Chermoula Chicken Boulettes AKA Paleo Chicken Balls on Sticks with Magic Sauce

Chermoula sauce is like fairy dust of the kitchen, it turns all it touches into magic food. Chermoula is a North African blend of warm spices, citrus and herbs in oil which is drizzled on everything from fish to meat and veggies. It can be used as a marinade, or a dressing. And I always wish I made a double batch, so I can drizzle its magical powers on everything. 

The chicken meatballs are so simple it is almost primitive cooking, two ingredients. Without the chermoula sauce they are almost unremarkable. Organic turkey or chicken is a good choice for all the reasons we know, environmental, health,  antibiotics, nutrition and animal rights. But also know that the flavors of the poultry are highlighted here, and it is a good time to choose the most happy organic chicken. 

This is a great dish if you are feeding friends who may or may not be gluten free, egg free or dairy free, or paleo! Obviously not a dish for vegetarians, but if you were doing a big party, I would stick some mushrooms or tofu on other skewers and let the vegetarians get some chermoula loving too.

Ground turkey is easy to find where I live, ground chicken less so. Both work. A butcher will often grind it for you, or in a pinch use a food processor to mince larger pieces of meat.

Anyway, now you have your ground or minced chicken. Mix it with the salt and form compact 1.5 inch balls of the chicken mixture. Thread them on metal or soaked wooden skewers. Place them to rest on a foil lined baking tray to rest while the chermoula sauce is made.

Place garlic, cilantro or parsley, lemon zest, paprika, chili powder, cumin, and olive oil into a blender. A blender really does a better job here than a food processor. If you live an electronics free life, do it old school with a mortar and pestle, adding oil in bit by bit as the herbs get bashed up. The sauce is not an emulsion, spices and herbs will settle out to the bottom giving it a chunky look. The flavors will blossom over time.

Drizzle just a bit of the chermoula on the uncooked meatballs. 

If your outdoor grill is covered in a snowy glacier, cook them under the broiler in your stove. With the broiler on high, line up the chicken skewers. Turning as they brown, keep a close eye on them. If your wooden skewers begin to char, cover them with some foil. 

The balls take about 10 to 12 minutes to cook through. Baste them occasionally with more sauce, or scoop up the pan drippings and use that. A thermometer at the interior should read 170° when the balls are throughly cooked.  

Remove to a plate and drizzle that chermoula sauce over them like crazy. 

Note: For individual appetizers, these can be cooked under a broiler in the same manner without the skewers. After the balls are cooked, plate up with some toothpicks. 

Chermoula Chicken Boulettes

16 medium meatballs, 4-5 servings

For the chermoula sauce:

4 cloves garlic

1/2 cup cilantro or parsley

zest of 1 lemon

2 teaspoons paprika

1 teaspoon chili powder

3/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 cup olive oil

pinch of salt

For the chicken balls:

1 pound ground or minced chicken

1 teaspoon salt

4-5 skewers (soak if wooden)

Find this and 101 other meatball recipes in my new book Global Meatballs! I know, that is seriously a lot of meatballs. 

Chorizo Meatballs Tapas Style

It's meatball season! Seriously, not only did my Global Meatballs cookbook come out on bookshelves and kindle this week, (buy it here!) but I have been seeing meatballs everywhere. On magazine covers, menus and all over twitter. Even my favorite Parisian chocolate king David Lebovitz is making meatballs this week.

Meatballs are economical comfort food, they both feed a crowd and make good leftovers. Meatballs are a canvas, easy to try some funky and try new things, but not too far out of a comfort zone.

In keeping with Sunday Night Football and the day when many of you make food for those who sit back and watch the AFC Championship, I give you these Spanish Chorizo meatballs. The meatballs are bite sized, use toothpicks or fingers, no forks necessary. They have a country style chunky texture and a smoky flavor that pairs well with chips, guacamole, wings and other game day foods.

The meat you will likely need to go to a store for, but all the other ingredients are simple and likely in most pantries. White wine, bread, paprika, parsley, salt, pepper. And an egg.  Note- you could use a light beer in place of the wine with good results!

I laid out all the ingredients today and then realized the egg carton was empty! What a nasty trick, an empty egg carton in the fridge, and I had just been to the store. I heaved a sigh and pulled on winter boots, enormous parka complete with fuzzy hood, and mittens. In the 15° sunshine I walked down the road to my aunt's house to buy some of her chicken eggs. I found her chickens in a barn door  huddled from the wind and basking in a slice of strong sunshine.

Eggs resupplied, onward I moved with meatball making. 2 slices of bread soaked in white wine. All bread is good, but best to stay away from seeded bread here, and if the crusts are very tough, omit them. This time I used white gluten free white bread from Canyon Bakehouse and it worked great! Mince parsley and garlic. Crack in one egg and measure salt, paprika, and pepper. To this, add ground pork and chorizo removed from the casings.

