From the Kitchen: Easy Baked pork meatball salad

Always endeavouring to eat healthily, I occasionally make a salad for lunch.

However, at times my need for flavour trumps over rational judgment, and a thought passes by and say: This thing needs meatballs. So, I ended up with a titanic meatball salad, that had more meatballs than salad. Well, at least I can tell Mum that I had my veggies for the day.

And hence ladies and gentlemen, I bring to you the meatball mania that is the Baked Pork Meatball Salad. Note that this was a portion for one, and that one is me. If you are a small eater or you would like to make this as an entree instead of a full blown meal, cut the portions to 50%.

Part A- Meat ball ingredients.
240 g of mince pork (fat on, no lean stuff here)
1 egg
1 onion, sliced
3 cloves garlic (chopped and crushed)
2 tbsp of cajun spices
2 tsp rosemary
2 tsp thyme
3 pieces of oatmeal cookies , crushed (this is my breadcrumb substitute and if you have breadcrumbs, add in about 80 g instead)
salt and pepper to taste

Part B- Dressing ingredients
Juice of 1 orange
1 splash apple cider vinegar
3 splashes of olive oil
1 tsp mixed italian herbs

Part C- Veggies
Feel free to try whatever you fancy. You can even use fruits.
For this rendition, I had one cucumber, one apple and half a cup of cherry tomatoes

Steps:
1. Caramelize the onions in Part A until its golden brown and very soft. Once its somewhat cool, mix all the ingredients in Part A. Mix well.

2. Scoop out about 30g of the Part A mixture and use our palms to roll our your meatballs. I advise that you weigh your meatballs as it will cause it to be a consistent size and will cook evenly. This will yield about 8 golf ball sized morsels.

3. Heat your pan and seal the meatballs. Do not cook this through in the pan as it will dry out the meatballs. So, just seal them for 30 seconds and transfer it onto a hot and well greased baking tray. Some colouring due to the char will suffice.

4. Bake the balls in a preheated oven at about 180 degrees for 15 mins. Do ensure that the baking tray is hot. If not, the balls will stick on to the tray and it will be a pain to clean.

Pro tip: Preheat the oven with your baking tray inside.

5. While waiting for the meatballs to cook, prepare the dressing. You can use a protein shaker if you have one around. If not, just stuff everything into a water bottle and shake vigorously. If your acid to oil ratio is 1 to 3, you will do fine.

6. Combine part B and C together and top it off with the meatballs when they are done. Then dig in!

This is a base recipe that can be modified to your liking.

For the rendition in the picture above, I sprinkled some salted groundnuts and added a wedge of chive cream cheese for some extra texture and flavour and added an egg, for more protein.

For extra zest, why not use lemon instead of orange?
Why not add chives into the meatballs? Or make it with chicken mince instead?
Why not add some dried raisins or apricots?
The limits of how far this can go is only limited to the confines of your creativity.

Notes: 

Liquid sustenance consumed during drafting: Chamomile tea from BOH

Most recent meal consumed before drafting: Pork noodles from I Like Mee (I seriously need to write an article on this)