There’s something deeply satisfying about rolling those little chicken spheres between your palms – it’s like edible meditation with a purpose. The smell when lemon zest hits hot oil is pure kitchen aromatherapy, and watching spinach transform from stubborn leaves into silky green ribbons feels like performing tiny culinary magic. Plus there’s that moment when you realize you’re essentially making fancy comfort food that sounds impressive enough to serve guests but forgiving enough that you can’t really mess it up – the best kind of cooking confidence boost.
Ingredients
- ½ cup panko bread crumbs
- ⅓ cup full-fat thick yogurt preferably Greek or Icelandic
- 2 garlic cloves minced or grated
- 2 scallions white and light green parts thinly sliced
- ¼ tsp crushed red pepper
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 lemon halved, ½ thinly sliced
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- ¼ tsp crushed red pepper
- Salt
- 1 lb spinach cut as needed
- ¼ cup olive oil plus more as needed
- 1 tsp ground cumin
Instructions
- In a big ol’ bowl, combine the bread crumbs, yogurt, garlic, scallions, oregano, crushed red pepper and 1 teaspoon salt.
- Add the chicken and gently mix until fully combined.
- Coat your palms in olive oil, then shape the meat into medium meatballs. Set aside.
- Heat a 12-inch heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid over medium-high heat for 2 minutes until hot.
- Pour in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, tilting the pot to coat the surface, then add the meatballs.
- Cook until they are starting to get golden, about 10 minutes. Feel free to shake the pot to get them to roll around.
- Meanwhile, add the spinach, lemon slices, cumin, and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil to another big ol' bowl, season with salt.
- Toss to coat the leaves, scrunching them up as needed
- Cover the meatballs in the pot with the greens and lemon slices.
- Reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the meatballs are cooked through and the greens tender, 12 to 13 minutes.
- Scoop up the meatballs, resting them on the greens, ladling any juices on top of the meatballs and greens.
- Cut the remaining lemon into wedges for serving.
- EAT IT!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Brian Gerard (Lewandowski) writes books critics call "aggressively adequate"—better than "aggressively terrible" but somehow more concerning. He once traded a MetroCard for a pitchfork on a subway platform and now uses it exclusively for dramatic pointing. He lives on a farm outside Charlottesville, Virginia with three disappointed potted plants, a judgmental pig named Trouble McFussbucket, and a wife who smiles politely at his life choices.
See my Amazon author page and buy my books.
His first manuscript was composed entirely of punctuation marks and confused sketches. He's since published "Not Bukowski" (poems that don't rhyme) and "Slop and Swell from a Festering Mind" (essays so concerning that bookstores check on his wellbeing). He once spent three hours photographing a rare bird that turned out to be a plastic bag, and he's the only person banned from church bake sales for "weaponized brownies." Inheriting absurdism from Vonnegut and Adams, sprawling narratives from Irving, and weaponized failure from Moore, he writes about conflicted everymen struggling through supernatural chaos.
He has two new, offbeat novels waiting foran agent or a publisher: "Truth Tastes Like Pennies" and "Elliot Nessie."
He remains unconvinced that birds aren't surveillance drones.
More biographic lies...err...info.
See my Amazon author page and buy my books.
His first manuscript was composed entirely of punctuation marks and confused sketches. He's since published "Not Bukowski" (poems that don't rhyme) and "Slop and Swell from a Festering Mind" (essays so concerning that bookstores check on his wellbeing). He once spent three hours photographing a rare bird that turned out to be a plastic bag, and he's the only person banned from church bake sales for "weaponized brownies." Inheriting absurdism from Vonnegut and Adams, sprawling narratives from Irving, and weaponized failure from Moore, he writes about conflicted everymen struggling through supernatural chaos.
He has two new, offbeat novels waiting foran agent or a publisher: "Truth Tastes Like Pennies" and "Elliot Nessie."
He remains unconvinced that birds aren't surveillance drones.
More biographic lies...err...info.
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