Pork meatballs braised in chipotle and peanut
Peanut butter and chipotle in the same pan, which sounds wrong until the sauce thickens.
At a Glance
Story
Peanut butter here is not a flavour so much as a thickener that happens to taste of peanuts. Its fat and protein emulsify the water you add into something glossy that clings to a meatball, which tomato paste alone will not do. It is the same trick a mole pulls with nuts and seeds, several hours faster, and without the long afternoon of quiet reflection that one demands.
Ingredients
- 10 oz ground pork
- ¼ cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ cup long grain white rice
- 1 red oniondiced
- 1 bell pepperseeded and diced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tbsp smooth peanut butter
- 2 tsp chipotles in adobominced
- 1 tbsp light brown sugar
- ¼ cup full-fat Greek yogurt
- 2 tbsp raw pepitas
- olive oilsalt, pepper
Method
The sauce comes together in the pan the meatballs browned in, which is not a shortcut. Every brown scrap fused to the base of that pan is the flavour, and all of it goes in.
- Rice with the onion and pepper. Soften them in the pot first with a little oil, 2 to 3 minutes, then the rinsed rice, a cup of water and salt. Boil, cover, drop to low, 13 to 15 minutes. Fork it through.
- Pepitas in a dry pan over medium, moving constantly, 1 to 3 minutes, until they puff and start leaping. Out, salted, set aside.
- Whisk the tomato paste, peanut butter, brown sugar and minced chipotle together in a bowl. It will look like an unpromising brown sludge. Hold your nerve.
- Pork and panko and smoked paprika, mixed with a light hand and rolled into 10 tight balls. Overwork it and they go bouncy.
- Brown them all over in a hot pan, 3 to 4 minutes, then push them aside. The sludge goes into the bare half for 30 seconds to a minute, until the smell turns toasty, then 1 cup of water goes in and the whole thing comes together. Simmer 5 to 7 minutes, spooning it over, until it coats a meatball and stays there. 160F in the middle.
- Over the rice, with the yogurt loosened with a splash of water and the pepitas thrown over.
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