Meatballs

Besides the terrific chocolate tart recipe, this meatballs recipe is the most useful and delicious recipe from the naked chef book. This recipe never disappoints, and has that `something extra` flavor.

This is my go-to recipe when I want to make meatballs, this recipe is just delicious, and with all the extra spices, it has a lot more flavor. I find that this recipe is at its best when adding the extra onion-mustard mix to the meatball mixture. One thing though, if you are expecting to get fluffy meatballs, this is not the recipe for you. These ones are fairly solid, and I think that this is part of their charm.

I guess that you could make any tomato sauce with this meatballs, but after many tries, I think that the recipe that is in the book is the best for this specific recipe. If you don’t have 3 cans of crushed tomatoes (like me sometimes), make half of the sauce, and it will be just fine.

Meatballs/ Jamie Oliver- The Naked Chef

1 kg. ground beef

2 slices of bread

1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

pinch of red chili powder

1 tablespoon freshly chopped rosemary

1 egg yolk

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 big handfuls of fresh basil

50 gr. mozzarella cheese

50 gr. Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

tomato sauce

optional:

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon dijon mustard

Use a food processor to make your breadcrumbs with your two slices of bread. In a big bowl, add the bread crumbs, dried oregano, cumin, chili, rosemary, egg yolk, ground meat, salt and some ground pepper (in this point you can add the optional ingredients – fry them until soft, than chill). Mix it all up with your hands and roll into meatballs.

Heat  4 tablespoons of olive oil in your heavy bottom pan over medium high heat. Add a batch of meatballs and brown them all over, turning them with a set of tongs. Be gentle so that you don’t break them up.

Heat the oven to 200 degrees C.

Add in enough tomato sauce to cover the meatballs while in the pan, your fresh basil, and add the mozzarella cheese and the grated Parmesan. Cook in oven for 15 to 20 minutes, until cheese is golden.

Tomato sauce:

1 large clove of garlic, finely chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pinch of red chilli powder or a small dried red chilli, crumbled
2 teaspoons dried oregano
three 400 gr. cans of  whole or crushed tomatoes
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 handful of basil or marjoram (or both), roughly chopped
salt and fresh black pepper

In an heavy bottom pan, gently fry the garlic in the olive oil. Add the chilli powder, the oregano thd the tomatoes. Stir gently, bring to a boil, and cok for an hour. Add the vinegar, and the basil or marjorn, season to taste and add 2 tablesppons of olive oil.