Sesame-Spiced Turkey Meatballs and Smashed Chickpea Salad

A tasty falafel inspired dish. The meatballs were moist and flavourful (and actually tasted of turkey) with the sesame seeds adding a crunchy texture, and the brightness of the chickpea salad was a great counter to the heat (which was quite mild) of the meatballs. Flavours of the Middle East but toned down a little.

The meatballs took a few extra minutes to put together as time was spent toasting sesame seeds and making fresh breadcrumbs but they were still quite easy to make. I made mine a little smaller and broiled them instead of frying and baking.

The chickpeas (I used freshly cooked) were almost a disaster: the directions to mash them slightly resulted in an unappetizing mess of partially mashed chickpeas and loose skins. I spent 5 minutes removing the skins and was just glad that I hadn’t yet added the other ingredients.

I served them with pitas, a cucumber-tomato-mint salad and a dollop of Greek yogurt.

I would like to give this 3 ½ stars “ 4 for flavour with a half-star deduction for the issue of the chickpeas.