BIFTEKIA (OVEN MEATBALLS WITH LEMON AND OREGANO) - p. 104
I made these using Impossible instead of beef. Impossible comes in 12-oz packages so I scaled the recipe accordingly. Your meat mixture is a blend of soaked bread, ground beef, salt, dried oregano, and grated onion. This is to be formed into 4" patties, and you are meant to get 7 or 8 of them. I just gonna say that no way, no how are the ones pictured in the book 4" in diameter. Batali problem. I was scaling down, so I made mine a bit less than 4" and got 6. Potato wedges are tossed in olive oil and seasoned with salt. You pour olive oil into a roasting pan, put down the patties, and tuck the potatoes in around them. You then squeeze over the juice of two lemons, and season with some more salt, oregano, and black pepper. You are to roast this for 45-50 minutes at 400 F.
The book says, “This is a soft dish, not one with lots of golden-brown caramelization.” And in that at least, the picture rings true. The headnote promises that the biftekia come out of the oven swimming in a “liquid gold sauce”. Um, no, they did not. All the liquid had evaporated, as you might expect when you cook something for that length of time and that temperature uncovered. The good news is that they still tasted quite good, and we had tzatziki to dip everything in. So no big deal. But I was looking forward to that sauce, so next time I would cook covered for at least a part of the time. I was thinking about the Greek potatoes i like to make, from The Olive & the Caper, and that recipe has you add not just lemon juice, but water to the potatoes as they cook in the oven, and they still don’t come out saucy. Anyway, I’m filing this one under “will make again with revisions”.
