Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Greek style feta kebabs with Mediterranean salad, tzatziki sauce and oven roasted root vegetables

This is a dinner that needs a lot of chopping but yields lots of food and lots of leftovers. The Greek style meatballs/kebabs recipe is adapted from here, called Grekiska fetafärsbiffar, but we changed the recipe. The original LCHF version turns out very dense and the kebabs get harder and harder in the fridge. The roots recipe is inspired from all over, it's called Rotsaker i ugn and is a swedish classic. The "Mediterranean salad" is also inspired from the LCHF recipe above.

Ingredients:

Meatballs:

  • 1kg blandfärs (50-50 pork and beef mince mix)
  • 1 finely chopped onion
  • 3/4 cup breadcrumbs soaked in enough milk so it has the consistency of porrige
  • 4 tsp ginger-garlic paste
  • 250g feta cheese
  • 3 tsp sumac
  • 3-4 tsp thyme
  • 3-4 tsp oregano
  • 3 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp pepper
  • 2 tsp smoked paprika
  • Peel of one lemon, juice of one lemon (optional, essential if you're skipping the sumac)

Mediterranean salad:

  • 1 cucumber, large dice
  • 1 box cherry tomatoes, halved
  • 1/2-1 red onion finely sliced (not too much onion or it overwhelms the salad)
  • Olives, seedless (we used a half bottle, we like olives!)

Tzatziki sauce:

  • 1 cup thick yogurt/ greek yogurt
  • 1 garlic clove minced
  • 2 tsp honey
  • pinch of salt

Roots:

  • All the root vegetables are cut into approximately the same size, like homefries or thick-cut fries
  • 5-6 small potatoes
  • 2-3 parsnips
  • 2-3 beets
  • 1/4 celeriac root
  • 2-3 carrots
  • 1 Rutabaga
  • 10 garlic cloves, peeled
  • Fat of choice (cooking oil/ olive oil/ coconut oil)
  • Honey
  • Dried thyme
  • Salt
  • Pepper

Recipe:

For the roots: 

  1. Set the oven at 200C and chop all the vegetables
  2. Chop the rutabaga, beets and celeriac root first and toss them in a bowl with honey, thyme, salt and pepper. These go in the oven 10-15 minutes before the rest of the vegetables.
  3. Spread them on an oven tray and put them in the middle of the oven.
  4. After 10-15 minutes add the rest of the vegetables adding more honey/ fat/ thyme/ salt/ pepper as needed.
  5. Bake for 30-40 minutes (or until done).

For the Kebabs:

  1. Soak the breadcrumbs in milk
  2. In a large bowl, combine the meat, breadcrumbs, chopped onion, thyme, sumac, oregano, salt pepper, smoked paprika, ginger-garlic paste and crumble in the feta. 
  3. Mix well.
  4. Shape into flat patties about 3-4" diameter
  5. Cook on a greased medium-hot pan. Cook on one side for 2-3 minutes, then flip and cook on the other side for another minute and then cover and cook for 4 minutes to cook through. 

For the Mediterranean Salad

  1. Chop and mix all the ingredients together

For the Tzatziki sauce:

  1. In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients and let sit for at least 20-30 minutes before eating