Moroccan Spiral Meatball Zucchini Bake

I love recipes like this – everyday ingredients used in a different way to make something new and interesting! Moroccan-spiced lamb meatballs are baked with zucchini and capsicum in a striking upright spiral arrangement in a bubbly garlicky tomato sauce. Serve straight from the pan with flatbreads, rice or couscous.

Moroccan Spiral Meatball Zucchini Bake

Today’s recipe is inspired by Özlem Warren’s Baked Aubergine Kebab with Meatballs from Özlem’s Turkish Table, a wonderful Turkish food writer I follow whose recipes always make me want to head straight into the kitchen.

Her version is a gorgeous spiral of eggplant and Turkish spiced patties, but since I couldn’t find the right shape eggplants, or Aleppo pepper for that matter, mine headed in a Moroccan direction with pantry spices and zucchini instead. Much easier to find suitably sized zucchinis, I find!

The method she uses of baking meatballs layered upright with vegetables in a tomato-garlic broth is brilliant – the semi-braising makes them so soft, yet you also get oven browning. It’s a dish so delicious it makes you excited for dinner – and try to tell me you won’t feel a little proud when you set this down and everyone leans in to admire it!

So, thank you Özlem, for the inspiration behind this recipe, and making our heads grow a little bigger!!

PS Also, I love your book. 🙂 (PS Today’s recipe is not based on one from her book though, it’s from her website – linked above – and that link to her book is not an affiliate link!)

Ingredients

Here’s what you need to make this meatball spiral bake.

For the meatballs

See? Told ya. Everyday ingredients! 🙂 Plus, you can use beef instead of lamb, and the parsley is optional.

• Lamb mince (ground lamb), or beef – Lamb is just divine with Middle Eastern spice mixes, though having said that, this is very good with beef too. I haven’t tried with chicken or turkey but I think it would be great, though I’d probably dial the spices up a smidge as red meat has a stronger flavour.

• Panko breadcrumbs – Larger pieces than regular breadcrumbs makes the meatballs extra soft inside, like using fresh bread soaked in milk (but, less effort!). Substitute regular breadcrumbs in a pinch, or use a couple of sandwich bread slices – remove crusts, chop into small pieces and soak well with the juicy grated onion so it disintegrates.

• Onion – I like to grate the onion so you get all the tasty juices into the meatballs, and also then the onion pieces are fine enough to cook through in the oven so you don’t need to cook them separate before mixing into the meatball mixture. Nobody wants large chunks of raw onion in their meatballs!

• Garlic – Where there is onion, there is (pretty much) always garlic!

• Moroccan spice mix – Just pantry staples! Cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne (very small amount, doesn’t make it spicy) and cinnamon, the magical spice that makes this so special!

• Egg – This binds the mixture together so the meatballs hold together.

• Parsley for a hint of freshness and nice little green bits in the meatballs (not the end of the world if you don’t use it, don’t substitute with dried parsley, doesn’t add the same flavour).

for the tomato garlic sauce and spiral bake

As mentioned above, Ozlem’s Turkish Table uses eggplant/aubergine instead but I struggle to find ones that are the right size, so I use zucchinis instead as there are often quite fat ones at the stores! However, feel free to use eggplant if you prefer, no changes to recipe required.

• Zucchini (courgette) – In a perfect world, you will source 2 zucchinis that are exactly 5cm/2″ wide (for the full length) and 22cm/9″ long. That’s the dream for creating the most impressive, meticulously arranged meatball-spiral bake on the block! But don’t worry if yours are smaller or uneven, just roll your meatballs a touch smaller and use more of them to make up the difference.

• Red capsicum (bell peppers) – You’ll need one large or 1 1/2 medium size ones, enough to wedge a piece between each meatball and zucchini, plus a little extra to fill gaps in the pan. I like using red for a nice splash of bright colour but you can use any colour you want.

• Tomato paste – You wouldn’t think that mixing tomato paste with water and garlic would get enough flavour into a sauce, but it does thanks to the juice that comes out of the meatballs and the vegetables!

• Garlic – Used to nix into the sauce. I just use a garlic crusher.

• Olive oil – We use this in a few places for this recipe: to mix into the sauce, tossed with the vegetables to make the salt and pepper stick, and to drizzle over the whole thing before popping in the oven to get some nice colour on the surface.

