Fresh herb and juniper berry meatballs

Let me tell you about my favorite meatball recipe. My mom has always put juniper berries in our meatballs and it tastes so good. I have added a few more herbs to my recipe and removed the grains (oats, flour and bread crumbs).

Recipe - makes about 55 meatballs

4 lbs of meat - I use half beef, half pork
2 onion, peeled
6+ tbs chopped fresh herbs - oregano and thyme
9 finely grated carrots
35 dried juniper berries. You can get them at Bristol Farms or here
1/2 cup of almond flour
2 eggs
1 cup of water
4-5 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp pepper

Mix everything well, form 2 inch balls and flatten and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment/baking paper and bake 20 minutes at 400F (200C).

Give them a quick fry on the pan before serving to deepen the color and add a bit of caramelization to the outside.

First I ground the meat. I have been grinding my own meat for about a year now and oh what a difference it makes. Once you have tasted the difference between meat you grind yourself and the ground meat from the store, you will start questioning what they put in it. If is so much better tasting when you grind it yourself.

I wrote a whole post about how to grind your own meat.

I love to use fresh herbs. I rinsed the herbs and picked the leaves from the stems, then chopped the leaves finely.

Next, I peeled some carrots and grated them in the food processor using the fine grating disc.

I took out some dried juniper berries and chopped them very, very, very finely. They have a bit of a woody feel to them, so they have to be really finely minced.

I added the almond flower and a couple of eggs.

I added about one tsp salt and half a tsp of ground pepper per pound of meat. I then added another tsp of salt and a half tsp ground pepper for the carrots and other ingredients.

Then I added a cup of water and mixed everything together with a spoon.

Then I made patties and patted them flat so they are easier to fry on the pan later. In to the oven they go.



The meatballs will come out a bit pale looking. They a bit under cooked which is on purpose. This is what makes them great for freezing. They are just cooked through, but when you re-thaw and fry them up, they don't end up burnt-looking.

I cool them in the fridge, usually until the next day, then put them in Green N Pack Freezer Slider Bags which are BPA, PVC and phthalates free. Then I and freeze them.

On the day that I make them, I fry up three for each of us, but on the other days, we usually only eat two each. Depends.

Since it is so much work to make these, I take comfort in the fact that I just made meatballs for at least seven dinners. And then I serve them with a simple salad like this one.

And that's my meatball recipe without any funny business in them.

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