Le Gruyère Stuffed Venison Meatballs
Le Gruyère Stuffed Venison Meatballs by Martyn Watkins at Laksa Shack
A hearty dish of Lincolnshire Game venison stuffed meatballs with Le Gruyère cheese by Martyn Watkins at Laksa Shack.
Ingredients
Serves 4
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
- 400g minced venison
- 100g breadcrumbs
- 1 egg
- 200g Gruyere cheese
- 1/2 tsp allspice
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 300g orzo
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 4 roasted red peppers from a jar, roughly chopped.
- big pinch chilli flakes
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 x 400g can chopped tomatoes with garlic (or 1 garlic clove crushed into each can of tomatoes)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/Fan 180°C/Gas 6.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan and gently fry the onion until it’s soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the onion and garlic to cool.
- Dice the gruyere into small dice ready to stuff the meatballs.
- Put all the meatball ingredients, including the onion and garlic, into a large bowl and mix them thoroughly (using hands).
- Shape the mixture into flat, round, palm size pieces and wrap the gruyere into the ball of meat. It should be somewhere between the size of a walnut and a golf ball and around 40g in weight. Put the balls on a baking tray and chill.
- Tip the orzo into a medium casserole dish, then stir in oil, red peppers, olives, chilli flakes and dried oregano.
- Tip in the chopped tomatoes, then refill the can halfway with water and pour that in too.
- Give everything a good mix, season, then cover and bake for 20 mins until the pasta is almost cooked.
- When the orzo is baking, place meatballs into the oven for 10 minutes to cook. Then, remove meatballs and orzo bake from the oven.
- Add the meatballs to the orzo bake and finish cooking with the lid on, until the orzo is cooked. This will take 20 minutes.
- Allow bake to rest. Then, cook for 5 minutes and serve.
