gochujang meatballs

I hope you haven’t succumbed to one of the many many vile lurgies that seem to be doing the rounds at the moment. Speaking as someone who rarely gets so much as a sniffle, I’ve only just recovered from a virus so bad that I became convinced the accompanying anosmia would be a permanent fixture and I’d never smell or taste anything again. Waking up this morning and actually being able to smell my baby’s head again was the best birthday present ever.

The worst bit was my review lunch at the Limewood, which I’d been eagerly anticipating, but which I ended up having to enjoy by proxy via my husband’s taste buds. Anyone who knows Joe will know what this was like: “How is the onion soup?” “It’s very…oniony”

Anyway, it’s been a bloody nightmare being sick with two teeny dependent beings sapping what little remaining energy I have, either mentally or physically. Also we have less than two months before we emigrate to the states, and of course we’ve packed nothing. cancelled nothing and completely failed to let our house out ( I have given a ton of stuff to Oxfam though, which is always cathartic). As we’re not allowed to include any foodstuffs in our shipment of worldly goods, we need to eat as much as we can. This is what my cupboards and shelves currently look like:

In a frankly rather futile bid to use up some of the above and also to wipe out the virus in one fell, culinary swoop, I decided to make gochujang meatballs and apparently they were utterly delicious, if not perhaps as sinus clearing as I’d hoped.

If you don’t have citron-honey Korean tea then lemon marmalade  would be just as good.

for the meatball mix:

500g minced veal, beef, lamb or venison ( I had a brick of veal in the freezer that needed using up)

3-4  tbsp. gochujang paste

1 bulb of garlic, minced

2-3 finely chopped spring onions

2 tbsp. caster sugar

2 tbsp. soy sauce

2 tbsp. Korean citron honey tea/ lemon marmalade

lettuce leaves to serve

– combine all the ingredients apart from the tea/marmalade and the lettuce leaves in a bowl.

-shape into about 20 meatballs. Brush with the tea/marmalade to glaze.

-fry, serve in lettuce leaves with a cold , sesame flecked noodle salad

“don’t worry mummy I’m going to drive you straight to the doctors”