, our beautiful white and heavy cotton living room curtains, and our almost-two-year-old son Aksel. I don't want to go into details, but let me assure you that when you immediately remove those curtains and tuck them immediately into your washing machine, the sticky sauce consisting of hoisin sauce and dark soy sauce does wash off. Eventually.

And luckily, the recipe makes loads. So even if you have to throw half of the saucy meatballs away, as the tiny shards of your favourite serving plate and white sesame seeds are almost indistinguishable from each other, and we're not really encouraging eating stuff off the floor in our household anyway, then you still have enough to eat - and photograph - as well.

These have a pretty strong flavour, so they're more for nibbling than consuming in huge quantities.

Saucy Asian Meatballs* 
(Aasia lihapallid) 
Source: Gimme Some Oven
Serves about 8



Meatballs:
1 kg mince (I used a mixture of beef and pork)
2 tsp sesame oil
250 ml (1 cup) panko breadcrumbs
1 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
1 Tbsp grated garlic
100 ml / 7 Tbsp finely chopped scallions/spring onions
0.5 tsp salt

Sauce:
175 ml hoisin sauce
4 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp grated garlic
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp sesame oil

Garnish:
white sesame seeds
finely chopped scallions/spring onions

Preheat oven to 200C/400F.

Mix together the meatball ingredients in a big bowl. Shape into balls about 3 cm (just over 1 inch). Place onto a greased baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until meatballs are golden brown and cooked through.

Meanwhile, whisk together all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl until well blended.

Once the meatballs are cooked, dip them into the sauce until covered.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds and scallions/spring onions and serve warm.

* I have to thank Estonian food blogger Juta, who reminded me about these meatballs earlier today :)

Roasted pork fillet, Malaysian style

I finally got lucky and bought a nice piece of pork fillet from the Puddledub Pork & Fifeshire Bacon Co at the farmers' market last weekend. Usually I never make it to the market early enough, you see, and although the stallholder has offered to put some aside if I ask him too, I haven't taken up the offer yet. The market takes place on Saturday mornings, after all, and sometimes staying in bed until noon is just too tempting.. The pork fillet led to this exotic (to an Estonian, at least) pork dish. It was easy to make, and the I loved the subtle sweet heat of the roasted pork, and the pink tenderness of it. I altered the marinade a little, adding some lemongrass, and replacing sugar with the Hummingbird Sweet Chilli Sauce from Scotland's enterprising wunderkind Fraser Doherty's Doherty's Preserves. I served the whole lot with sprouting broccoli again.

Malaysian BBQ Pork
(Ahjus röstitud malaisiapärane seafilee)
Adapted from pure points 2 cookbook
Serves 4



~ 500 gram of pork fillet, trimmed of all fat

For the marinade:
1 Tbsp honey
150 ml dark soy sauce (I used Kikkoman)
50 ml medium-dry sherry
150 ml stock (I used Marigold Swiss vegetable stock powder)
1 Tbsp sweet chilli sauce
1 cm piece of fresh ginger, finely sliced
1 shallot onion, finely chopped
1 lemongrass (outer layers removed), finely chopped

For the garnish:
chopped spring onion (optional)

Mix all the marinade ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. Let cool.
Put the pork fillet in a shallow dish, cover with marinade and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. Turn the meat every now and then to ensure even flavouring.
Take the pork fillet out of the marinade, reserving the marinade.
Place the meat on a rack over a roasting tin, and pour about 1 cm boiling water into the tin to keep the moisture.
(Note the inventive use of Christmas cookie cutters in the absence of roasting rack in my kitchen).
Put the roasting tin into the oven, and roast in the middle of a 200°C oven for about 30-40 minutes, basting with marinade half way through.
Meanwhile, strain the marinade into a small saucepan, bring the liquid to the boil and simmer for about 15 minutes, until the marinade has reduced by about 1/3.
Serve the sliced pork (either hot or cold) on a bed of slightly steamed bok choy, spinach or sprouting broccoli. Drizzle some reduced marinade on top.

