These little bite size meatballs are very cute, tasty and affordable. They're nice and simple but flavoursome too, pork and parmesan are a really good mix, they go perfectly with all shapes of pasta and light tomato sauces.
As with my other meatball recipe, the trick here is to make the mixture and then test it by frying off a small patty to make sure your seasoning is right, before making all of the meatballs.
Meatballs for two:
250g minced pork
Two red onions, finely chopped
Two garlic cloves, finely chopped
Several scrunches of black pepper
Several scrunches of salt
A small pinch of chilli flakes
50g finely grated parmesan
One tablespoon worcestershire sauce
Oil for frying (vegetable or groundnut)
For the sauce:
Half a jar of pasatta
One glass of red wine
A pinch of chilli flakes
Several scrunches black pepper
A few scrunches of salt
Method:
- Cook off the onions in some oil for around 20 minutes on a low heat until they're a light golden brown and totally soft
- Add the garlic and cook through with the onion mixture for a couple of minutes (I add the garlic later on so it doesn't get burnt, which can happen all too easily)
- Take the onion mix off the heat and put into a large mixing bowl, wait until it cools
- Add the parmesan, chillies, pepper, salt and worcestershire sauce and mix thoroughly
- Now for the messy bit, using your hands mix in the pork mince, combining all the mixture together well
- Form a small patty with some of the mixture and fry it off for a few minutes each side on a low-medium heat, if you need to adjust the seasoning then do this to taste
- Now it's time to make the meatballs, using clean wet hands take around a teaspoon of the mixture and roll it into a small ball, pop it onto a plate and repeat until you've used all of the mixture
- The sauce is very easy to make; add your pasatta, wine, some more salt and pepper to a pan and heat gently until simmering - that's literally it until you want to add the meatballs - it's the perfect simple sauce for them too, letting the flavours of the meatballs really speak for themselves
- Heat some more oil in a frying pan on a medium to high heat until it starts to shimmer gently, then add half of your meatballs to the pan (don't add them all, they'll stew in an overcrowded pan and you're looking for them to turn golden)
- Fry all of the meatballs for around 8 minutes, shaking the pan every minute or so, then when they're golden, remove them with a ladle and put them in the tomato sauce pan to cook through, this will only take a few minutes more
- Serve with pasta, I like rigatoni because it really traps the sauce, and a light grating of parmesan cheese
- In the pic you'll see I served them with peppers stuffed with tomatoes, this worked really well because the juice of the peppers mixed nicely with the tomato and red wine sauce, but they really weren't essential