Other veg options – Anything wedge-able that will hold its shape when baked, and cook through in around 35 minutes. As noted above, I would use eggplant if I could find suitable size ones (note: Asian eggplants are a little too thin). Sweet potato or pumpkin would work (not sure regular potato will cook through in time). Large mushrooms or red onion (sliced) could be used instead of the capsicum, fennel slices (oooh! I want to try this). I don’t think carrot would work (unless sliced thinly)

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How to make it

Don’t get too hung about up the spiral arrangement. Even if it doesn’t all stay upright or your spiral pattern is a little…err…crooked, and your meatballs are a little wonky, it will still look cosy and enticing when it comes out of the oven. We are not making a posh restaurant dish here, it’s good, honest home cooking, and that rustic look is all part of the charm!

1. Sauce – Mix the tomato paste with the garlic, water, salt and pepper then set aside. This forms the sauce for this dish that you’ll spoon over everything when serving, and also the braising liquid that keeps everything moist and bubbly as it bakes. These are some of the softest meatballs I have had in a while!

2. Toss the zucchini slices and capsicum with a little oil, salt and pepper.

3. Grate the onion using a standard box grater over the panko breadcrumbs in a bowl. Then use your fingers to toss the breadcrumbs to soak in the onion juices. Flavour, and softer meatballs – the meatballs where I don’t do this are just never as soft!

4. Mix – Then add all the remaining meatball ingredients and mix well with your hands until combined. Please don’t look too closely at the video, I did a shocking job! 😭 Make 16 meatballs then flatten to ~1.5-2cm / 0.6 – 0.8″ thick, about the same size or a smidge wider than the zucchini slices. Note: They will contract a little as they bake and become fatter.

5. Spiral – Arrange upright, loosely (to allow room for the capsicum), in a skillet or other round pan with a zucchini slice in between. I start on the outer ring then put remaining meatballs and zucchini in the middle.

   They stand upright by themselves, so it’s not difficult to do this. I use my 26cm / 10.5″ skillet – you can use a pan or a casserole dish, it doesn’t even have to be round, you could arrange them in lines.

6. Capsicum – Wedge the capsicum pieces next to each zucchini slice, minimise covering the surface of the meatballs which will prevent them browning. Fill any gaps in the pan with remaining capsicum and zucchini (you may have some leftover, bake in a separate pan or chop and put in your breakfast omelette!).

7. Sauce – Pour the sauce all over, aiming to get a bit on each meatballs, zucchini and capsicum (it browns nicely), then finish with a drizzle of olive oil to encourage browning in the oven.

8. Bake for 35 minutes at 200°C/375°F (180°C fan) or until the meatballs are nicely browned. You’ll be surprised by the amount of sauce in the pan! You get a good amount from the vegetables and meatballs which mixes in with the tomato sauce, and this is what keeps the meatballs so nice and juicy.

   Sprinkle with a little parsley if you want, then serve with a little yogurt sauce for drizzling.

Matters of serving

One of the fun things about this dish is that there are so many ways to serve it! Here are some ideas:

• Over rice, couscous, mash, cauliflower mash

• With flatbreads or bread – stuffing/sandwich/dunking into the sauce

• Wraps, or stuffed into split pitas or bread rolls – dip into the sauce as you eat!

• With a pile of roast potatoes on the side.

For the rice, basmati would be on-theme, garlic rice would be an upgrade but my pick is Red Rice for something different and completely delicious (PS It’s called “Mexican Red Rice” but fits right in with Middle Eastern menus).

It’s pictured at the top with Lebanese bread used as a bowl which was a fun way of eating it. I tore off pieces to wrap, then ate the sauce-soaked base with a fork (so good).

And a friend I sent leftovers to gave it to her kids over garlic noodles which they enthusiastically polished off. My initial reaction was “hmmm, interesting….”, then I realised how tasty that actually sounded!

Kids don’t lie. 😅

What other ways can you think of do serve this? Share! Share! – Nagi x

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Watch how to make it

Life of Dozer

My builders made a ramp for Dozer, with safety sides and all. 🥰

He still can’t stand up by himself but he’s definitely getting stronger, it doesn’t feel like hauling a sack of bricks to his feet anymore, he actually puts a bit of effort in to help me!

I know he’s got more improvement to come. He’s working hard on his rehab every day, and I have completely faith in him!❤️ #DozersComeback