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| Mozzarella stuffed spicy meatballs with romesco sauce |
So after visiting the Scorsese Exhibition at ACMI I simply could not get the meatballs that his mom Kathy made out of my head! (And wanting to watch all his movies as well, this guy is a cine-genius!)
I knew I didn't want big fist-sized meatballs because I just find them too dry, eating this massive chunk of mince meat did not appeal to me, but little ping-pong ball size ones filled with gooey mozzarella cheese....ooooh yeah baby! Get in mah belly!
We had pasta at a really cute Italian restaurant in the city after the exhibition, called Il Solito Posto, it was quite cozy and the food there was lovely, will definitely be going back there again. Though then made me crave something less traditional to go with my meatballs, so I decided to go Tapas/Spanish style with Romesco sauce, if you haven't tried it before, it is amazing! My Romesco sauce is made with roasted char-grilled red capsicums, so their flavours really intensify and brings out the sweetness and slightly smokiness, there's almond flakes, breadcrumbs to give the sauce body and other spices like smokey paprika to up the pepper and smokey flavour. It went really well with the meatballs. Here's what you'll need to make this simple but yummy dish.
Romesco sauce ingredients:
- 2 large capsicums, grilled whole in the oven on high heat for 30 mins
- breadcrumbs
- almond flakes
- tomato
- garlic
- smokey paprika
- chili flakes
- red wine vinegar/balsamic vinegar
- salt & pepper
- basil
- leek/onion
- olive oil
Directions
- Remove grilled capsicums from oven and place in ziplock bags, careful not to lose any of it's juices, this is vital part of the sauce!
- Let the capsicums cool in bag and remove the skins and the seeds
- In a blender thingy add all the ingredients except the basil and leek/onion and blitz til smooth
- In a saucepan, add olive oil and brown/sweat the onion/leek
- Add in the sauce, it is now ready for the meatballs to be be simmered in.
So let's get right into them.
Meatballs ingredients:
- 500 g of half pork half beef mince, you can incorporate other mince if you like
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
- 1 egg
- breadcrumbs
- mozzarella/bocconcini quartered
- mixed dried italian herbs
- chilli powder/flake
- paprika
- salt & pepper
- kasundi
Directions
- Add all the ingredients except the cheese together, mix well
- Take a spoonful of the mince mixture and flatted it a bit and add the piece of cheese in the centre, then wrap mince around and roll it up into a ping pong ball size
- Add them to a fry pan with butter/olive oil to brown on all size, doesn't need to be cooked through.
- Do this in batches until all the meatballs have been browned, then add them all to the Romesco sauce for simmering for 15-20 minutes until they're cooked through and the sauce thicken up a bit.
- Serve with some chopped basil and you may top it up with shaved Parmesan cheese if you like.
Yuuummm :D
