Chicken Balls with Carrot and Bean Salad

There’s something oddly satisfying about whizzing up a couple of chicken breasts in the food processor.  The progression of textures from whole breast to chunks to mush; the sense that you’re doing something a little taboo with what were perfectly fine cuts of meat in turning them to a thick paste; then the final scooping of the aromatic mixture, only possible with your hands, and shaping them into the quasi-ball shapes, just on the verge of not holding together but somehow doing just enough.

Good flavours in this meal, strong, fresh and Thai.  A nice reminder that a peeled carrot salad is a very pleasing, crunchy thing.  The balls an odd texture, a little like chicken mousse, but get past this minor hurdle and they are a fine thing.  Although if a meatier texture is desired it may be possible to process a little less finely to leave the chicken in smaller chunks rather than it being obliterated.

A word of warning: the recipe never instructs to season, which are instructions I tend to follow in case the other ingredients and flavours are giving enough on their own.  But on this occasion I believe it simply to be an omission that should be corrected in the future.

From Doctor’s Kitchen – Pg. 174