Albóndigas en salsa (meatballs)

Albóndigas en salsa (meatballs in tomato sauce)

Albóndigas are one of those dishes that in Spain we eat as a tapa in a bar or as a main in our grandma's house on a Sunday with the family.

Here we are sharing the recipe that "Yaya", Maria's grandma, cooked for us all her life.

It is a versatile dish, you can vary the sauce if your prefer a stronger tomato flavour or more peppery. You can also cook it with or wihout potatoes, but you can never forget the crusty bread to "untar" (to mop up the sauce).

Ingredients:

Serves 4-6

For the meatballs: 500gr minced pork

500gr minced beef 1 egg

2 slices of crustless white bread

2 tbsp of milk

1 tbsp of dried oregano

1tsp of black pepper

1 tbsp of salt

a pinch of nutmeg

a small bunch of chopped parsley

1 clove of garlic crusted

1/4 brown onion chopped very small

1/2 carrot grated very small

1 cup of flour

For the sauce:

1 cup of tomato passata

50ml of white wine

1/2 red pepper

1/2 green pepper

1 brown onion

1 carrot

1 tomato

1 clove of garlic

a small bunch of parsley, thyme and oregano

1 tbsp of salt

Method: 1. Place the meat in a big metal bowl and add the spices (salt, nutmeg, oregano and black pepper) and mix it with a fork.

2. In other bowl wet the white bread with the milk. and leave it resting for a few minutes.

3. Mix the onion, garlic and carrot and cover it with boiling water for couple of minutes and strain it in a sieve, this will help to soften them and get ride of the raw onion flavour.

4. Add the bread, the garlic, onion and carrot, and the parsley to the meat and it is mixed.

5. Last add the the egg and mix through, the egg will help to bind the meatballs and hold the shape.

6. Prepare a flat tray and shape the mixture into balls, making sure that they all around the same size, if you prefer you can weigh them. A 1tbls of mixture size is good any bigger and they start to flatten out due to their own weight.

7. In a bowl put the flour and cover each meatball inside and placing back to the tray again.

8. Prepare a pan with EVO in a high heat. When is hot start to add the meatballs until they are brown and take them out.

9. In the same pan we will start to cook the sauce. Firstly blend the onion, garlic, peppers and carrot and add them to the pan in a medium heat during 5min or until it is cooked. Add also some parsley, oregano and thyme. If you prefer you can first cook the vegetables in dices and blend after they are cooked.

10. Turn the heat to high and add the white wine until is dissolved.

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11.Add the tomato sauce and the tomato blended into the pan for around 3min in a low-medium heat and add the meatballs. Leave it for around 15 min, if starts tostick you can add a bit of water.

12. Add some parsley on top when is ready for freshness.

Note:

On this day we accompanied the dish with some fresh baguette, plain lettuce with a sherry vinegar and EVO dressing and some fresh radish.

Sometimes we cook them with potatoes, you can fried them to brown first and after add them to the pan with the meatballs or serve them separate!

Byron & María The Coastal Cocina