Being adventurous with sea bass

I get most of my fish from Eddie's Seafood Market in Marchmont, Edinburgh - a delightful little place with amazing choice of fish - filleted, whole, even still swimming in a tank. A true heaven for fish-lover. However, being a relatively recent convert to the joys and benefits of fish, I usually end up buying salmon. Tasty - but a bit boring. Sometimes I get haddock instead. Always filleted. The woman (fishmongress?) that serves me pretty much offers me salmon fillets before I even ask for it. I keep jokingly promising her that I'll try something new next time.

Today I was brave and asked for a whole sea bass - cleaned and gutted, that is. This was quite a big step - I bought a fish I hadn't bought before, and I bought the whole fish as opposed to plain fillets. A quick web-search yielded this lovely recipe for lightly flavoured oven-steamed seabass. A very nice and subtle ginger and soy flavour, the almost creamy texture of the fish (and very few annoying bones to my utmost delight), this was a simple but festive dish to serve. Another definite keeper. Sometimes it just pays to be a bit more adventurous after all..

Oven-steamed sea bass with ginger and spring onions
(Idamaine meriahven ingveri ja talisibulaga)
Adapted from Epicurious, Menus, February 2006
Serves 2



800 gram whole sea bass, cleaned
0.5 tsp salt
1 bunch spring onions
2-3 cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and julienned
3 Tbsp Kikkoman soy sauce
0.25 tsp sugar

Prepare the spring onions. Cut the white and pale green parts into very thin 5 cm strips. Put the green parts aside (you need them later).
Rub the cleaned and gutted fish with salt inside and out. Put into a large baking dish, and the dish in a large roasting pan.
Cover the fish with julienned spring onion and ginger. Mix the sugar and soy sauce and pour over the fish as well.
Fill the roasting pan with boiling water, so it reaches half-ways up side of baking dish.
Cover the whole lot (both the baking dish with the fish and the roasting tin with the baking dish) with foil, sealing the edges tightly, so no steam can escape.
Put onto the middle position in a preheated 200°C oven and oven-steam for 30-35 minutes, until the fish is cooked through.
To serve, remove the foil and sprinkle with sliced spring onions (the green bit).
Serve with boiled rice.

Oh - and the dessert was whipped cream, strongly flavoured with lemon juice and zest (2 Nice lemons per 284 ml double cream), sweetened with icing sugar. So simple, and yet so lovely.

Oriental salmon with honey, mustard and soy sauce

Photo and post updated in October 2010.

The recipe is from an Australian guy Emlyn, one of the first friends I made when I arrived in Edinburgh back in 1998. It is effortless and easy and a wee bit different, successfully combining the sweetness of the honey, the warm heat of the ginger, the saltiness of soy sauce, the kick of the mustard and the sharpness of the garlic. Very tasty indeed.

Oriental salmon á la Emlyn
(Idamaine ahjulõhe mee, sinepi ja sojakastmega)
Serves 4, can be easily halved


Photo and post updated in December 2008.

4 skinless salmon fillets, á 125-150 grams

For the marinade:
2 Tbsp mustard (I use Coleman's English mustard, but any strong mustard would do)
2 tsp minced fresh ginger or a teaspoon of ground
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
4 Tbsp runny honey
2 Tbsp Kikkoman soy sauce

Mix all the marinade ingredients in a small oven dish. Add the fish fillets, turn to cover and leave to marinate for 20 minutes to 1 hour.
Bake in a pre-heated 200˚C oven for about 20 minutes, until the fish is cooked, but still nicely rosy pink in the middle.

Serve with boiled basmati rice and sliced courgettes sautéed in butter and olive oil and a bit of garlic (add one whole clove to the pan), with a generous handful of chopped fresh basil thrown in at the end. Season with salt and pepper. I can't really explain why, but whereas I usually prefer my vegetables still a bit crunchy, then this courgette side dish I like to be almost mushy (texture-wise, not look-wise).