Spicy BBQ beef ball in breadcrumbs

This little morsel - BBQ beef in breadcrumbs -was a bit of a showstopper. We wanted to add a little texture and crunch to our dining experience, where we were cooking 'beef three ways'.
The beef ball recipe although experimental, turned into one of the finer elements on the plate.
Our guests were more than impressed and so were we! The beef ball was placed ceremoniously on a bed of sweet onion puree (I'll post that recipe later) and helped balance the whole plate.
Everyone wanted to know how to make them. We had searched for something akin online, and found nothing, so we came up with our own recipe.
They would certainly work as appetisers on their own. Here's our recipe:

BBQ BEEF BALLS IN BREADCRUMBS

Ingredients (makes 12)

2 x Short ribs of beef (or 500g piece of shin of beef)

Water

Salt & pepper

BBQ seasoning/sauce

Breadcrumbs (we used Panko for the extra crunch)

Plain flour

Beaten egg

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Rub the beef with the BBQ seasoning or sauce. We made our own using equal amounts of smoked paprika, thyme, cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

Place the beef into a roasting tin and pour in a cup (around 200ml) of water.

Cover tightly with foil.

Cook on 140ºC until the beef can be pulled apart with a spoon. We left our short ribs in the oven for four hours.

Allow beef to cool down then pull it apart.

Roughly chop and form into balls (slightly smaller than golf ball size) - compress and squeeze into shape. If they fail to stay in shape, you may need to add a little beaten egg to help them. Because we used short rib, there was lots of natural gelatine so it wasn't a problem.

Cover the plate of beef with cling film and put in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Roll the beef balls in flour, dip into beaten egg and roll in breadcrumbs.

Deep fry (at 170ºC) until golden brown. Ours took 4 minutes.

If you don't have a deep fat fryer you could always shallow fry. 

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Do you know how many calories you can eat each day?

Here's a link to our very first blog post about our weight loss journey, which we began in January 2011. We started this blog as a way of recording what we ate while losing weight. The blog is a food diary, and contains lots of recipes, tips and ideas about losing weight.

You'll find our WEIGHT LOSS PLAN here. 

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