Thai Green Curry Meatballs
Ingredients
Meatballs:
- 3 large eggs
- 1 ½ cup rolled oats
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 pounds lean ground beef or lean ground turkey
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
- 1 tablespoon Thai green curry paste
- 2 tablespoons fish sauce
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- ½ cup chopped cilantro
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 3 green onions, white and green parts finely chopped
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil, plus more if needed; can substitute canola or vegetable oil
Sauce:
- 2 cans (13.5-ounces each) unsweetened coconut milk
- 3 tablespoons green curry paste
- ¼ cup lime juice, from about 2-3 limes
- Hot cooked rice for serving
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine the eggs, oats and milk. Let the mixture stand and soak for 5-10 minutes. Add ground beef or turkey, ginger, curry paste, fish sauce, sugar, cilantro, salt, garlic and green onions. Mix to combine and distribute all the ingredients through the meat.
- Shape the meat mixture into meatballs, a bit smaller than golf ball size. Heat the oil over medium heat in a large, 12-inch nonstick skillet. When the oil is hot, place one layer of meatballs in the pan leaving a little room in between each meatball (it's ok if you can't fit them all in; they'll cook in batches). Brown the meatballs on all sides, about 2-3 minutes total. They don't need to be cooked through - just golden and browned. Remove the meatballs to a plate and do the same with the remaining uncooked meatballs (adding more oil to the pan if necessary - let it get hot before adding the meatballs to brown).
- Once the last batch of meatballs has been removed to a plate, drain any excess grease from the pan (but leave the goldeny browned cooked bits). Return the skillet to medium heat and stir in the coconut milk and green curry paste, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan and stirring into the sauce.
- Place the meatballs in the skillet with the sauce. Go ahead and pile them all in, trying for a single layer. Simmer the meatballs and sauce for 8-10 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through, flipping the meatballs once or twice.
- Stir in the lime juice. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve over hot, cooked rice.
Notes
Green Curry Paste: green curry paste can vary wildly in spice/heat level so if you want to ensure the meatballs and sauce aren't too spicy, look for a mild green curry paste (or buy one you already like the taste of). The Thai Kitchen brand is the one that Janssen used - her blog is where I got the recipe and she said her young kids gobbled it up. I used the Maesri brand (I have to order any kind of green curry paste online since I can't find it in the stores here; keep in mind I live in a very, very small town) and it was knock-your-socks off hot (but still tasty if you can handle a little heat).
Sauce: also, a quick note on the sauce - it's fairly thin which we enjoyed because it soaked into the rice; however, if you want it a bit thicker, stir together a tablespoon or so of cornstarch into cold water (about half as much water as cornstarch) and stir it into the simmering sauce until it thickens a bit.