Home made meatballs

I made meatballs for dinner yesterday.  I use Nigella's recipe from Nigella Bites for these but replaced the beef/pork with turkey.

I also find that adding garlic to the meatballs is overpowering so I just leave it out.

Ingredients

500g minced turkey
3 tablespons of semolina
2 tablespoons of grated parmesan
1 egg
pinch of salt
good grind of black pepper

Method

• Bung all ingredients in a bowl and mix together
• Form the meatballs by rolling small amounts of the mix in your hands (approx 1 teaspoon but don't measure)
• Place the meatballs on a plate or baking tray lined with cling film and chill in fridge for at least 30 minutes before cooking.
• I cook these by adding them to the tomato sauce which is cooking on the hob - partially cover with a lid and leave to simmer for at least 20 minutes - don't stir as this will make the meatballs break up
• After 20 minutes I check if the meatballs are cooked by cutting one open
• Eat
• Enjoy

I use my homemade tomato sauce to cook these

I found that making this quantity gave me 97 meatballs so I cooked 33 (11 each!) for dinner last night and froze the rest in two separate batches so I have some ready for next time.

I served them with rice and very nice they were too!

Chicken Disaster

Well just to prove not all my ideas work - tonight's meal went a bit wrong

Started off fine - frying the chicken breasts in olive oil & a little butter, then added a splash of white wine - still fine, then a drizzle of honey & some double cream - still fine - all things I've done before and have worked perfectly into a lovely creamy sauce.

Taste test, needs a little something so I go for one of my usual fail safes - a dash of soy sauce. So far so good...

Put the rice on & leave the sauce to reduce.

That's where it all went wrong.

Left it a bit too long & it caramelised a bit too much!!

Ok.

Yes.

I mean burnt

Bother.

I tried everything I could think of to rescue the sauce but in the end had to give up & just have the chicken with rice & no sauce

It was ok but not as good as it should have been

Meatballs with tomato sauce & rice

This recipe uses my all purpose tomato sauce which I use for everything - bolognese, lasagne & this meatball dish.

I'm going to blog the sauce recipe separately - so watch this space!

Anyway - I often make my own meatballs but these are Asda's sweet chilli beef meatballs which I love

Once the sauce is ready I add the meatballs & let them cook in the sauce for about 20 minutes - as they cook they infuse the sauce with some of the chilli flavour

Serve with rice & enjoy

Top with grated cheese if you like