Recipes

Spaghetti And Meatballs

May, 2010 | 6 Comments

This recipe will open your eyes to the value of home cooking and life will never be quite the same again. You’ll chuck out the tinned spaghetti & meatballs – soft strands of soggy gluten and heavy sawdustballs floating in tartrazine preserved tomato gruel which, as a last resort you force down after a blinding night out when you can’t see your way clear to turn on the stove. Now just the thought of a bowl of fresh pasta and home made sauce will have you feeling molto bene!

First prepare the fresh pasta (see below) or at a push you can walked pasta the dry stuff and get some fresh from your Italian deli!

Then make the sauce – you might as well peel and chop enough garlic and onion for both this and the meatballs while you’re at it.

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

A couple of garlic cloves – peeled and roughly chopped
Some onion – peeled and thinly sliced
A good dollop of olive oil
A knob of butter
A couple of anchovy fillets
About vine-ripened plum tomatoes – roughly chopped skin and all
A tin whole peeled tomatoes.

Method

In a saucepan, fry the garlic and onion in the olive oil and butter until the onions are translucent. Add the fresh and canned tomatoes. Using your fingers, break up the anchovies and add. Let this cook for about half an hour on low heat (it must simmer not boil) until the fresh tomatoes have disintegrated into the sauce.

What you should know about anchovies: These taste nothing like anchovy paste and even if you try one and think it’s a little strong on its own, once they’ve blended in they become that secret ingredient that gives the sauce its zing. A jar is quite pricey but lasts a long time and once you’re converted you’ll find plenty of ways of using them.

Meatballs

While the sauce is simmering, turn on your oven to 180° C and bake the meatballs – a healthy option to frying in oil. We all need to watch our cholesterol and this way the fat in the meat will bake out and can be discarded before the meatballs are added to the sauce.

Ingredients

500 grams of lean beef mince
2 finely chopped cloves of garlic
1 onion, finely chopped
A handful of basil leaves roughly chopped
A handful of grated parmesan
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Chuck all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix thoroughly with freshly washed hands then roll into about 3cm balls. Arrange these on a baking tray and bake in the pre-heated oven for 10 minutes. Don’t over cook, you want to end up with juicy, plump taste-bomb and not hard cannon balls and they’ll cook through when you add them to the hot tomato sauce.

In the mean time give your sauce a stir. Taste – you might want to add another anchovy fillet – just a suggestion!

Fresh Pasta Rules – you’re tongue-dead if you can’t tell the difference, capiche!

Ingredients for pasta

1 egg (free range and organic)
1 cup of cake flour

Method

Place the flour on a flat clean surface and make a well in the middle (think volcano). Break the egg into the centre and using clean fingers, gently mix. Once the egg has been absorbed, knead the dough for about 10 minutes. If too dry – add a splash of water, if too wet – sprinkle more flour.  It should have a rich golden colour and the texture of play dough. Wrap this in cling wrap and refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

Sprinkle flour on your work surface to keep it from sticking and again with your hands, make a small ball from the dough. Flatten it out using a rolling pin or wine bottle. Keep rolling the pasta until it’s as thin as possible because when it cooks it doubles in thickness. Cut it into thin stripes, about 1/2 cm wide, and hang these over the back of a chair to dry.

Five minutes before eating…………….

Drop all the meatballs into the tomato sauce – stir and heat through.

Cook the pasta in rapidly boiling water for about 3minutes and drain – watch like a hawk, it gets soggy much quicker than the dry stuff.

To serve

Dish up the pasta and smother with tomato sauce and meatballs.

Add freshly grated parmesan cheese and a twist or two of black pepper.

Serve with a green salad on the side.

Invest in a pasta making machine. Hand rolling takes time and extra effort so once you know the value of fresh pasta you’ll want to invest in a hand operated pasta machine. These are not very expensive and most brands are good, just make sure that you’re able to vary the thickness so that you can make them all from spaghetti to lasagna.