Meatballs For Fathers Day (A Nigella Lawson Recipe)
Happy Fathers Day to All Dads Out There.~
This is a Nigella Lawson recipe and is taken from her popular Channel 4 series Nigella Bites, based on her popular book How To Eat. This is a great recipe for meat balls esp for fathers day (or tomorrow), I vary the sauce , it is a good base recipe though for the meatballs also.And despite what it says it doesnt take that long.~ I hope you enjoy ~
This is definitely time consuming, but here at least I make no apology for that. And there is nothing like serving up a bowl of pasta with meatballs to make you feel like an Italian mamma out of a Hollywood film. I don't mean one of those redoubtable types in amorphous black, think Sophia Loren in the kitchen. It works for me!!!! (am smiling...)
The trick to these meatballs is to keep them small. Don't actually use a teaspoon, but use about a teaspoon's amount of mince to roll each ball. If there are children around, so much the better; they can make good meatballs- and they do tend to like making these, apparently!!! My son was too old when I first found this recipe but he did help me make others when he was littler. But otherwise, they're easy enough, and the slow repetitiveness of the action can be rather calming.
To go with these divine meatballs, I like tagliatelle, or Spaghetti, angel hair I think is too fine but good also and hay... making fresh pasta is an experience worth trying (lol) No one's saying you have to make it, but actually once you do try, you'll soon see that it's not difficult.
I had a pasta machine for years before I was brave enough to use it. For some reason I thought it would be a performance But I tried and it isn't, and I rather like the mood of peaceful concentration the activity ushers forth. And it's a great way of playing in the kitchen with children: they love turning the handle, which is actually a help, not often the case when the children are cooking with you. (this last bit is apparently a direct quote from Nigella, I have never made pasta, I have had the forune of living next door to the girlfriend of a guy from Polish descent and she showed me some recipes... but I just cant remember them now - ptsd really sucks)
Quantities are easy so long as you remember you need one egg per 100g of 00 flour (now available at most supermarkets), and that on average, one 'egg ' of pasta, as it were, feeds two generously.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
Meatballs
* 250g minced pork
* 250g minced beef
* 1 egg
* 2 tbspns freshly grated parmesan
* 1 garlic clove, minced
* 1 tsp dried oregano
* 3 tbspns semolina (or breadcrumbs)
* good grind black pepper
* 1 tspn salt
Tomato sauce
* 1 onion
* 2 cloves garlic
* 1 tspn dried oregano
* 1 tbspn butter
* 1 tbspn olive oil (she says not extra virgin here- but I use extra virgin myself ...)
* 700g bottle tomato passata
* pinch sugar
* salt and pepper
* 100ml full fat milk (and I dont tend to use milk in this recipe but again this is because I dont always have it in)
Method: How to cook pasta with meatballs in tomato sauce
How to make the meatballs and tomato sauce
1.Just put everything in a large bowl, and then, using your hands, mix to combine, before shaping into small balls. Place the meatballs on baking sheets or plates that you have lined with clingfilm, and put in the fridge as you finish them.
2.For the sauce, put the onion, garlic and oregano into the process and blitz to a pulp. Heat the butter and oil in a deep wide pan, then scrape the onion-garlic mix into it and cook over a low-medium for about 10 minutes. Don't let the mixture catch, just let it become soft. Add the bottle of passata ( I make my own although NIgella is cute it she can start getting expensive and I am broke so the meat is a budget killer sometimes in itself)and then fill the empty bottle half full with cold water. Add this to the pan with the pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper, and cook for about 10 minutes.
3.The tomato sauce will appear thin at this stage, but don't worry as it will thicken a little later. Stir in the milk, and then drop the meatballs in one by one. Don't stir the pan until the meatballs have turned from pink to brown as you don't want to break them up. Cook everything for about 20 minutes, with the lid only partially covering it.
