Veal Meatballs with Mustard Greens

Meatballs are regularly on the menu at casa Bitten Word. 

We don't typically use any specific recipe. We just buy a ground meat that looks good to us (typically turkey, chicken or pork), spice it up in a way that sounds good to us and go for it, cranking out (on our best days) enough meatballs for a meal as well as enough to store in the freezer for another lazy day. 

For years, we've been big fans of Trader Joe's Turkey Meatballs. They easy to throw together for a quick meal with some sauce. We've likely eaten dozens of bags of them, and you can almost always count on finding some in our freezer.

This recipe for Veal Meatballs with Mustard Greens -- from chef Hugh Acheson in the latest Food & Wine -- makes for a nice upgrade from the freezer aisle.

The secret to success for this meatball recipe is in the spices. With fennel seed, mustard powder, coriander, red pepper and a smoked chile powder, it's a much more sophisticated spice job than we typically do with our meatball concoctions. And it pays off. Plus, the veal itself is delicious -- very rich tasting. 

We were doubters with this recipe. We assumed the meatballs would be good, but didn't think they'd work well with mustard greens. And when we tasted the bitter greens on otheir own, we thought they really wouldn't work well together. 

But we were wrong. The meatballs are amazing. Paired with bitingly bitter mustard greens, they're even better. These meatballs are worth your time. 

Do you have a meatball secret? A favorite recipe? Please share!

via:http://www.thebittenword.com/thebittenword/2014/04/veal-meatballs-with-mustard-greens.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBittenWord+%28The+Bitten+Word%29