Meatballs in sugo... in sandwiches!

I show you how to make-a tha meat-a-balls!  Seriously though, gratuitous ethnic stereotyping aside, MEATBALLS! I made them, and they are stupendously good.  Tasty, delicate, with an almost creamy texture but still plenty of oomph.  They have shot right to the top of my winter stodge must haves.  I was a little nervous, never having made them before.   And I recklessly decided I didn't approve of any of the recipes I looked up for them and made them up on the fly.  I thought it would be hard and super fiddly, but it was remarkably straightfoward.  And they are excellent.  Also, there's just shitloads of them so I now have a trusty stockpile.


Making meatballs also required some important deliberations.  How big to make them? (I went with slightly bigger than a golf ball).  What mince to use?  Should I put cheese in them? What kind of cheese?  Well I wanted fluffy moist meatballs and my guts told me that this meant ricotta.  Sometimes my guts are so on the money.  Serve them on spaghetti or in a crusty white bread roll?  I let Leith make that call: he chose rolls, and having just eaten one, I can say with some authority that he was right to do so.  Also did I mention there's shitloads? So spaghetti and meatballs later this week for us!


Ingredients:

• 300g pork mince
• 250g lean beef mince
• 2 cloves garlic
• wedge of ricotta (about 200g)
• 1 egg
• fresh basil (lots)
• fresh continental parsley (quite a bit)
• 3 crusty white bread rolls (or two rolls and 1/2 cup breadcrumbs if you have them)
• reggiano parmesan
• rocket
• lemon
• salt and pepper
• 1 litre tomato sugo

  
To start with, if you don't already have breadcrumbs you can make some like I did, so heat the oven to about 180C and put one of the chopped up rolls in there to dry it out.  Then start preparing your ingredients for your meatbally mush.  Grate about 1/3 cup of parmesan (I didn't want to use too much as I knew I would be adding ricotta as well).  Then smash up the garlic in a mortar and pestle.  I deliberately smashed it instead of finely chopping it as I wanted all the juices to come out and mix right through the mince.  Then finely chop the basil and parsley.

Put everything for the meatball mixture in a bowl (except the bread which was still in the oven): the two types of mince, the herbs, garlic, egg and salt and pepper, and mixed it thoroughly with your hands.  By the time this is done the bread is probably ready to crumb so take it from the oven (but leave the oven on) and put the pieces in a plastic bag.  Then - and this is super fun - smash the bread to smithereens and steamroll them with a nice heavy rolling pin.  I decided that there were still some slightly too large pieces and wanted only fine ones in the meatballs, so I sieved the whole lot into my mixture.  Then mix through the bread crumbs and the ricotta, taking care not to work the mixture too much.

Now it is time to form the meatballs! I deliberated for some time over how big they should be, until I settled on what seemed an appropriate size.  I was also delighted to see how many I had - this recipe produced 30 meatballs.  I decided to cook just over half, and to freeze one dozen uncooked meatballs for another frosty Winters' eve.  Lay the meatballs out on a tray and pop them in the oven for about eight minutes.  I really added this step because I was scared they'd immediately disintegrate in the sauce I was using, but I also wanted them to do most of their cooking in the sauce, not baking to a crisp in the oven.  After eight minutes they were only just starting to brown on the outside, and I decided this was about right.

While the meatballs are in the oven, heat up your tomato sauce.  I used the last of the tomato sugo I made at the end of Summer - two small containers, one with added herbs and one with added chilli.  The chilli in particular was a good addition to the meatballs.  Defrost/heat the sauce in a heavy pot until it is simmering.  Then once the meatballs come out of the oven, very gently place them one at a time into the pot, making sure they are all submerged in the sauce.

From this point you can simmer them as long as you want (but at least 20 mins to cook the meatballs all the way through) I simmered them for close to an hour, to reduce the sauce to a really thick consistency.  About 10 minutes before serving them, start preparing all your other bits.  First of all, heat the oven - even if you're using fresh bread rolls, five minutes of warming them in the oven can just tip them over the edge.  Peel some long strips of parmesan.  And dress your rocket with a little olive oil, lemon juice and cracked pepper.

Finally it is time to construct the sandwiches!  Start by placing three or four meatballs on the base of the roll.  You might want to break each meatball in half and really spread them out over the roll.  Then ladle over the tomato sauce, as much as the sandwich can take! Add as much cheese as you fancy, and top with rocket. Ta da!  Home-made meatball sandwiches on a cold Winter's night.  You're welcome.

