For me, Asian street food ticks all the right boxes – it looks, tastes and smells sensational and generally speaking is quick to put together. If you enjoy the vibrant Asian flavours of garlic, chilli and lemongrass, you will love these savoury morsels where Asian ingredients are used to delicious effect. Serve with spicy peanut dipping sauce for the perfect taste sensation.

Here I’m trying to be health conscious by baking them in the oven, but you can easily shallow fry them in a pan over medium heat if you prefer.

Makes: 16-20 meatballs
Preparation & cooking time: 25 minutes
Effort Level: easy
Shelf Life: 1 day in fridge

Ingredients:
450g minced chicken breast
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 Asian shallots
4 fat garlic cloves
1 stalk lemongrass
1 large red chilli
30g coriander leaves
20g mint leaves
1 tbsp cornflour
freshly ground salt and pepper
spicy peanut dipping sauce

Equipment:
Food processor
Large bowl
Baking tray

Here’s What You Do:
First make up the spicy peanut dipping sauce.

Preheat the oven to 220°C/ Gas 7/ 425°F.

Place the meat into a bowl. Next, peel away the tough outer layer of the lemongrass and roughly chop the white inner bulb. Tip into the food processor with the shallots, garlic, chilli (deseeded if preferred), coriander and mint and blitz until fine.

Stir this mixture into the minced chicken along with the fish sauce, salt and pepper and cornflour and mix well.

Divide the mixture into walnut sized balls and place on the top oven shelf and bake for 6 minutes. Check to see if they’re cooked by giving the balls a gentle prod, they should be firm to the touch but still have some ‘give’ and be lightly golden in colour. If not return to the oven for another couple of minutes. Serve with the spicy peanut dipping sauce.

Tags: asian shallots, coriander leaves, cornflour, fish sauce, garlic, large red chilli, minced chicken breast, mint leaves