Meatballs and spaghetti

I usually find the mood to cook during the weekends. Weekdays a bit-the-susah, you knows?

Anyhoo, I had minced meat.. I had canned tomatoes... I had pasta... AND I had watched an episode of Barefoot Contessa where she made meatballs and spaghetti. Naturally, I wanted to cook it too!

Ingredients

For the meatballs:

• 1 pound/0.45 kg ground beef
• 1 cup fresh white bread crumbs (4 slices, crusts removed)
• 1/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 extra-large egg, beaten
• Vegetable oil
• Olive oil

For the sauce:

• 1 tablespoon good olive oil
• 1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 onion)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
• 1/2 cup stock
• 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, or plum tomatoes in puree, chopped
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For serving:

• 1 1/2 pounds/680 gms spaghetti, cooked according to package directions
• Freshly grated Parmesan

I hardly ever follow a recipe to the T. I always adjust it to my own liking and with whatever I had available. Same thing with this one. I didn't have white bread crumbs so I thought I'd try using tempura breadcrumbs... because they're so light, you would need to use more than what's in the above recipe.

I did have a loaf of stale bread though, which makes for great breadcrumbs, so I cut that up in rough pieces and put them in the blender...

... along with some parsley which I grow outside my kitchen window....

Along with some rosemary from my very own rosemary plant! They're not the easiest things to take care of. This is my third attempt! It's not in the recipe but I thought I'd add it in...

Anyway, I dumped them all in the blender and gave it a good whiz till fine..

To my minced meat, I added the Japanese breadcrumbs...

... and the blended breadcrumb mix...

... along with some parmesan cheese... 

... one egg to help bind everything together so they don't fall apart in the pan...

... some salt and pepper... I didn't have any nutmeg on me so I skipped that part.

And the secret ingredient - warm water! It helps keep the meatballs nice and moist even after they're cooked.

Combine everything lightly with a fork...

And with your hands, roll them up into 2 inch meatballs... With the recipe above, you should have about 14 to 16 meatballs. In my case, since I didn't use that much meat, I made 9...

Heat equal amounts of vegetable oil and olive oil into a large (12-inch) skillet to a depth of 1/4-inch. Very carefully, in batches, place the meatballs in the oil and brown them well on all sides over medium-low heat, turning carefully with a spatula or a fork. This should take about 10 minutes for each batch.

Don't crowd the meatballs. Once they're golden brown, leave them to dry on a paper towel.

After the meatballs were done, I started on the sauce. I finely chopped an onion...

Remove the oil from the pan but don't clean it off cos you want the flavours from the meatballs to remain. Pour in some olive oil and add the onion and saute over medium heat until translucent for around 5 to 10 minutes. 

In the meantime, I finely chopped the garlic...

Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute.

The original recipe says to add wine but since I can't take the stuff, I substituted it with chicken stock and cooked it on high heat until almost all the liquid evaporated for about 3 minutes. I'm seriously considering trying it out with Ribena next time...

I used canned tomatoes that still had whole tomatoes in them...

I poured them in together with the puree and with a wooden spoon, roughly chopped up the tomatoes while they were cooking...

Add in the parsley....

  

... and salt and pepper.

Return the meatballs to the sauce...

... cover and simmer on the lowest heat for 25 to 30 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through...

In the meantime, I cooked a mix of fettuccine and spaghetti...

And once both sauce and pasta were ready.... Voila! Chow time!!