Tonight,  in honor of the BCS National Championship Game (Roll Tide!), I’m making my second Smitten Kitchen recipe. Sesame-spiced turkey meatballs sound like the perfect meal to watch a football game. I’ll serve the meatballs with roasted sweet potatoes and spinach salad. Can’t wait!

Ingredients

1 pound ground turkey
2/3 cup fresh breadcrumbs (from 1 to 2 slices sandwich bread)
1/4 cup water
1 tsp table salt
1 large egg
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp Aleppo pepper
Pinch of cayenne pepper, or 1/4 tsp Aleppo red pepper flakes
2 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
Olive oil, to coat the pan

Form meatballs. Preheat oven to 400. Combine all the meatball ingredients in a medium bowl with a fork, breaking up the clumps of meat until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Form turkey mixture into 1 1/2 inch, or golf-ball-sized, meatballs, and arrange them on a tray. 

Cook meatballs. Heat a generous slick of oil in a large ovenproof saute pan with a lid. Brown the meatballs in batches, being careful not to crowd the pan or nudge them before they are nicely browned. These meatballs are soft, so use a gentle hand. Transfer the meatballs to a paper-towel-lined tray, and continue cooking in more batches until they are browned.

Discard the oil, and wipe all but a thin layer from the pan. Return all of the meatballs to the pan, and transfer to preheated oven. Bake until a thermometer reads an internal temperature of 160 to 165, or about 10 to 15 minutes.

I can’t wait to try out my second Smitten Kitchen recipe. The first was a great success, so I’m highly optimistic about tonight’s efforts. I’ll keep you all posted!