A Nod to Quebecois Cuisine: Meatballs, but Sans Cloves

Today is Saint Jean Baptiste day here in Quebec (Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste), and is the biggest annual holiday celebration in the province. Coinciding with Midsummer, it was a huge festival in France from the 15th century onwards, and the traditions from that lovely country were brought over by settlers who began celebrating it here in the early 1600s. In honour of all things Quebecois, today's recipe honours a staple of our province's cuisine: les boulettes (meatballs).

Meatballs often make it to funeral buffet tables as they're bite-sized little protein bursts as well as delicious comfort foods; they fortify even as they satiate. The ones I've come across at family gatherings usually have a Swedish or Ukrainian lean, with lingonberry sauce served with the former and sour cream with the latter.

My variation on these delicious niblets differs from standard Quebecois fare, as I cannot warm up to the spices used in the traditional recipe: allspice, cinnamon, and cloves are the key spices used in tourtiere, creton, and the usual ragoût de boulettes (meat pie, pork pate, and meatball stew, respectively), but I can't wrap my head around using those spices for savoury dishes outside of Moroccan or Indian cuisine.

To me, they'll always be associated with mulled wine and gingerbread. If you'd like to use those spices to make it truly traditional, you can find an original recipe here. I've gone with French herbs and flavours instead, but do play around with seasonings to make it your own.

As an example, I like to add chopped olives or capers to mine, while others might mix in chopped bacon, shredded cheese, or even mushrooms.

Most of the meatball recipes I've come across use breadcrumbs or wheat flour as a binding agent, but this is an AIP paleo version using just a whisper of tapioca starch for that purpose.

I'm skipping a vegetarian/vegan version of this recipe because there aren't any meat substitutions for these that won't poison me (like seitan...), and as such I can't vouch for how they might turn out.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground beef, pork, turkey, or chicken
• 1/2 of a small Spanish onion, minced
• 2-3 garlic cloves, crushed or minced finely
• 1/2 cup of flat-leaf (Italian) parsley, chopped finely
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled
• 1/2 teaspoon dried summer savoury, crumbled
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
• 1 teaspoon tapioca starch

Preparation:

Combine all of the ingredients well in a large mixing bowl, and refrigerate for an hour. 

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (or 375 if your oven runs hot). Measure out tablespoon-sized portions of the mixture and roll into meatballs, placing them on a parchment-lined baking sheet or greased glass baking dish as they're formed.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until they're no longer pink in the centre when you cut into them.

Traditional boulettes are served in a thick brown sauce, but if you're making a large batch of these for a memorial gathering, it's generally best to skip the gravy because someone will inevitably end up wearing it.

If you'd like to create a sauce of some kind that folks can spoon over the meatballs, persillade is a light, refreshing option made with fresh parsley and vinegar that's very easy to make, or you can also make tzatziki which, although not French, is rather gorgeous and one of my favourite dips:

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 cup plain yogurt (coconut yogurt for AIP paleo, dairy or soy otherwise)
• 1 cup cucumber, peeled and either grated or minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh dill, chopped finely
• Sea salt

Preparation:

Combine all of the ingredients in a food processor, or just whisk them together in a mixing bowl. Season with salt to taste, and refrigerate for a couple of hours before serving. If you use coconut or soy yogurt, it can stay out at room temperature safely for hours.

Potato Salad for Easing Summer Sorrows

“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between."

- Harper Lee

Preparing food to share with the grieving can be tricky in the summer months. Autumn and winter are ideal for hot, soothing soups, stews, and casseroles, but few feel like eating warm food when the weather is sweltering.

For my first offering here, I'm sharing my mother's potato salad recipe—the same one that nourished me after that first funeral I attended over 30 years ago. It's one of a few dishes that we've always been asked to make for family gatherings of all kinds, and so help me, as soon as we've heard bad news from anyone in our circle, someone gets the water boiling while another starts peeling potatoes.

It's a very simple dish, but one that's both comforting and nourishing on what seems to be a cellular level. You can double or even quadruple the recipe if you're preparing it for a memorial service buffet, or just make a single batch if you're delivering food to an individual or small family.

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs cooked Yukon Gold or white potatoes (6 medium), cooled, peeled, and cubed
• 2 hardboiled eggs, chopped coarsely
• 1 green onion or 4-5 chives, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp shredded carrots
• 1-3 dill pickles, minced (or as few/many as you like, depending on preferred pickle-y-ness)
• 2 tablespoons white or cider vinegar, or brine from the pickle jar
• 1 cup mayonnaise*
• Salt and pepper
• Paprika

Preparation:

Pour the cooled cubed potatoes into a large bowl and toss with vinegar. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

Add the chopped eggs, pickles, green onion, carrots, and mayonnaise, and toss to coat well.

Season with salt and pepper to taste, give it another good stir, and refrigerate until cool. Sprinkle with a bit of paprika before serving, if desired.

I don't have many true recipes per se, in that I don't have specific measurements for various ingredients and just sort of toss dishes together until they taste right. If you make this salad, please adjust it to your own tastes, as adding or changing ingredients can create some fabulous variations.

For example, if I'm just making this salad for my husband and I, I'll toss in a generous amount of chopped capers and minced fresh dill, whereas the version my in-laws make is packed with diced celery and white onion.

Adding some chopped fresh herbs like parsley, dill, chervil, or tarragon adds a bit more greenery and a higher nutritional content, and if someone is on a low-carb or paleo diet, you can also make this with a mixture of cubed cooked sweet potatoes, rutabagas, and turnips in lieu of regular potatoes.

For a vegan version, you can use Vegenaise or even pureed avocado, and omit the hardboiled egg.
Skip the paprika if someone is on the AIP diet or is otherwise nightshade free.


*My mother makes her potato salad with a 50/50 mixture of mayonnaise and Miracle Whip dressing, but that gives it a sweetness that some may find strange when paired with pickles and onions.