Lamb meatball supper with dill yogurt

Serves: 6
Course: Main Course
Cooking Time: 0 hr 40 mins
Ingredients
  • 80g breadcrumbs
  • 450g lamb mince
  • 1 onion, roughly chopped
  • 1tbs dill
  • 1tbs mint leaves
  • ½tsp harissa paste, or more to taste
  • 1 egg
  • 2 small red onion, cut into 8 with base intact
  • 2 large potatoes
  • 1 sweet potato
  • 1 handful of mixed olives
  • 1 lemon
  • 50g feta cheese
  • Extra mint leaves, to garnish
  • 160ml Greek yogurt
  • 1tsp finely chopped dill
  • 1 clove garlic, crushed

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Place the breadcrumbs, lamb mince, white onion, herbs, egg and harissa into a food processor with 1 scant teaspoon of sea salt. Blitz untill combined. You want to keep some texture and not have it like a paste. You could also finely chop everything and mix well in a bowl by hand. Shape tablespoons of the mixture into 18 balls.

Drizzle a tray with a little oil and arrange the meatballs evenly on top.

Roughly cube the potatoes, no need to peel. Place these, with the red onion wedges on another tray and drizzle with oil. Season with salt and place both trays into the oven to bake for 40 minutes. Turn the meatballs halfway through. If you have a tray large enough to take all of the vegetables and meatballs then place them all on that, just don’t overcrowd the tray as nothing will be able to cook if air can’t circulate.

Mix the crushed garlic and dill with the yogurt along with a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Cut the remaining lemon into wedges to serve with the meatballs. Once everything is cooked place the vegetables onto a serving dish and top with the meatballs. Scatter with roughly chopped mint leaves, feta and olives. Tuck a few wedges of lemon in for squeezing over and serve with the dill yogurt.

Lilly Higgins

Lilly Higgins

Lilly Higgins, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a food writer