Mole Meatballs with Wilted Cabbage

Also pictured, leftover rice with broccoli

Have I ever mentioned how much I love this site? https://app.ckbk.com
If you look up the app in the iTunes store, you'll see my gushing review at the top, yikes. Anyway, I love that when you search an ingredient, the results are from a cookbook. I'm a bit old fashioned, but I still love a cookbook and how they're connected to maybe a place, or a time, a person, or a culture, or someone's interpretation of another culture...This recipe is from a book called Well Fed Weeknights By Melissa Joulwan , Published 2016. 

Mole is something that probably traditionally is a long day of simmering, with dried chiles and all kinds of things. This simplifies it for a weeknight - but really doesn't sacrifice flavour!

Replace the ground pork with ground chicken, turkey, or lamb if you'd like. They don't mention beef but I imagine that would be fine?

Also it didn't make a ton of sauce - and the suggestion of an immersion blender to blend it as a good one, so you don't lose any in the transfer between places! I don't have one, but used my blender.

You could use this sauce on other things, like if you make quesadillas!

Mole Sauce

• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• ½ medium yellow onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa
• 2 tablespoons raisins
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• ¾ cup tomato sauce or purée
• ½ cup water or chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons almond butter (I did not have almond butter, but blitzed about the same amount of whole unblanched almonds in the blender or food processor)
  

Meatballs

1½ pounds ground pork
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground coriander

Wilted Cabbage
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
½ large head green cabbage

Garnish
dry-roasted pepitas, fresh cilantro

Make the sauce

Warm the oil in a nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat, 2 minutes. While it heats, dice the onion. Add the onion to the pan and sauté it until it’s soft, 5–7 minutes. While it cooks, peel and crush the garlic and place it in a small bowl with the chili powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and pepper. When the onion is soft, add the spices to the pan and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomato paste, cocoa, raisins, and sesame seeds; stir-fry for about 2 minutes. Add the tomato sauce, water, and almond butter; stir to combine. Simmer over low heat while you prep the meatballs, about 10 minutes.

Prep the meatballs

In a large bowl, combine the ground pork, chili powder, salt, pepper, and coriander; mix well with your hands. Run a dinner plate under cold water, shake off the excess water, and set it near your work space. Moisten your hands with cold water, measure a rounded tablespoon of pork with the scoop, then roll it into a ball and place it on the wet plate; repeat with the remaining pork. (I just did this with my hands...).

Cook the meatballs

Purée the sauce in the saucepan with a stick blender in the pot (or carefully in a food processor or blender). Bring the sauce back to a simmer and gently place the meatballs in the pot. Cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes, then remove the lid and stir gently to coat the meatballs in sauce. Cover and cook 5 minutes more, then remove the lid and cook an additional 5 minutes uncovered, until the sauce has thickened and the meatballs are cooked through.

Janice's Note: in the image from the cookbook you can see they have a skillet or maybe a Dutch Oven. I don't have a shallow skillet or smaller frying pan with a lid, and in my saucepan the meatballs would have been in a jumble and would have cooked unevenly. So I cooked the meatballs in the oven, before adding them to the sauce. This worked, but it may have contributed to the sauce being a bit dry when I went back to put the leftovers away (due to the missing pork fat). In the cookbook pictures they look all glossy where my sauce looks more dry. Still tasted amazing.

Cook the cabbage

During the final 10 minutes of the meatballs’ cooking time, place the olive oil in a large, nonstick skillet and warm it over medium-high heat, 2 minutes. While the oil heats, thinly slice the cabbage. Add the cabbage to the pan with a pinch of salt and stir-fry until it’s wilted, about 2 minutes.

Janice's note: Since I love a bit of charred golden or deeply browned cabbage, I actually cooked the cabbage according to a recent recipe I tried, where you core the cabbage and cut it into large wedges. Cook cabbage until deeply browned on both cut sides, about  2 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate. I transferred to a chopping board, and then chopped it up a little smaller for serving. Either way really :)