Category: Beef, Recipes | Post by: Andrea Wong
It's been a busy day or a busy few weeks, really. With deadlines coming out my ears, the last thing that I'm thinking about is dinner. Sometimes this foodie just can't be bothered cooking! It would be too easy to reach for the phone and order some takeaways. Takeaways are our Friday night treat and having them mid-week would feel positively naughty and wrong.
So what I'm looking for is a quick, easy and fairly healthy dinner. Mince or chicken drumsticks are usually on standby in the freezer. What I love about mince, is that you can do so many things with it. Some of my favourites are meaty pasta sauce, cottage pie or simple mince on rice. Today however, I settled on meatballs. Isn't funny how when you shape mince into little balls, it suddenly seems so much more exciting than just plain-old loose mince?
Which kind of mince do you buy? I always buy the premium or best-quality mince. The cheaper grades of mince contain more fat and other 'bits' and I'd rather just pay for the real meat thanks. The way that I cook, I pad things out with lots of extra goodies, you get a good full flavour for not too much mince. Lots of garlic, onion and red wine are usual suspects in my beef mince dishes. Today's meatballs has an addition of a huge dollop of ricotta which makes the meatballs soft and deliciously moist (thanks Perfect Italiano!).
Moist ricotta meatballs
Serves 4
Ingredients
Meatball mixture
500g beef mince
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1/3 c red wine
3 tbsp Worchestershire sauce
1 tbsp rosemary
3 tbsp tomato paste
125g ricotta
1/2 c fine bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
Breadcrumbs for rolling
Oil for frying (canola or rice bran oil)
Sauce
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 tins chopped tomatoes
1/4 c red wine
1 tbsp oregano
salt and pepper
Directions
- In a large bowl mix all the meatball ingredients together (except for the oil and breadcrumbs for rolling). Mix well, cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes or more
- When you are ready to cook, shape tablespoons of the mixture into balls and roll in the breadcrumbs
- Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a frypan and brown the meatballs in batches. Put the browned meatballs on a paper towel
- To make the sauce, add the sauce oil, garlic and onion in the pan and sautee for a few minutes
- Return all the meatballs to the pan and add the tomatoes, wine and oregano
- Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Take the lid off and simmer for another 5 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through and the sauce has thickened slightly
- Season with salt and pepper, to taste
Serve with pasta, rice or cous cous.