This meatball recipe riffs on the Palestinian lamb siniyah, a dish of lamb baked with tahini. We've turned the lamb into meatballs and added crushed pine nuts to the tahini sauce for some more texture. To make this a full meal, try piling it all into flatbreads with sumac onions or serve a burghul salad on the side.
Lamb meatballs with tahini and pine nut sauce
A recipe that riffs on the Palestinian lamb siniyah.
- 20 mins preparation
- 7 mins cooking
- Serves 4
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Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Sumac, torn mint leaves and lemon wedges, to serve
Lamb meatballs
- 1 small red onion
- 500 gm finely minced lamb
- 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp ground allspice
Pine nut sauce
- 50 gm pine nuts, coarsely crushed with a mortar and pestle, plus extra whole pine nuts to serve
- 50 gm unhulled tahini
- ½ garlic clove, finely grated
- Finely grated rind of 1 lemon, juice of ½
Method
- 1To make meatballs, finely chop onion in a food processor, scraping down the sides occasionally (1-2 minutes), then add mince, garlic and spices, season to taste, and process until mixture comes together (30 seconds-1 minute). Roll into 12 balls (about 50gm each) with wet hands and refrigerate until required.
- 2For pine nut sauce, whisk ingredients in a jug with 100ml water to combine and season to taste.
- 3Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat, add meatballs and cook, turning occasionally until browned all over and cooked to your liking (6-7 minutes for medium). Spoon pine nut sauce over meatballs in pan so it warms up a little, then sprinkle with sumac, top with mint and extra pine nuts and serve with lemon.