The Susanne

These meat­balls are so good, they just might make you over-​eat and leave you with a stomach-​ache! They’re per­fect with spa­ghetti, or even on their own (I’d ima­gine). I make mine with the accom­pani­ment of my Per­fect Roas­ted Tomato Sauce, let­ting them cook in the sauce in the oven on a low heat for 30 minutes. This leaves them soft, moist and lovely. I got the inspir­a­tion for this recipe from one of my Sicilian Cook­ery books, but I’ve changed it quite a bit.

Here’s my recipe for this amaz­ingly deli­cious Sicilian treat:

• 500g minced beef
• 2 small cloves of garlic, grated
• a big bunch of fresh pars­ley, chopped
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 dl bread­crumbs, soaked in
• -soy milk (about 1 dl when mixed)
• 1 dl parmesan, grated
• salt and pepper to taste
• Per­fect Roas­ted Tomato Sauce

Set your oven to 170 degrees celsius.

Begin the meat­balls by mixing all the dry ingredi­ents with the minced beef: the garlic, the cheese, the pars­ley, salt and pepper:

Then add the bread­crumbs soaked in soy milk:

Then add the egg:

-And mix well. Shape the meat­balls using a spoon (I use my reg­u­lar table spoon as I think it gives a great size and shape to my meatballs):

Coat them lightly in flour and brown them quickly in olive oil:

-Before adding them to the sauce in a roast­ing tin, taking care to cover the meat­balls with sauce. Place in the oven and cook for about 30 minutes. During which time you’ve got the per­fect oppor­tun­ity to make the spa­ghetti or whatever you’re serving to go along with them. You could even eat them on their own, they’re so good.

Take the whole thing out after 30 minutes and it should look some­thing like this:

If you love your friends, invite them over. If you need a break from them, don’t let them taste this. You’ll never be rid of them, I swear ;)

I pretty much lifted this whole recipe from Simply Recipes. I only mod­i­fied it a little, adding some more veget­ables that I found in the fridge and using dif­fer­ent meat, as dad inves­ted 800 grammes of lovely top sir­loin in the dish, mean­ing a pretty big reduc­tion in cook­ing time. I think I would prefer stew beef in this dish over the fine sir­loin as stew beef has much more fat in it. One thing, though, I didn’t have to skim off any fat at all because there was none. Yey. I didn’t have any red wine so I used a little bal­samic vin­egar instead, and that mum has a garden full of fresh herbs so I used fresh thyme instead of dried. Here is my take on this lovely dish:

Feeds five or six:

• 800 g top sir­loin in 2 cm pieces
• 1 whole garlic, minced
• 1 large swede in 1cm pieces
• 4 small car­rots in 1 cm pieces
• 8 new pota­toes in 1 cm pieces
• 2 onions in 1 cm pieces
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp bal­samic vinegar
• 1/2 can Guin­ness (I love using only half of things in food cause then I get to drink the rest! Chef’s juice!)
• 1 tbsp Worcester­shire Sauce
• 1-2 L beef stock (only add as much as will fit in your pot - remem­ber that the meat and veget­ables take up a lot of space too)
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1 tbsp butter