Meatballs in tomato sauce in a hurry

I’ve whipped these meatballs up in approximately 30 minutes. They are dead easy, and super tasty. Try your best to resist the temptation to overwork the meatball mixture when forming them. While you don’t want the mixture to fall apart in the pan, you want the meatballs to stay juicy. Overworking the mixture will make them dense. If you have time (and the patience) you could leave the sauce to simmer over a longer period of time to allow the flavours to develop.

Ingredients

Meatballs

• 500g pork mince
• 2 x tbsp plain flour
• 1 x tsp sea salt
• 1 x tbsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 x tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
• 3 x cloves fresh garlic
• 1 x tsp black pepper, ground
• 1 x tsp sweet paprika
• 1 x tbsp olive oil

Sauce

• 400g tinned tomatoes, I like to use the chopped kind but whole tomatoes works well too
• 3 x cloves fresh garlic, minced or crushed
• 1 x brown onion, sliced
• 1 x cup water or stock
• 1 x tsp black pepper
• 1 x tsp sea salt
• 1 x tsp dried oregano
• 1 x tbsp olive oil

Method

• Add thyme, rosemary and garlic to a mortar and pestle and ground until a paste forms. If you’re using coarse sea salt or black pepper, add them to the mortar and pestle as well and ground until fine.
• In a mixing bowl, add the garlic and herb paste, pork mince, 1 x tbsp plain flour, salt and pepper (if not already added), and sweet paprika and mix to combine. Try not to over mix, it should be just combined with spices evenly distributed throughout.
• Sprinkle some of the remaining plain flour onto a pan or plate, and shape the meat mixture into small balls. I like to shape them into rounds about an inch in diameter – I usually get about 20 meatballs this way. Once all the meatballs are rolled, sprinkle the remaining plain flour over them (see picture below). You can make the meatballs ahead of time if required.

• To cook the meatballs, add one tbsp olive oil to a pan and fry them until just brown all around and remove from the pan. You don’t need to cook them through at this stage as they’ll finish cooking in the sauce.
• Now for the sauce. In the same pan that you cooked the meatballs in, add 1 tbsp olive oil and fry the sliced onions until softened.
• Once the onions are softened, add the tomatoes, garlic and water / stock to the pan and bring to a simmer. At this point, I like to scrape down the bottom of the pan to make sure all the taste sitting at the bottom of the pan is incorporated into the sauce.
• Add the meatballs to the pan and turn down the heat to a very gentle simmer. Add the oregano, salt and pepper, cover the pan and then leave to gently simmer for about 10-15 minutes. Serve hot, drizzled with olive oil with bread or any other side of your choice (works a treat with mashed potatoes or pasta).