Keftedakia are Greek meatballs. This is Mama Julia’s recipe (my mom), who got it from her mother, yiayia Anneta. Very simple to make! I have been eating them this way since I was a child.
Note that these are eyeball estimates, so you can play with the amounts to your liking. Old school home cooks don’t always use a written recipe, as you likely already know. So it becomes a shake of this & a pinch of that, add some love to what you’re doing & the magic appears!
I always have the dry ingredients on hand, but I usually use fresh ones. My mother primarily used the dry ingredients out of convenience.
You can fry them or bake them. Greeks fry in extra virgin olive oil. Pretty much one oil for everything. If you bake them, then 400F for 45 minutes should do the trick!
Ingredients:
1 lb of ground beef
1 egg
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 small onion finely chopped
1 garlic clove finely chopped
1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley
1 tbsp dry oregano
2 tbsp breadcrumbs
Directions:
In a medium mixing bowl, add in all of the ingredients and mix them up very well by hand. While you are heating up the oil for frying on medium heat, roll them into small balls.
Add them to the hot oil & shake the pan a little to roll them around and coat them. Turn them over after a few minutes when you see the one side is cooked. I turn them to be sure that all sides are cooked properly. The bigger you roll them, the longer they will take to cook on the inside. Keep that in mind.
Drain on a paper towel. Garnish with a generous squeeze of lemon & a sprinkle of dry oregano.
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