Indian Tamarind-Fennel Tomato Sauce with Vegetarian Meatballs

I want to premise this with the fact that I never watch the Food Network. There was a point in the first year of my masters degree at Mcgill University when if I was having a really long day and desperately needed caffeine or a break I would go to Cafe ArtJava for a cinnamon tea and sit in the back and watch the LCD television screens permanently turned to the food network, and just stare in wonder at the bright colour of southern chicken or Mexican salsa for an hour. But I’ve never even seen more than two minutes of Iron Chef before exclaiming, “this is complete junk,” and changing the channel.

As I work from home from my computer, however, I sometimes trick myself into working by letting my toosh rest on my sofa in front of the television. Like background music – meant to be ignored – sometimes the food network is the best thing to have on when you have to get something done. Only if there’s absolutely nothing else on, of course, or it’s a program called Spice Goddess and they’re doing three Indian recipes in 30 minutes. The female host skips all the prep time, and she uses a lot of pre-ground spices (thus making it far inferior to my favourite podcast Poh’s Kitchen), but the videography is beautiful and I do love learning more about Indian cooking.

Except it seems this show has either such a large budget requirement or such a small following that there aren’t many episodes, because I watched this episode once with curried meatballs and then turned on the TV a few days later, happy to find that the show was back on, but it was the same episode. The second time was the push I needed to try her recipe for beef meatballs. Except that she mentioned that growing up her family was vegetarian and had made it with grated turnip or zucchini, and I happened to have a giant turnip sitting in my fridge, slowly dying.

Coincidence? Karma? Dharma?

Convenient, either way.

So you can make this with ground meat or poultry but you can also make it a whole lot lighter with turnip or zucchini. The turnip is okay. the zucchini would be better but it seems like a waste of zucchini or summer squash since they’re so expensive and the tamarind-fennel tomato sauce is very overpowering. It’s a great use of tomato, though, and over noodles could even be called almost slightly Italian. Heck, you could make it with zucchini noodles for a hilarious vegetarian restaurant joke of a meal. I probably would…

Reasons to make this with meat:

1. It’s easier. Meat comes pre-ground in packages. Turnips do not. God forbid all you have is a cheese grater. You’ll be swearing and sweating by the end of it.

2. Meat has more flavour. Fat = flavour

Reasons to make this without meat:

1. You have a giant turnip sitting in your fridge

2. You’re vegetarian

3. Turnips are less expensive and more sustainable than meat

Your choice.

Here’s the recipe adapted from the Food Channel website:

Ingredients

For the Meatballs:

1 turnip, grated (or zucchini, or 1 lb ground meat). This takes forever. Sorry. If you end up doing this recipe regularly think of investing in a mandoline.

1/4 cup bread crumbs

2 tablespoons tamarind pulp (a 2″ square lump of tamarind soaked in 1 cup very hot water for 30 minutes, then pressed through a fine-mesh sieve)

1 tablespoon dried oregano (oregano is weird in an Indian recipe but there are so many spices already and most non-Indian people wouldn’t know or taste the difference)

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 teaspoon crushed coriander seeds

1 teaspoon salt (all 1 tsp of it since I took the cheese out of the recipe)

1 egg

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil (or any other oil with a high smoking temperature – hazelnut, sunflower, safflower, not olive oil)

For the sauce:

1 tablespoon oil (use the same oil as above)

2 tablespoons chopped fresh garlic

1 green chile, minced

3 bay leaves (that’s a whole lot of bay leaves…)

1 tablespoon garam masala (either homemade or store-bought, as she recommends in the epsidoe for convenience. I shake my head at store-bought, but just don’t tell me if you do it and we can still be friends)

1 tablespoon dried oregano (again, weird)

1 teaspoon turmeric

1/4 tsp salt

Punch of black pepper

2 tablespoons tamarind pulp (there should be enough from above. Freeze extra for later use)

4 plum tomatoes, chopped (just don’t use Mexican tomatoes that taste like water…)

1 cup red wine (this is very French, not Indian, but it makes the entire house smell like amazing fusion. Choose a bordeaux with a rich, full body to make it feel luxurious, or go with a lighter Burgundy or pinot noir to complement the spices. None of that really matters, though. Just use a red wine you’ll be happy to drink the rest of)

How to do it:

1. Grate the turnip.

2. Swear (will mostly happen simultaneously with step 1)

3. Chop and measure everything you’ll need for the sauce and set aside.This will help everything go more smoothly once you turn on the heat.

4. Combine the grated turnip with the bread crumbs, 2 tbsp tamarind pulp, oregano, fennel seeds, salt, and egg in a large bowl. Using your hands, shape the turnip mixture into meatball sized spheres and set aside.

5. Heat a large frying pan or sauce pan over medium-high heat and, when hot, add the 1 tbsp oil. Add the meatballs in a single layer and turn them to brown on all sides. There’s not a lot of oil here so you’ve got to move the balls quickly. If all the meatballs don’t fit in a single layer you’ll either need to do batches or use a second frying pan.

6. Remove the meatballs from the pan and set aside.

For the Sauce:
1. Using the same large frying pan add the second tbsp of oil and scrape any turnip bits from the bottom of the pan.

2. Add the garlic and chile and sauté for 1 minute. Add the bay leaves, garam masala, oregano, turmeric, salt, and black pepper. Stir and count to 10.

3. Add the 2 tbsp tamarind pulp and then add the tomatoes and red wine.

4. Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Don’t let anything burn.

5. Now add the meatballs and cook about 5 minutes, being careful not to stir too violently and break apart the meatballs.

6. Pat yourself on the back for not destroying your meatballs. Drink a glass of the opened wine as a celebration..

Serve with rice or noodles. Or not.