This albondigas recipe uses frozen meatballs (GASP!) When I’m cooking at home, frozen meatballs are a go-to, because they make life so much easier without giving up much. If you are trying out for a cooking competition or something, feel free to make your own. Or just use the frozen ones and don’t tell anyone.
I’m calling this dish Albondigas (Spanish for meatballs) after a very similar dish that I had in Spain. If you were to dissect the components, you could almost say that these are Middle Eastern meatballs. But I ate them in Spain, so the name stays. Lot’s of restaurants in big Spanish cities serve authentic Spanish foods that are influenced by Moroccan cuisine, which is influenced by by Egyptian food, which gets some ideas from the Arabian Peninsula… you get the idea. These albondigas are one of those magic dishes that came about from a ton of different cultures affecting each other.
The fresh herbs can be changed up or even omitted, but the cilantro and dill really do go nicely with the other flavors, so try to use them if you can.
