Basil and ginger chicken balls in tomato sauce

Chicken balls with ginger and basil simmered in tomato and basil sauce! Yes!! I used ready made tomato and basil sauce and dried basil I had hanging in the kitchen. And lemon and pepper breadcrumbs. Yum. Yum. And I ate it with whole grain rice and some shaved Parmesan.

Ingredients 

500 gr minced chicken

2 spring onions

2 cloves crushed garlic

3 tsp crushed ginger root

Dried basil

Breadcrumbs

Ready-made tomato and basil sauce

Olive oil

Mode

Place tomato sauce in pan and bring to boil

Reduce to simmer

Chop spring onions

Crush garlic and ginger

Place minced chicken in bowl

Add ginger and garlic and stir to combine

Crumple dried basil and add to mixture

Stir to combine 

Place breadcrumbs on plate

Form balls from chicken mixture and roll in breadcrumbs

Pour olive oil into frying pan and heat

Quickly sear the chicken balls in batches

Add to tomato sauce and simmer for 30 minutes

Baked sardines with orange and lemon

Ah! The second half of my birthday sardines was cooked differently a day or so later. A friend thought from a photo of them that the olive oil was lemon juice, so this time I added lemon and orange juice and used cumin seeds instead of sumac. I ate this lot with potato and sweet potato baked with garlic, rosemary and olive oil.  It wasn’t my birthday dinner but another delicious meal in Melbourne’s latest lockdown.

Ingredients

16 filleted sardines

1/2 lemon

1/2 orange

1 clove garlic

2 tsp cumin seeds

Olive oil

Mode

Preheat oven to 180c

Arrange sardines in baking dish

Crush garlic and add to sardines

Sprinkle over cumin seeds

Add olive oil

Squeeze orange and lemon and add to dish

Bake in 180c oven for 20 mins

Baked sardines with sumac

Well it was my birthday and for the second year in a row I was in lockdown and had to cancel my previously arranged dinner out with friends. So I had a lovely Zoom meeting with interstate friends (originally planned as pre-dinner event) and then wondered what to cook. Would it be fresh sardines or fresh tuna? This is what I went for on my birthday. I ate the sardines with potatoes roasted with olive oil, rosemary and whole garlic cloves. 

Ingredients 

16 filleted sardines

1 tsp sumac

1 clove garlic

Olive oil

Mode

Preheat oven to 180c

Arrange sardines in baking dish

Sprinkle sumac over

Crush garlic and add

Sprinkle with olive oil

Bake in oven for 20 minutes