Mince (Again)

Man, I wish I'd had this recipe at the start of lockdown, when I was nearly out of tinned tomatoes but had more chickpeas than any one woman needs.

I probably did have it (it's from Kitchen Basics), but it wasn't on my list. Is now, and will stay. It's another flexible and forgiving one, loosely based on an Algerian dish but not pretending authenticity. There's plenty you could swap here, aside from the fact it's for any red mince.

Algerian Meatballs with chickpeas

Meatballs are mince (lamb or beef), mixed with 3 cloves garlic, 1tsp cumin, plenty of seasoning and an egg. For 400g meat it's making 20 medium meatballs - goodness knows what I had, but it made 14 non-monstrous nuggets. These need batch browning in a biggish frying pan - which is the only pan you'll need, hurrah.

Then it's back to sweating off a chopped onion till soft, and cheeringly brown thanks to reusing the meatball pan. Add in 3 more chopped cloves of garlic, 1tsp cumin, 2tsps sweet paprika, 1tsp turmeric, a tin of chickpeas, big squeeze of tomato paste, stir it all well.

My camera corrected the colour on this, but believe me, it's very turmeric yellow

Add water to cover the meatballs (only nearly in my case, but I turned them halfway and it was fine).

Bring to a simmer and give it 20 mins. You may need to boil off the sauce after this but mine evaporated nicely.

Finish with loads of chopped parsley and sliced almonds. Could definitely taste both, so I'd endorse the faffy garnish 100%.

Serve with salad (or courgettes in fact, because I have a billion of them) and orange wedges, which definitely added something too.

This was good, and not too lavish. I'd accidentally gone overboard earlier with a fabulous but extreme Asado burger. Same cookbook, same chapter, but a whoooole other feel. It was gorgeous, but a bit overmuch for a random Tuesday. Still, putting chimmichurri on your burgers I would endorse. And likewise Nigella's salt and vinegar roast potatoes.

It's the first Thursday of demi-lockdown without an NT live, which means one of the anchors of my lockdown calendar has gone. But the other one is going strong (It's Thursday, therefore I've opened the wine). Reading my London borough's new infection control plan and hoping, hoping. we don't need to use it. Damned if I can see how it'll work for a commuter who crosses three boroughs to work and two others to get into town. To take a non-random example. Wish us luck in unlockdown, folks.