Yogurt soup with spiced lamb meatballs
A hearty and warming Middle Eastern soup
Servings 4 portions
Ingredients
For the meat balls
- 300 g minced lamb
- 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 1 table spoon cumin
- ½ table spoon ground coriander
- ½ table spoon cinnamon
- 1 table spoon olive oil for frying
For the soup
- 25 g butter I like to use salted butter
- 2 table spoons olive oil
- 1 large onion (I prefer red onions) finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves finely chopped
- 100 g basmati rice
- 500 ml stock vegetable or lamb stock would be the best
- 200 g chickpeas make sure you soak them over night, then cook them for roughly 40-45 minutes until they are soft - this is easily something you can do in advance
- 1 handful parsley finely chopped
- 1 handful coriander finely chopped
- 10 leaves fresh mint finely chopped
- 1 Greek yoghurt
- 2 egg yolks
Instructions
For the meat balls
- Except the olive oil, mix all the ingredients together with your hands and ensure that the spices are evenly distributed.
- Roll the mixture into balls the size of larger cherries before gently frying them in a pan with the olive oil. Make sure that you don't have too much heat so that the meat balls don't burn, but get cooked evenly.
For the soup
- Heat the butter and olive oil and gently fry the garlic and onions until they are nice and golden. Also here, be careful not to apply too much heat as you don't want to burn your vegetables, but the fat should take up the flavours of the garlic and onion.
- Stir in the basmatic rice, add the stock and cook until the rice is just before being ready (this will probably take 10-12 minutes). Add the cooked chickpeas and the herbs, reduce the heat and mix everything together.
- Add the meat balls and let the soup simmer for 2-3 minutes - just enough to get the meat balls hot again.
- In a small bowl, mix the egg yolks with the yoghurt. Add this mixture to into your soup and turn the heat off completely. Stir constantly until you have a nice and creamy soup.