Panforte

So as if my baking arms hadn't had enough of a workout this week, the Christmas baking frenzy has continued; this round includes a double batch of panforte.  If you thought after the Christmas cake I'd opt for something a little lighter, a littler easier, think again - this panforte was such a formidable creation it broke my favourite wooden spoon in the stirring.

I decided to make panforte for three reasons.  One, I wanted something that keeps and is a little more special than, say, potato salad, to give to people like my step-mother Anne's family, and Leith's family.  Two, I wanted to have something sweet in the house as we are having a casual lunch with some Christmas orphans, at least one of whom is vegan, so I needed something involving no diary and no eggs.  Three, it's super yummy and in my mind at least, a little Christmassy.

At first I thought I'd make four - one for Dad and Anne, one for the Thomas's, one to take to Mum's and one for us here at home.  Then I quickly realised I couldn't be bothered, and it is such a rich cake, and eaten in such small quantities, that I could probably get away with making two and presenting half each to various people.  So the recipe I've provided below is for a single cake, but the quantities shown in my pics are double that which you'd normally make.  I did my usual food-obsessive ritual of scouring the internet for recipes until I found one I liked the look of, and then changing that one a bit anyway.  This recipe is adapted from trusted website taste.com.

Ingredients:

• Melted butter, to grease
• 100g whole blanched almonds
• 100g whole hazelnuts
• 80g coarsely chopped dessert figs
• 40g coarsely chopped dried apricots
• 40g coarsely chopped dried cranberries
• 40g mixed peel
• 100g (2/3 cup) plain flour
• 2 tbs cocoa powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• shake of chilli powder
• 75g good-quality dark cooking chocolate
• 125ml (1/2 cup) honey
• 55g (1/4 cup) caster sugar
• Icing sugar, to dust

Set the oven to 180 C then prepare a 20cm pan by lining it with baking paper, then brushing it with melted butter.  


Then place all your nuts in baking trays, and roast them in the hot oven for 8 minutes.  Once they're in the oven, chop your fruits and put them in a large mixing bowl.  Remove the nuts from the oven and place the hazlenuts on a clean teatowel, then rub them vigorously to remove as much of the skins as you can (this may take a few minutes).  Add them to the fruit mix and mix thoroughly.  At this point, turn the oven down to 170 C.

Sift the flour, spices and cocoa over the fruit and nut mixture and mix through evenly.

Roughly hew at your cooking chocolate and put it in a smallish saucepan with the sugar and honey*.  Place them over heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is dissolved and chocolate all melted.  Then turn the heat to high and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, turn the heat down low and leave to simmer for two minutes without stirring. 

Then pour over the dry mix and stir it through.  The recipe told me to work as quickly as possible, and I was all "yeah yeah, how long can it take", but this instruction should be taken seriously indeed! Within seconds of removing from the heat the mixture will begin to harden to a spoon breaking consistency, and all you will be able to do is grab a second, sturdier spoon, and continue to mix.  Pouring it into the baking pan also proved to involve a lot of grunting and thrusting.  The best tip I can relay is to have a clean, largish square of baking paper to hand to press the mix down into the pan evenly with - without this advice I would have struggled to get it to even touch the sides.  Then lick the large globules stuck to your spoon, and place in the oven for 30 minutes.
 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for several hours before you attempt to remove it from the pan.  Serve dusted in icing sugar, in thin wedges with coffee or tea, or maybe a cognac. 

*I firmly believe that using good quality chocolate and cocoa will make a noticeable difference to the final richness and smoothness of a cake such as this.  I used Henry Langdon Dutch process cocoa, and Coco Black cooking chocolate (that I bought in a one kilo slab a while back...best. investment. ever)

Penne Puttanesca

This is a slight variation on the classic. I find capers too salty on top of everything else, and opt to add capsicum instead.
 
Ingredients:
packet of penne pasta
1 capsicum, finely sliced
generous handful of kalamata olives
6 anchovy fillets
tin of crushed tomatoes
lots of garlic
lots of finely chopped continental parsley
slug of olive oil
salt and cracked pepper
parmasen to serve

Bring pasta water to the boil. While it's heating, fry up the garlic and anchovies in olive oil, add capsicum and olives and fry on high heat for a minute, then add tinned tomatoes and half the parsley and the salt and pepper, and simmer. Add the pasta to the water and cook until al dente.

Once pasta is cooked, drain and then add to sauce and stir through. Top with parmasen and devour with a glass of delicious red wine.