Catalan meatballs
This is a recipe from Rick Stein when he was visiting the Catalan region in France. He made it on TV and since my father in law was in love with this, I made it at home. In a follow up recipe I will change things to make it more healthy.
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 200 gr minced meat from beef
- 200 gr minced meat from pork
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp black peper
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 small egg
- ½ Tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup parsley roughly chopped
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp smoked paprika or pimenton de la vera or piment d'espelette
- 2 Tbsp all pupose flour
Baking themeatballs
- 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
Sauce
- 2 cup onion diced
- 100 gr bacon cubed
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 Tbsp pimenton de la vera or piment d'espelette
- 3 San marzano tomatoes (In winter, take whole, canned tomatoes) diced
- 125 ml water
- 1 tsp tomato paste
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp kosher salt
- 100 gr green olives pitted slised
- 250 gr cannellini beans can
Instructions
- Mix all the ingredients and spices for the meatballs with your hands. With wet hands, turn them in equally sized balls that have the size of a gulf ball. You can use a cookiescooper to get them all equal sized.
- Pour the left over all purpose flour on a plate and roll the balls through the flour so they get a thin coat and will bake more crispy.
- Place your pan on a medium heat fire and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the meatballs en bake them golden brown on all sides.
- Remove the meatballs from the pan and keep the oil for the next step.
- Add the diced onions and the diced bacon and stir for a minute or two to let the onions sweat.
- Add the cinamon and the piment d'espellette.
- Add the diced tomatoes, the tomato paste and ½ cup of water
- Leave the sauce to simmer for five to ten minutes
- Add the meatballs, sliced olives and beans.
- Turn the heat down and leave to cook for 30-35 minutes. Everything will cook down nicely.
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