*  Exported from  MasterCook  *
 
                          Forty martyrs meatballs
 
 Recipe By     : A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz
 Serving Size  : 6    Preparation Time :0:00
 Categories    : Main Dish
 
   Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method
 --------  ------------  --------------------------------
    1 1/2  pounds        lamb -- ground
    2      cloves        garlic -- pressed
    1      teaspoon      salt
                         black pepper -- freshly ground
    3      teaspoons     mint -- dried
      1/2  cup           pine nuts
      1/2  cup           parsley -- finely chopped
    1      tablespoon    vegetable oil
                         lettuce
 
 Combine the lamb with the garlic, salt to taste, pepper, mint, pine nuts
 and parsley. Mix thoroughly. Form into 40 meat balls about 1 1/4 inches
 in diameter. (Make it easy;divide the meat into 4 parts, divide each
 part into 10 meatballs).
 Heat the oil in a large skillet. Saute the meatballs until nicely
 browned on the outside, but still a little pink on the inside. Turn them
 often with a spatula. Remove excess grease as it is rendered.
 Serve the meatballs on a bed of lettuce in 5 rows of 8 each or some other
 clearly numerical arrangement.
 With them serve Rice or Bulghur Pilaf
 Variation: You can also add to the mixture 1/2 tsp allspice or
 coriander.
 In a number of countries a special dish is prepared once a year to honor
 the memory of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste...
 In Aremenia they eat forty stuffed wheat balls (whose ingredients are
 hard to come by in this country); in Greece as well the Forty Martyrs
 are honored by the eating of dishes that stress the number 40.  There
 are pies made with forty layers of phyllo pastry, dishes consisting of
 forty pancakes or made with 40 kinds of wild herbs.
 Marion Baumgarten Marion10@wwa.com
 Mother to Martha (6) and Peter (3)
 Die Wunderkinder
 
                    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
 
 
 THE FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTE (10 MARCH 320)
 
 In the year 320, Constantine was Emperor of the West and Licinius of
 the East. Licinius, under pressure from Constantine, had agreed to
 legalize Christianity in his territory, and the two made an alliance
 (cemented by the marriage of Licinius to Constantia the sister of
 Constantine), but now Licinius broke the alliance and made a new
 attempt to suppress Christianity. He ordered his soldiers to
 repudiate it on pain of death. In the “Thundering Legion,” stationed
 near Sebaste in Armenia (now Sivas in Turkey), forty soldiers
 refused, and when promises, threats, and beatings failed to shake
 them, they were stripped naked one evening and herded onto the
 middle of a frozen lake, and told, “You may come ashore when you are
 ready to deny your faith.” To tempt them, fires were built on shore,
 with warm baths, blankets, clothing, and hot food and drink close
 by. As night deepened, thirty-nine men stood firm, while one broke
 and ran to the shore. However, one of the soldiers standing guard on
 shore was so moved by the steadfastness of the Christians that he
 stripped off his clothes and ran out to join them. They welcomed him
 into their company, and so the number of the martyrs remained at
 forty. At dawn, most were dead, and the few in whom a little life
 remained were stabbed to death.
 
 -------http://members.aol.com/alanj32020---------------------------

Plain Text Version of This Recipe for Printing or Saving