Editor's note: Now, this one is pulled from the archives, from 2016 no less! Supermarkets might offer you the convenience of picking up their pre-rolled meatballs, but they don't do it for free. Plus, if you take the extra time (not much!) to roll your own, you're guaranteed to come away with an idea for next time you make them. Change of seasoning? Different meat? Bigger? Smaller? The world is your lobster, so have a read, treat yourself and your loved ones and give it a go. Also not to be missed is the tomato sauce recipe which if you're making meatballs is essential - with a couple of extremely important pointers. Easy when you know how!
Ringing the changes, today's session will be cooking supper for tonight.
The recipe that follows is easy and makes really tasty meatballs, together with a tomato sauce. All you'll have to do later on is cook the spaghetti – can't be bad! As a rough guide 450g of minced meat will give you twelve meatballs, so if you've four students with 450g per two students, you'll have 24 meatballs in total – this is not an exact science since your students are new at this and the sizes may vary!
Meatballs
450g minced beef, pork or turkey
*salt and black pepper
*garlic – either 2 tsps of paste or 2 cloves, crushed
*mixed herbs or garlic Italian seasoning – a generous sprinkle
*half a tsp of chilli
*heaped tbsp of tomato paste
*1 egg
sprinkle of plain flour
Rapeseed or vegetable oil for shallow frying
Place the mince in a large mixing bowl then add the remaining ingredients marked *, mix well. At this point your mixture may be too wet. If it is, sprinkle a little plain flour over the mixture and fold in gently.
Use a teaspoon as a measure and heaped with mixture, roll it between your hands and set aside on a board. When the meatballs are ready, heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry on a low heat, gently and carefully shaking the pan to ensure they are evenly coloured – use tongs if you are accident prone! Seal the meatballs in batches - 8 at a time and then transfer to an oven-proof dish or foil tray ready for later – cool, cover and fridge.
When you are ready for supper later in the day place the dish or tray containing the meatballs in a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 and complete the cooking for 20/30 minutes – this time will vary depending on the sizes of the meatball – ensure that they are properly cooked – cut a larger one in half to be sure. Whilst the meatballs are in the oven cook your spaghetti and warm up the tomato sauce.
It may be that your students won't be interested in the tomato sauce element – it depends on their attention span – but it's easy to do and takes no time at all – in fact the sauce will improve with “standing” so if it is the case that you are making the sauce you can make it the day before, cover and fridge - after all your students have supplied the main event!
Tomato Sauce
500g sieved tomatoes or the equivalent in cans of chopped tomatoes
1 medium/large onion, chopped finely
garlic clove or tsp of minced garlic
1tbsp olive oil
knob of butter
vegetable stock pot and 250ml of boiling water
oregano or garlic Italian seasoning
black pepper
1 tsp caster sugar
Melt the olive oil and butter in a saucepan, add the onion and fry gently until soft then add the garlic. Add the oregano or garlic Italian seasoning and black pepper. Then add your stock pot and boiling water so that it melts, add the tomatoes and sprinkle on the tsp of sugar. The sugar is meant to balance out the acidity that one sometimes gets with tomatoes. Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes.
N.B. If you want to add extra depth you can add a tbsp of tomato paste. I would suggest that you taste your sauce before you simmer for 20 minutes. If you add paste then the simmering process will cook it out and its important that you do this - it tastes horrid if you don't. A lot depends on personal taste and how good your tomatoes are.
Here's hoping your students are hooked and the rest of the family too!
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