Food Blog: Pasta and meatballs.

I've been itching to make myself something home-cooked, cheap and cheerful for a week or so now.  I've also been reading a number of food blogs, including my friend Gord's site, which has got me somewhat inspired.  Since I've been enjoying photo-documenting my other adventures, I'd thought I'd give it a go with a culinary adventure.

My choice of recipe: a very straightforward meatball and tomato sauce recipe borrowed from Jamie Oliver (with a few adaptations for those of us not feeling like the walk to the good supermarket).  The meatball recipe is almost identical to a burger recipe of his I was a big fan of two summers ago (not that I hated it this summer, I just lacked a grill) so when I saw an idiot-proof 8-minute clip of this recipe my mind was made up.  At a little over £2 a serving and about 30 minutes cook time, the dish certainly makes for a sensible and tasty mid-week meal.

While usually I enjoy a challenge in the kitchen, I prefer taking them on when I'm at my mom's where I've got a full kitchen of equipment and a better stocked pantry at my disposal.  Here in Scotland, I'm trying to avoid accruing excess gear so I liked the idea of ten pretty standard and versatile ingredients (plus olive oil and salt, which I always have around).  


The meatballs turned out really well and were a breeze to make.  No hiccups on the first round is an A+ for any recipe as far as I'm concerned.  I'd recommend them to both seasoned cooks looking for a quick one-off after class as well as anyone who's a bit scared of anything involving more than heating and stirring.  The sauce tastes as simple as it looks, and is a healthy two-minute miracle when you don't have anything on hand.


This would work well when having guests, too; it's so foolproof that it'll turn out great and won't keep you tied up in your cooking.  Hit the jump for a walk through of my experience, I'll pop a short breakdown at the end to summarize.

First things first: what you'll need.  The recipe makes 4-6 servings, so I used half of what I bought and saved the rest for another batch later on (still have leftovers from today's lot, too).  What I used:

• 1 tin of tomatoes
• 1/4 packet of cream crackers
• 1 egg
• ground beef
• 1 chili
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp mixed herbs
• pasta

Right, so everything's gathered and ready.  First step is to make the meatballs.  For this, I used half the pack of ground beef, a quarter pack of crackers, the egg, mustard and mixed herbs.  The leftover beef is wrapped up in my fridge for later.  The recipe calls for fresh rosemary, but it wasn't available (had to go to Tesco Express, which is crap - plus I'm poor).

Before we get mixing, the crackers need crumbed.  Just wrap them in a tea towel and go to work with a rolling pin or something similar.  

At a loss for a blunt object, I just bashed them around with my hands on the counter.  In hindsight, not so effective: wound up with cracker chunks that caused me trouble throughout the rest of the process.  You'll see them throughout.

Right, now give everything a good mix with your hands - mush it all thoroughly until it's more or less consistent throughout.  Again, cracker chunks made this a pain, but I managed more or less.

Once it's mixed through, break off lumps and roll them between your palms to make the meatballs.  Any size is fine as long as they're all the same size (otherwise you'll run into cooking problems).  Make sure everything is stuck together (the egg and crackers should take care of this just fine) and they're looking more or less ball-y:

Ta-da!  I managed to get eleven that were slightly smaller than a golf ball out of mine.  Now we're ready to get the show on the road and get cooking!  Boil some water and get the pasta going in a pot (I used a kettle to boil the water - saves a lot of time as well as power).

Oil and heat up a pan (or a pot if your frying pan is as scary as mine) on medium-high and start cooking the meatballs.  Keep giving them a shake fairly frequently to roll them about and keep everything cooking evenly. You want them to get pretty brown and cooked through.

Meanwhile, start prepping for the tomato sauce.  It's a super simple sauce and takes literally two minutes.  First, I thinly sliced the garlic and chili (use as much or as little chili as you're happy with, I used most of mine).  If you're lucky enough to have a grocery store that carries fresh oregano or basil, chop that up roughly.  If not, peel the safety seal of your bottle of dried oregano (which I forgot and then had to leave my garlic burning while I fumbled about with it).

Keep an eye on the pasta/ear out for the timer and drain and set it aside whenever it's done (shouldn't be too far ahead of everything else).

When the meatballs are done, slide them onto a plate and put a bit more oil in the pan you've been using.  Tilt the hot oil to one edge (my slanted burner did that for me) and cook the garlic and chili in the oil for a minute (just until they start to colour slightly).

(The photo quality goes downhill for a bit here, this is a pretty quick sauce.)

Once that starts to colour, dump in the tomatoes and shake (or dump if you're going al fresco) your herbs in.  I neglected to add salt or pepper, but a pinch of salt would certainly help things.  Also, I used whole canned cherry tomatoes which called for some squashing/stabbing with the spatula, but made a really nice looking sauce.

Once that comes to a boil, you're all set!  So as it heats, plop the meatballs back in and give it a stir.  In a minute or so you should have some mighty fine looking sauce and meatballs.  Stir in the pasta, grab a plate and dig in!

Afterthoughts

In hindsight, I would have gone with more or at least fresher garlic (mine has been hanging around in a tupperware in the fridge for some time now), but the chili was a really nice addition.  The meatballs turned out much better than I'd expected!  The cracker chunks had made me very worried, and though I'd avoid them next time, didn't take away from the overall result.  As usual, dried herbs left me a teensy bit disappointed, but considering a) my budget and b) the availability of fresh herbs at the Tesco Express in late October, they were a completely ok sacrifice to make.

In summary: tasty, fast and would totally do again!  I have enough for another batch, so next time I'll see if I can do the whole thing in under 30 minutes (considering that I managed to make, photograph, eat and clean up after the meal in under an hour today, I'd say that's doable).

Tomato Sauce and Homemade Meatballs

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1 tin of tomatoes
• 1/4 packet of cream crackers
• 1 egg
• 1/2 pack of ground beef
• 1 chili
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp mustard
• 1 tbsp oregano
• 1 tbsp mixed herbs
• pasta
• salt
• olive oil

1. Wrap crackers in a tea towel and beat them into fine crumbs.
2. In a bowl, combine beef, mixed herbs, mustard, cracker crumbs and egg.  Use your hands to mix until completely blended.
3. Make balls out of the beef mixture by rolling portions between your palms; make sure they are of equal size.
4. Heat an oiled pan on medium-high heat and begin cooking the meatballs.  Stir or shake frequently to ensure even cooking.
5. Boil water and add pasta and a pinch of salt.  Continue with recipe, but remove and drain when cooked.
6. Finely slice garlic and chili.
7. When meatballs are dark brown and cooked through, transfer to a plate.
8. Add oil to the pan, and tilt to one side.  Heat the garlic and chili in the oil until they start to colour.
9. Quickly add mixed herbs and the tin of tomatoes.  Stir and continue heating.
10. Add meatballs to pan, stir.  Once the sauce comes to a boil, remove from heat.  Mix in pasta and serve.

NB:  The original recipe (double this) calls for one egg which I kept since halving an egg becomes difficult.  Just remember not to double the eggs if you decide to make this for a bigger crowd (although I doubt it would really hurt).