Participant in Liberty Kitchen
Serves: makes 80 mini streetballs (easily halved or quartered)
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 25 mins
Ingredients:
2x 400g tins acaraje or black-eyed beans
3 white onions (roughly chopped)
A 400g loaf of Gluten Free Vegan Bread
250 g sunflower seeds
4 garlic cloves (finely chopped)
2 tablespoons fresh ginger (finely chopped)
1 red chilli (finely chopped)
200g desiccated coconut
2x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
100g bunch coriander
40ml (red palm) oil (or extra veg oil)
50ml vegetable oil
2 tablespoons mild curry powder
1/2 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons black pepper (freshly ground)
Gram (chickpea) flour, mixed with water into a thin paste
Gluten Free breadcrumbs
Carnaby Street – Acaraje Street Balls was invented by a Brazilian course participant in HMP Pentonville for Liberty Kitchen, a pioneering London-based street-food charity and social enterprise that trains current and former prisoners in culinary and business skills to help reduce reoffending.
Method:
First, chop all the ingredients as described – onion roughly, garlic, ginger and chilli finely.
Fry the onion, ginger and garlic in oil over medium heat. Once golden, add the dry coconut and fry until brown, about 5 minutes, then add red chilli and tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes to reduce and thicken slightly.
Remove from heat. While waiting for it to cool, put the bread in a food processor and blitz into breadcrumbs. Do the same with the sunflower seeds. Drain the beans. Mash one tin of beans lightly leaving them still a little chunky. Leave one tin of beans whole.
Chop coriander and mix all the ingredients including the beans. Add salt to taste and roll mixture into balls. Make a very thin paste of gram flour and water. Roll the balls in the gram flour mix, then roll the balls in GF Panko breadcrumbs and leave in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
When ready to serve, simply fry in oil until lightly golden and cooked through.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
The eventual aim, if possible, is to get kids in the kitchen. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to mean they are with you from start-to-end creating mess and rising stress levels! It can be as simple as giving them one small job (stirring, measuring, pouring, grating, chopping…) ideally involving veg. They can come in to do their little bit, and have fun with you for a few minutes. Getting them involved, making it playful and praising them plenty for their involvement, perhaps even serving it as dinner they “made”, makes it much more likely they will eat the food offered, not to mention teaching them important life skills. Find ideas, safety tips, videos and even a free chart in our Kids in the Kitchen section here.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
Participant in Liberty Kitchen
Carnaby Street - Acaraje Street Balls was invented by a Brazilian course participant in HMP Pentonville for Liberty Kitchen, a pioneering London-based street-food charity and social enterprise that trains current and former prisoners in culinary and business skills to help reduce reoffending.
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