Mamma’s Homemade Meatballs

Meatballs are a BIG hit at mealtimes in our household. But wherever I buy them from a store, or even the butcher, they never seem to quite match up to those that I make at home. Store bought meatballs are usually too fatty and lack flavour.

Here’s my recipe for meatballs that certainly gets the seal of approval from my children. I usually throw this recipe together never actually measuring the ingredients however I did take more care of the measures yesterday so that I could share this with you.

Ingredients (makes approx 48 meatballs):

• 700g minced beef
• 10 cream crackers
• 2 eggs
• 30ml Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce
• handful of chopped parsley (you can use frozen chopped parsley)
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1tsp chilli flakes (more if you like a bit more of a chilli hit)
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1 tsp coconut oil
• 1 large red onion, chopped thinnly
• 2 cloves garlic finely chopped (you can use frozen chopped garlic)
• 1 jar organic pasta (or 2 cans chopped tomatoes)

Method:

1. In a food processor blitz the cream crackers.
2. Take a large bowl and add the minced beef, breaking it up with a fork when you add it to the bowl.
3. Add the bowl of minced beef, (almost powdered) cream crackers, eggs, Worcestershire sauce, chopped parsley, ground cumin, chilli flakes and season with salt and pepper.
4. Get you hands in the bowl to mix all of the ingredients together.
5. Take a small amount of the mixture and mould into a ball, squeezing quite tight so that the meatballs do not break up whilst cooking.
6. Continue until all of the mixture is used up, you should have around 48 meatballs, obviously less if you like large meatballs.
7. Prepare a casserole dish (that can be heated on the hob, such as Le Creuset) by adding the coconut oil and heating.
8. Add the meatballs in batches to the casserole dish so that you brown the meatballs.
9. Once browned remove from the dish and fry the onion until soft, then add the garlic.
10. Place the meatballs back in the dish with the onions and garlic and add the pasta (or tomatoes).
11. Bring to the boil and then cook on the hob for about 45 mins on a low heat until cooked.
12. Serve with wholewheat spaghetti.

I usually allow 6 meatballs per person. As long as as the meat is fresh, you can freeze any spare meatballs (make sure you set them aside for freezing as the point before starting to cook them to brown them off).

I often batch them up into smaller quantities to freeze as they are a much loved after school, quick, easy dinner for the children.