It’s been a while since I’ve made meatballs so when I came across this recipe, I thought the time was right! Kanda is a traditional beef meatball dish hailing from the Central African Republic. It can be made in two ways, but I opted to use the pumpkin seed version, where finely ground pumpkin seeds are mixed into the ground beef and act as a binder to hold the meatballs together. I was surprised to see that egg was not utilized for this purpose in the recipe but that could be because it is not a common of an ingredient in that region. Onions were also mixed into the ground beef mixture (thank goodness for my food processor to pull all this together!) The meatballs are then cooked in a pretty mild sauce of tomatoes, onions and chile peppers (though mine were pretty mild) and served over rice.

Recipe I used: https://www.196flavors.com/kanda

Overall Level of Effort: 2

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make it Again? No

Additional notes: I opted for a 90/10 ground beef on this and I think it could have benefited with a little more fat, so I’d suggest a 85/15. It could also be possible that since there was no egg or oil to help as a binder, it dried out the beef.