FriarChef S6 E19 | Greek Meatballs

If you’re someone who appreciates tasting cuisine from other cultures and a good meatball, today’s episode of FRIAR CHEF is for you!

Join Bro. Paul as he once again ‘goes Greek’ with his recipe for Keftedes! These flavorful Greek meatballs are so aromatic, you’ll have meatball lovers floating to your kitchen on the aroma. As an appetizer or part of a main course, these crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside Keftedes could very well become your family’s newest and tastiest tradition!

[Music] Light that flame. Put on that oven. Put that apron on. And let’s get cooking. [Music] Hi everyone. Welcome to Fry Our Chef. I’m Brother Paul O’Keefe. As you can see, I am alone again. Uh my brothers are either working or resting or you know, some of them are a little bit older. So, uh I will be with you today. Today we are going back to Greece and we are making um a famous Greek meatball with different kinds of meat. So, this one is very versatile as well. So, you can make it with it with with whatever kind of ground meat you have. I have today 2 lbs of ground beef and 2 lbs of ground pork. I’ve also had it with 2 lbs of ground beef and 2 lbs of lamb. You can use turkey. You can use ground chicken. Whatever ground meat you like works well for this cuz the ingredients, the other ingredients stay the same. Uh, with that, I have about 3/4 of a cup of breadrumbs. These are panko. You can use fresh breadcrumbs. You can use your favorite store-bought brand that you can buy. So, also in this recipe is a half of tomato and a half a red onion that have been ground up in the food processor. You can grate them. That’s the oldfashioned way. Or you can chop them very fine. But really what you want is this consistency where they’re almost wet and that adds moisture and flavor to the meat. Uh, and then the last two ingredients, salt and pepper, which are actually the last three. And then I have here about a half a cup of chopped mint. Now, this is one where you can switch out. If you don’t like mint, you can use parsley. If you’d like to use cilantro, any green kind of condiment will do for this. Uh we’re using mint today because that’s the traditional recipe in Greece. It’s very simple. So, the first thing you want to do is get your beef and your pork together because once you add the other ingredients, it gets a little messy and incorporate them well. Now, when you’re cooking them, obviously, you want them to be cooked through. So, you’re looking for a temperature of about 165 in the middle when they’re cooked. That ensures that the pork is all done. Uh, and it won’t be rare. You don’t want rare pork. Okay, next ingredient, tomatoes and onion. This is a little wet. So try and get as much of the liquid out of these two combined cuz you want less liquid. Breadcrumbs really help to um bring it together but also absorb some of that liquid. So next your breadcrumbs. And again, we’re using panko um because they’re really dry and they absorb quite well. So, mix it all well together. So, it’s traditional in Greece to use a variety of different meats. I think it was because um it was meat was hard to come by and if you had a dish with meat, then it was something festive. So you would put your best into it. Pork and lamb especially is very common in Greece. Nowadays you can certainly get a lot of meat in Greece. Um so you see a variety but the two meats give a really delicious flavor. So last ingredients, salt and pepper and then your fresh mint. And again, if you can’t use fresh mint, you can use whatever fresh parsley, pre fresh cilantro. One of the things we’re missing because we don’t have in our kitchen today, we’re fresh out of oregano. That is another ingredient, dried oregano. You like the taste of the fresh and you can get it, that’s certainly fine. Um, but generally speaking, everyone has dried oregano in their kitchen. That’s it. Your last act before cooking is to shape your your meatballs. So, today we made them in kind of a almost like a uh sausage shape. You can make them into traditional kind of Italian style meatballs into a round shape. One of the reasons why they’re more like this is because they cook more evenly. In terms of cooking, again, I said, like I said, you want to get it up to 165° so that the pork is cooked. You can fry them. The traditional method is to fry them in a little bit of either olive oil or vegetable oil. There’s a fair amount of fat in here because of the pork. Um, so you can also try on a non-skid stick skillet to brown them uh and not use any oil because there will be some natural oil that will come out. Another good way to do it is to just form them like this and put them in the oven and bake them. Okay? They’ll still get that brown. They won’t have the same flavor as fried, but it’s much healthier. Okay? So, if you’re going to bake them, you want to set your oven at 350° uh until they’re cooked. Depending on the size you make, you really just need to try them. You might have to break one open and see that it’s cooked through. If you have a meat thermometer, then that’s another way to go to get it to the right temperature. Okay. And that’s it. Really simple. Goes great with any kind of condiment you like on the side. We made a lentil salad as well. You can also put it with that. That’s it. So, you’ve either baked or fried your meatballs. I have put them on a bed of just plain yogurt, a little bit of honey, and lemon juice with some decoration of fresh mint on there. So, let’s try them. So, you can see they’re cooked through, but not overcooked. I can taste mint. I can taste the tomatoes, the onions. Really tasty. And that combination of meat, really flavorful. So, thanks for joining us. Um, I hope you enjoy the recipes that we presented in the past few episodes. And we’ll be back again with our usual crowd. So, I hope you’ll join us. Take care. Hey everyone. Today we have uh several new items from the Franciscan store. Um we’re expanding our our line of um candle scents. So we have a new product that are um wax melts. Uh and they come in a pack of six and there are four new scents. Uh there is Olivan figzi sunset, Franciscan fur and myrr which is really wonderful. That was my favorite. And then lastly, Cyprus and myrr. So you can find these on our website. Um I would encourage you. They’re one of our cheapest products. And if you like these different scents in your home, they make a wonderful addition to holidays or just if you’d like to perk up your home, try them. They’re really nice. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]