Roll into balls smaller than golf balls, about 1 inch across, like a ping pong ball. After I roll about 8 balls the meat gets sticky on my palms. I find a brief rinse of my hands in cool water will stop the stickiness from happening.


As they are made, place onto a baking tray or two. Parchment paper or foil makes for easy cleanup, but is not necessary to avoid sticking while baking.

Bake in a preheated oven at 350° for 30 to 40 minutes.

When done the meatballs will sizzle on the pan, they will have tightened up, taken on a golden color, and an internal temperature of at least 160°.


Pile onto a serving platter with napkins and toothpicks nearby and watch them be enjoyed. I like a glass of crisp white wine with mine, but beer would is just as good, if not more appropriate for the Patriots vs. Colts and the Seahawks vs. Packers playoff games. It will be a tense afternoon.

Stay tuned for two opposing meatball recipes for Superbowl Sunday!

Chorizo Tapas Style Meatballs

• 2 slices bread (regular or gluten free)
• 1/3 cup white wine or light beer
• 4-6 ounces uncooked chorizo sausage 
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 egg
• 3-4 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°

Soak the bread in the wine for 10 minutes.

Mince garlic and parsley. Mix in a bowl with the egg, paprika, salt, black pepper and mushy bread and wine mixture.

Remove the chorizo sausage from their casings. Add the sausage meat and ground pork to the bowl as well. Using a hand, squeeze everything together over and over to combine it very well.  Bread, herbs, and meat should we well mixed, yes you can see the independent parts but they are evenly distributed.

Roll into ping pong sized balls (1 - 1.5 inches) place on a baking tray, bake for 30 to 40 minutes at 350°. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Modern Stuffed Mushrooms, Paleo Vegan and Heathy

This version of stuffed mushrooms may reframe them in your mind as a still relevant modern foodstuff. Begone ubiquitous cheese and breadcrumb appetizer. You will find neither here.

I love mushrooms, they naturally test as close to meat as any vegetable ever gets. Full of earthy umami taste and juice which makes us salivate for more.

I think the tradition of stuffing one food with another is very silly. I just don't get it. Stuffed peppers, squash, mushrooms. In Ottolenghi's Jerusalem there is a whole chapter titled "stuffed" about stuffed turnips, carrots, and other traditional delicacies. It have never understood why the stuffing and the stuffie are better off this way than if they were all in a pot together.  Can somebody explain?

Which brings me back to stuffed mushrooms, which I made on a whim, out of character, since I don't do stuffed things. They are fun because they stay juicy and come out in a round meatball-like shape. And everybody loves food in balls, this is a fact. Maybe this love is related to stuffed veggies?

These guys are not fussy, it would be easy to mess around with the recipe if you don't like parsley or some part, just replace it. I threw a little bit of cheese into a few of them to see if it made a big difference. It didnt. Cheese is yummy, so if you of your guests are in the mood for cheese, some grated parmesan or the like would be a good addition. But these guys are about the flavor of the mushroom, onion and sage. The wine adds complexity.

Modern Stuffed Mushrooms

20 ounces whole baby bella mushrooms (2 long grocery store containers)

1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/3 cup small diced red onion

4 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon dried sage. (more if using fresh)

1 teaspoon dried thyme

4 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup dry white wine 

1 teaspoon salt

fresh ground black pepper

With your fingers, pop the stems off of the mushroom caps. Reserve the stems in a pile. Place the caps upside-down on a baking pan. (I lined mine with parchment paper hoping for easy cleanup, it helped a little bit, but not much actually.) 

Discard any yucky or old bits of the stems. Mince the mushroom stems finely. Put them in a bowl. Chop parsley, and red onion into pieces that are as small as the mushroom pieces. Mince garlic, add garlic, thyme and sage to the mixture. Sage works magic with mushrooms.

Add the salt, pepper, olive oil and white wine. Mix it all together well, look at how colorful! Follow your instincts, if you want more olive oil, do it! More sage, do it! The wine adds moisture and flavor, the mixture should feel moist but not wet, there should not be a puddle of liquid in the bowl. If there is, just distribute it into the mushroom caps at the end. 

Fill the mushroom caps with stuffing. This is accomplished best, messily, with a spoon and hands. There should be enough for all the mushroom caps. Try to get the stuffing to stay inside and on top to make a round mushroom! 

Bake in a preheated oven at 350° for about an hour, until they are done. Dark brown, tender, juicy, crispy bits on top. They will look like this:

Serve hot for best wow-factor. They store for a week in the fridge. And they reheat super well! (Even as I did over an open fire on a recent camping trip.)