Recipe: Salvadoran Meatballs, Ostrich-Style (Albóndigas Guanacas de Avestruz)

Meatballs (albóndigas in Spanish) are a very common meal in Latin America.  Except we don’t have them with pasta all that much – more often we have them with rice, in stews or in soups (or at least that was the case in my house.) 

They’ve always been a favorite meal of mine, and the other day, I was all, let me make some Albóndigas Guanacas (Guanaca/Guanaco is a common nickname for Salvadorans).  So off I went to the store ready to buy my ingredients … onion, mint, beef … and then I was all, hey … why not put a South African twist on them and make them with ostrich meat?

Ostrich is very common here in SA.  It is not like poultry at all, it’s really much more like beef.  Plus it’s much lower in fat and beautifully free-range here in SA.  So why not right?

And I gotta tell you, they were awesome!  

Of course you could make them with lean ground beef or ground bison as well, but if you’ve got some ground ostrich available, give it a try.

Here’s the recipe:          

Ingredients:

500 grams (1lb.) ground ostrich (or beef or bison)
1 slice bread, crumbed  ( I use wheat/brown bread [this is a good use for the bread butts])
1 Large onion, finely chopped – divided in half
4 Garlic cloves, finely chopped – divided in half
2 Teaspoons coarse salt (1 tsp. fine/table salt) – divided in half
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce – divided in half
1 Egg white
1 Big handful of mint leaves, chopped
1 Big handful parsley leaves, chopped
1 Small can chopped tomatoes (or fresh if you have them!)
1 Teaspoon olive oil
Fresh black pepper to taste
As many olives as you’d like! (I prefer Kalamata olives)

Preheat your oven to 350F/175C.

Mix together the meat, bread, half the onion, garlic, salt, and Worcestershire sauce as well as the egg white, mint and parsley.  Get in there with your hands and squelch it all together.  Form medium-sized meatballs and place on baking sheet.  Throw in oven for appx. 10 minutes till the meatballs are brown on one side, then turn them to the other side and bake another 7 or 8 minutes till brown.

In the meantime, sauté the remaining onion and garlic in the olive oil till soft.  Add the tomatoes, olives and remaining Worcestershire sauce and salt as well as pepper to taste.  Simmer while the meatballs cook.  When they come out of the oven, throw them into the sauce and cook another 10-15 minutes so the flavors meld.  Taste for salt and pepper, correct as necessary.  Enjoy with rice or mashed potatoes or pasta or as we did, with couscous:

PS:  The little yellow things in the salad are not yellow tomatoes, they are actually gooseberries!  As I said before, South Africans love fruit in their salad, and this combo is something that Dawn (Norman's wife) served us -- I loved it and promptly put gooseberries in my next salad.  They are sweet yet tart, and lovely on a salad -- give it a try!  BTW, this is a true globe-trotting kind of a meal, no?

PPS:  I'm pretty positive that this is the first time in the history of forever that the following words were ever combined: "Salvadoran Meatballs, Ostrich-Style (Albóndigas Guanacas de Avestruz)"  HEE!