Meatballs in a Thai style sauce

I am very pleased to report that our summary failure with the Gnocchi did nothing to shake hubby's enthusiasm for his meatball dish.

The meatballs themselves were made from some Cumberland sausages bought from our local butchers.  It's just an easy matter of unzipping the sausage (or taking it out of it's skin) and breaking off chunks which are then formed into balls.  Job done!

He put some basmati rice on to cook and made an omelette to cube up and include in the rice when it was done.  In the last couple of minutes of cooking the rice, he added some frozen peas for colour and to provide a sweetness in the rice.

The thai-style sauce was provided by melting a knob of butter in a deep frying pan and sweating a couple of shallots until they were transparent.  Then, the Red Thai Curry Paste was added and cooked on for a minute or two before adding a tin of coconut milk.

The raw meatballs were then added and poached in the sauce until cooked.  You couldn't get away with doing this with cheap sausagemeat because of the fat content, but our butcher's sausages have little or no fat.  Towards the end, a handful or two of baby sweetcorn that had been cut into small pieces was added to the pan to cook through.

The end result was good looking, but a tiny bit confused as it didn't really know whether it was Thai, Italian or Chinese.  Hubby's intention with this recipe was to create something that was a) quick to cook, b) tasty and c) interesting.  Well, he certainly scored with the first one.  As to whether it was tasty or not, yes it was - but there was just something missing or out of place.  I suspect it was the very British sausage which had no place in a Thai sauce.  I felt they would have been perfect in an Amatriciana sauce with pasta, or if you were after something less predictable, perhaps in a Mexican chilli sauce.  For me, the sausage and the sauce did clash a little bit.  Which doesn't mean that it wasn't tasty!

As for being interesting, well, I suspect we've talked more about this recipe and it's adjustments than any other!  I think that next time, he's going to go down the Mexican route.  These sausage meatballs are really too good to not have again - just in the right context, this time!

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