Great Meatballs of Fire

JustJanS's Note:

My sister's recipe that she serves with antipasto or tapas style meals. She makes a half recipe usually. Original recipe called for beef, she uses lamb, use whatever you like.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 40 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs 10 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 8

Balls

• 1 kg ground lamb
• 2 red onions, diced
• 1 red chili
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1/4 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
• 5 slices bread, crumbed
• 3 beaten eggs
• 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 150 g grated parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper

Sauce

• 400 g Italian tomatoes
• 1 red chili, roughly chopped
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• 50 g brown sugar
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 50 ml white vinegar
• 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Balls:.
2. Mix ingredients together and form into walnut-sized balls.
3. Process together the tomatoes, chilli, onion and garlic. To this mixture, add the bay leaves, cinnamon, vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper.
4. Seal the meatballs in hot oil in a frying pan a few at a time, then top with sauce, cover with foil and bake in a 180c for about 1 hour.

Reviews

[Karen Elizabeth]

Fabulous, Jan! I made these for a family gathering, preparing meatballs and sauce the day before, and combining them and baking on the actual day. I made a double quantity and they were devoured!! One young man must have managed about a quarter of the dish all by himself!! I used a mixture of about 1/3 lamb mince to 2/3 beef mince, and my guests raved about the tender flavoursome meatballs, cloaked in a sweetish tomato sauce, a perfect combination. Making for home, I would serve with pasta, but in this case they were served on a buffet where the starches were rice and a potato bake, they went very well with everything on offer!! I will definitely make again, with the duo of meats, and this undoubtedly would be very freezer-friendly. Thanks for helping me to be a good hostess, Jan!

[French Tart]

Another fabulous recipe thanks Jan! You can tell your sister that these was VERY much enjoyed today. I made the full amount and put well over half of the meaballs and sauce into the freezer for Christmas, they will make great appetisers. I took the tinfoil off for the last 15 minutes to crisp the top and added a little parmesan. We ate this with penne pasta that had been cooked in a spicy vegetable broth and had a huge green salad on the side. Do NOT omit ONE SINGLE ingredient!! The list looks long, but the results are wonderful - these meatballs have a rich multi-layered flavour with a subtle background heat of chilli. I made mine with half minced lamb and half minced beef - only because I had 500g of each in the freezer! I look forward to serving the remainder of these meatballs for Christmas drinks and nibbles, I will heat them up again and serve them with cocktail sticks with baguette croutons for dipping in the sauce! Made for please make my recipe #9 in the Oz/Kiwi forum, merci encore Jan. FT :-)