I do not refer here to the main food groups–proteins (cheers!) which in our case will include the group of dairy products, grains (boo!…..or boo hoo! at their conspicuous absence), vegetables, (on again, off again), and fruits (sigh–we’ve got a ways to go before we get to eat one of these luscious little gifts from Heaven, bursting with flavor, color, texture, vitamins, etc.) but I digress. Rather, I am speaking about the three categories of food in the kosher kitchen–milchig, fleishig and pareve–or dairy and meat, which cannot be eaten together, and pareve–the neutral which can be combined with either dairy or meat. We have given you a pareve and a dairy recipe, so to be fair, we’ll give meat its moment in the sun–as it really figures heavily in the Dukan dieter’s menus.
I was very used to meals which combine such no-no’s as rice, pasta and potatoes with meat and chicken, or dairy products–my husband’s favorite weekday meal, for example, was spaghetti (gasp!) and meat sauce. We had decided, after my first week of total shock in a purely protein world, to settle into a pattern–breakfast is a galette (naturally), with eggs and dairy products, and salad or other veggies–shakshuka, for example, on those blessed PV days. Lunch is usually fish, and supper, fleishig–meat or poultry–but I did not want to serve just chicken one PP day and steak the next, ad infinitum, so I started looking around for something different. I thought I’d look into the foods of different countries to provide variety. One which my husband heartily enjoyed and asked me to post was Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono (this whole blog was his idea–generous man that he is, he thought we should share the wealth of all my research with other kosher consumers, thus hopefully making your lives a little less stressful). You can get that recipe, along withothers we have developed, in the recipe pages under–you guessed it–Meat and Poultry.
Greek Meatballs with Avgolemono (that was Greek to me too–it is a creamy egg-lemon sauce that is often added to meats, vegetables and soups).
I adapted this recipe (left out the rice and flour, and salt, because kosher meat is already salted) from About.com–Greek food
Ingredients: 1 lb. ground beef ( I used half beef and half ground turkey to lower fat content)
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. finely chopped parsley, or 1-1/2 tsp. dried
(try cuzbara/coriander for a little more punch)
1 tsp. dried mint (I used about 2 Tbsp of fresh mint, and it was great)
freshly ground pepper to taste
1 large egg
a few Tbsps of oat bran (substitute for flour in the original recipe)
2-3 cups of chicken stock or broth
For the sauce: 2 large eggs (at room temperature)
juice of 2-3 large lemons, strained
Preparation: Combine ground beef, onion, garlic, parsley, mint and pepper in a bowl. Add egg to the mixture and mix well. Put oat bran in a shallow pan (check for bugs). Shape meat into balls and roll in the oat bran. Heat two cups of chicken stock in a Dutch oven or large pot until boiling. Carefully place the meatballs in a layer on the bottom of the pot. Add more chicken broth if needed, just enough to cover the meatballs. Simmer, covered, over low heat for 45 minutes ( I did less time–check and see when they are done to your liking) Add more broth if less than one cup remains.
Using a whisk, beat the eggs in a medium bowl till frothy. Slowly whisk in the lemon juice Ladle one cup of the pot liquid, little by little, into the egg-lemon mixture to temper the eggs. Remove pot from heat and add egg-lemon mixture, stirring gently. Heat over very low heat until sauce thickens and is heated through. Take care not to allow the sauce to boil as that will curdle the eggs.