Name of Recipe: Italian Meatballs and Spaghetti In Tomato Sauce
Number of People: 4-6
Ingredients:For serving:50g Parmesan
roughly chopped basil or parsley
Meatballs:50g Parmesan
1/2 piece frozen bread or 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
2 cloves garlic - peeled
40g sliced salami
1/2 small zucchini - washed and roughly chopped
1/2 carrot - washed and roughly chopped
500g minced beef
2 free-range eggs
1 tbsp basil pesto or sprinkling of fried basil and oregano
Tomato Sauce:1 onion - peeled and quartered
1 clove garlic - peeled
2-3 bacon rashers - rind removed
30g organic olive oil
50g organic tomato paste
100g dry white wine
350g water
1 tbsp TMX vegie stock concentrate
2 x 400g tins organic chopped tomatoes
300g organic dried spaghetti (not quick cook)
handful fresh basil leaves - roughly chopped
freshly cracked pepper to taste
Preparation:Place all of the Parmesan (100g) into the TMX bowl and grate for 6 seconds on speed 8. Set aside half in a bowl for serving and the other half in another bowl (to be used soon in the meatballs).
Place the frozen bread into the bowl and chop for 10 seconds on speed 8. Set aside with the Parmesan that will be used for the meatballs.
To make the meatball mix drop the garlic onto blades spinning at speed 7. Add salami and chop on speed 5 for 10 seconds. Add carrot and zucchini and chop for 10 seconds at speed 5 (scrape down sides and re-chop if necessary to make it very fine).
Add remaining meatball ingredients (including the Parmesan/bread crumb mix) and mix on reverse speed 3 for 8 seconds. Shape into mini meatballs (no bigger than a walnut shell) and place in oiled varoma dish and tray. Ensure that some vents remain uncovered. Set varoma aside and rinse and dry bowl.
To make the sauce add onion, garlic and bacon to TMX bowl and chop for 3 seconds on speed 5. Add oil and saute for 3 minutes at 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.
Add wine and cook for 3 minutes at 100 degrees, reverse speed 1.
Add tomato paste, stock concentrate, tins of tomatoes and cook for 7 minutes, 100 degrees reverse speed 1.
Add the water and spaghetti (broken in half) to TMX bowl and place varoma into position.
Cook for 18 minutes at varoma temp on reverse sp 1.5 (in between the 1 and 2). Lift the varoma slightly after two minutes of cooking and remove any spaghetti that has become lodged in the varoma vents. If the spaghetti isn't mixing well into the sauce at this stage turn the dial up to reverse speed 3 for 5 seconds, before continuing to cook it at speed 1.5.
Remove varoma after cooking time and add pepper and basil leaves to the TMX bowl. Stir through on reverse speed 2-3 for 8 seconds.
Combine spaghetti and meatballs in a large serving dish and sprinkle with the reserved Parmesan and some roughly chopped basil or parsley.
Photos: Check out the photos on my blog
here.
Tips/Hints:Don't be tempted to use quick cook pasta for this dish. Standard "10-14 minute" pasta is already cooked until quite soft in this recipe (which is what we like
). If you prefer your pasta to be cooked al dente, add the pasta 5 minutes into cooking/steaming.
The sauce lends itself well to adding in extra vegetables.
The meatballs can be prepared earlier in the day (they are a little time consuming to roll) and refrigerated until needed. They can also be frozen in advance and then thawed and cooked for an easy tea.
Don't be tempted to make larger meatballs as they won't cook in the required time. I think we made almost 60 small meatballs.
This dish was inspired by
this recipe on Taste.
Reeni: I had no Zucchini, so I used a large field mushroom in its place and no TMX stock, so I used normal beef stock and a bit of water. I had heaps of tomatoes, so I used them in place of the canned ones
KarenH: I only made a couple of changes: I added in the other 1/2 of the zucchini and carrot into the sauce along with the onion, garlic and bacon.
Instead of using canned tomatoes, I used a 700ml jar of homemade tomato passata (Tenina's Basic Sugo Pomodoro from KIS)
