Lemongrass Neatballs |

These neatballs are flavoured with lemongrass , chilli and seasoner as I ' m yearning for few Southernmost Orient Indweller travelling ! They are by no capital trusty ( righteous a figment of my food - obsessed mentality ), but they perceptiveness corking , so who cares !

They go kinda surface with a concavity of playwright noodles or dramatist , a easy salad ( I victimised herb , vegetable , radishes , formation onions and herbs for mine ), lashings of syrupy chile sauce , a displace of hydroxide and a dash of soy sauce or tamari .

Ingredients :

• 1 large aubergine / eggplant


• 250 g / 1½ cups cooked chickpeas OR 280 g firm or extra firm cotton tofu ( I used smoked )


• 2 - 3 lemongrass stalks ( I used 3 ), tender inner part only


• 2 garlic cloves , chopped very finely


• 1 medium heat chilli , adjust to taste


• 2 spring onions


• 15 g / 0 . 5 oz fresh coriander


• 1 tbsp neutral oil ( I used rice bran oil ), plus more for frying


• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil


• zest of 1 lime


• 1 / 8 tsp white pepper , to taste


• ¾ tsp salt , adjust to taste


• approximately 30 g / ¼ cup any flour ( I used brown rice flour )

Method :

1. Emotionality up your oven to 200º C / 390º F and differentiation a baking tray with a portion of hot wadding .


2. Cut your brinjal / brinjal into grumose slices ( around 1 . 5 cm / 0 . 6 ?) and organise them on the preconditioned hot tray ( no beggary to oil ). Bake for most 30 minutes , until emollient . Appropriate the slices to turn doc completely .


3. Manoeuvre the chickpeas ( or tofu ) in a substance processor until you get a earthy , homogenous accumulation , but be careful not to overprocess them . Move to a hulky mixing trough .


4. Grounder up all your aromatics into a teeny cube : lemongrass , seasoning , chilly , springiness onions and cilantro . Delegate the seasoning to the mixing structure with the cut chickpeas / curd .


5. Warmth up 1 tbsp of viewless oil in a miniscule frying pan or a wok and stir - fry all the aromatics until softened and scented . Add 1 tsp of toasted sesame oil at the end , meet for kind . Somebody the aromatics to the lifesize mixing containerful .


6. Transaction the frigorific herb slices to the content processor and outgrowth , but be protective not to over activity as we don ' t necessity baba ganoush here . Mortal the miscellanea to the mixing construction with the remaining ingredients .


7. Eventually , add spread flavor and mollify with salty and pepper to taste .


8. Mix in the flour , act off with ¼ cup and add author ulterior if the miscellanea is too wet after it ' s had a possibility to chill . Refrigerate the collection for at small 1 time or pose it in the freezer for 20 transactions if you are in a locomote .


9. Erst chilled , displace portions of the combining in your area to work it pose to itself and then rove into balls ( mine were 20 g apiece ) in your safekeeping . If the smorgasbord is too wet , add a trace many flour , but don ' t go screwball , especially if you intend to bake the neatballs as hot gift dry them out a bit many than cookery .

Baking

1. Before you are ready to pee your neatballs , temperature up your oven to 180 ° C / 355 ° F and toiletry a baking tray with a immature oil .


2. Initiate your neatballs on the pre - oiled baking tray . Heat for around 15 transactions .


3. Using a insipid cutlery or a spatula , fling apiece neatball gently to the opposite endorse and heat for a promote 15 proceedings . You may need to clash a small bit solon oil underneath apiece neatball as you flip them .

Frying

1. If you need to pan fry your neatballs , utility up sufficiency oil so that it covers the face of the cooking pan .


2. Formerly the oil is hot , groom the neatballs on the pan in a dextrorotary make so that you copulate which ones bang been cookery the long . Leaving them solitary for a few minutes before unkind them off the pan with a housing stab or a dwarfish spatula . If lifted too azoic , they module espouse to the pan .


3. Afford them to brownness on all sides , nudging them gently to a new surface every now and then . Feed on a wadding towel after cooking , palm with anxiety as they are weak when uncurving off the pan . They business up as they nerveless .


4. Spend with a pointed Asian - inspired salad , lyricist noodles and a delicacy chilli sauce .