4.At the end of cooking time, check the seasoning as you may want more salt and a grind or two more of pepper.add cooked and drained Pasta and serve
(I use semolina just because i can keep it in the store cupboard and I try not to eat bread too much so as it is just me when my son is away at uni and I dont have bread in often) although thinking about it I dont tend to make this recipe unless it is for him when he visits... with his girlfriend hopefully next time I have mince in the hope that it wont be too long until I see him again now.
the italics are me ~fin
Happy Fathers Day to All Dads Out There.~
This is a Nigella Lawson recipe and is taken from her popular Channel 4 series Nigella Bites, based on her popular book How To Eat. This is a great recipe for meat balls esp for fathers day (or tomorrow), I vary the sauce , it is a good base recipe though for the meatballs also.And despite what it says it doesnt take that long.~ I hope you enjoy ~
This is definitely time consuming, but here at least I make no apology for that. And there is nothing like serving up a bowl of pasta with meatballs to make you feel like an Italian mamma out of a Hollywood film. I don't mean one of those redoubtable types in amorphous black, think Sophia Loren in the kitchen. It works for me!!!! (am smiling...)
The trick to these meatballs is to keep them small. Don't actually use a teaspoon, but use about a teaspoon's amount of mince to roll each ball. If there are children around, so much the better; they can make good meatballs- and they do tend to like making these, apparently!!! My son was too old when I first found this recipe but he did help me make others when he was littler. But otherwise, they're easy enough, and the slow repetitiveness of the action can be rather calming.
To go with these divine meatballs, I like tagliatelle, or Spaghetti, angel hair I think is too fine but good also and hay... making fresh pasta is an experience worth trying (lol) No one's saying you have to make it, but actually once you do try, you'll soon see that it's not difficult.
I had a pasta machine for years before I was brave enough to use it. For some reason I thought it would be a performance But I tried and it isn't, and I rather like the mood of peaceful concentration the activity ushers forth. And it's a great way of playing in the kitchen with children: they love turning the handle, which is actually a help, not often the case when the children are cooking with you. (this last bit is apparently a direct quote from Nigella, I have never made pasta, I have had the forune of living next door to the girlfriend of a guy from Polish descent and she showed me some recipes... but I just cant remember them now - ptsd really sucks)
Quantities are easy so long as you remember you need one egg per 100g of 00 flour (now available at most supermarkets), and that on average, one 'egg ' of pasta, as it were, feeds two generously.
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
Meatballs
* 250g minced pork
* 250g minced beef
* 1 egg
* 2 tbspns freshly grated parmesan
* 1 garlic clove, minced
* 1 tsp dried oregano
* 3 tbspns semolina (or breadcrumbs)
* good grind black pepper
* 1 tspn salt
Tomato sauce
* 1 onion
* 2 cloves garlic
* 1 tspn dried oregano
* 1 tbspn butter
* 1 tbspn olive oil (she says not extra virgin here- but I use extra virgin myself ...)
* 700g bottle tomato passata
* pinch sugar
* salt and pepper
* 100ml full fat milk (and I dont tend to use milk in this recipe but again this is because I dont always have it in)
Method: How to cook pasta with meatballs in tomato sauce
How to make the meatballs and tomato sauce
1.Just put everything in a large bowl, and then, using your hands, mix to combine, before shaping into small balls. Place the meatballs on baking sheets or plates that you have lined with clingfilm, and put in the fridge as you finish them.
2.For the sauce, put the onion, garlic and oregano into the process and blitz to a pulp. Heat the butter and oil in a deep wide pan, then scrape the onion-garlic mix into it and cook over a low-medium for about 10 minutes. Don't let the mixture catch, just let it become soft. Add the bottle of passata ( I make my own although NIgella is cute it she can start getting expensive and I am broke so the meat is a budget killer sometimes in itself)and then fill the empty bottle half full with cold water. Add this to the pan with the pinch of sugar, some salt and pepper, and cook for about 10 minutes.
3.The tomato sauce will appear thin at this stage, but don't worry as it will thicken a little later. Stir in the milk, and then drop the meatballs in one by one. Don't stir the pan until the meatballs have turned from pink to brown as you don't want to break them up. Cook everything for about 20 minutes, with the lid only partially covering it.
4.At the end of cooking time, check the seasoning as you may want more salt and a grind or two more of pepper.add cooked and drained Pasta and serve
(I use semolina just because i can keep it in the store cupboard and I try not to eat bread too much so as it is just me when my son is away at uni and I dont have bread in often) although thinking about it I dont tend to make this recipe unless it is for him when he visits... with his girlfriend hopefully next time I have mince in the hope that it wont be too long until I see him again now.
the italics are me ~fin
