Swedish Meatball Arayes

You may have come across these delicious little meat filled grilled pitta pockets by now.

30 minutes prep

30 minutes cook

Serves 8-10

Hugh Woodward

Ingredients

400gpork mince (12% fat)

300gbeef mince (20% fat)

1 onion, cooked until soft

100gwhite bread, soaked in 50ml milk

1 tbspflaked sea salt

1/2 tspgrated nutmeg

2eggs

roughly 4pittas and halved and warmed

1 tbsp butter, melted

handful finely chopped parsley

large jughot gravy

1 jarlingonberry jam

They hail from the Middle East and usually contain a mixture of lamb, spices and herbs. We're stuffing ours with a Swedish meatball mixture and dipping them in a thick, rich gravy and lingonberry jam.

Method

In a mixing bowl combine the meat, onion, soaked white bread, sea salt, nutmeg. Mix it really thoroughly so it becomes almost a paste - we don't want these arayes to be loosely textured.

Stuff the mixture into the halved pittas. It helps if they've been warmed through in a toaster otherwise they tend to be difficult to prize apart.

Heat your BBQ grill/light your coals and allow them to cool down to grey coals.

Grill the arayes in batches until they are golden brown all over the pitta and nicely grilled on the exposed meat.

Serve them brushed with butter and sprinkled with parsley then dipped in the gravy and jam.