Meatballs in tomato sauce

[Konan555]

I'm afraid I only work in units of 'about that much' but, with proper cookin', you can adjust it however you want anyway. Hopefully you'll get the idea from the pictures.

Feeds 3 people a very filling meal. If you want to do more, just add another onion and some more bread. The sauce covers more than three portions, so there's probably a bit too much there.

Also, a disclaimer, since this may be read in the US. Cooking involves sharp stuff and hot things. I will not be held responsible if you're a spaccer and hurt yourself.

The Stuff you'll need for the meatballs:

An egg, a large onion, bread, couple of cloves of garlic, small pack of beef, small pack of pork, herbs and a plate of flour. The bread's best if it's granary or wholemeal. Flour should have a good lot of pepper ground in (no salt). Herbs include; Lot's 'o basil, rosemary, watercress, thyme, marjoram (oregano will do if you've not got that, but go easy with it) and parsley.





Cook the meatballs:

Take the onion, herbs and garlic and stick them in the blender for a few seconds to chop them up. Then tear up the bread and add it in.





Add the meat and egg to the mix. Season with pepper. Blend it till it binds together and starts going round the blender in a nasty looking gooey lump you'd not feed to the dog.





Roll yourself some nice meatballs using the resulting mix. Make sure you roll them for a good amount of time to compact them, else they'll fall to bits later. Once you've rolled each one, cover it in flower.





Heat op some olive oil in a pan and fry them till they brown off on the outside. Don't deep fry them, but don't skimp on the oil either.




Sauce

It's probably best to start on the tomato sauce when you start frying the meatballs.

Empty a packet of pasata into a saucepan (not the hardest bit). Put it over a high heat and keep it stirred





Whilst the pasata's heating up, put a tablespoon of vegetable stock, basil, pepper, and some mild chili powder (add to taste, a good sprinkle will do) into a measuring jug. Boil some water up in the kettle and add somewhere under a quarter of a pint to the jog. Mix it all up, then add it to the pasata. Keep stirring everything to make sure it doesn't sediment at the bottom or splatter all over the kitchen.





Once the meatballs are browned and the tom sauce is bubbling a bit, add the meatballs into the saucepan with the sauce. Put it on the lowest heat and stick a lid on the pot.





Timing is quite approximate. I normally leave it for 10 minutes before I put the water on for the pasta. Stick the pasta in once it reaches the boil and then the meatballs are done at the same time the pasta's done (assuming it's 10 minute pasta).

A couple of minutes before serving, take the meatballs and sauce off the heat and add half a pot of non-specificly-branded creme fraiche.





And here we go.




My wine suggestion is Red stuff from a bottle. Cheap as you can get it.

[toomanycooks]

Good work, this is a really excellent how-to - although I don't agree about the cheap wine bit, spend up.

[dkmech]

Lol. Nice one.

[cotswoldcs]

Yum, think even I could manage that!

Nice photos - thanks for taking the effort to share your culinary skills with us!

[0iD]

Kewl, 'bout time we had some more recipe's posted