Asian Pork Meatballs

Hello

안녕하세요

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

I'm going to share with you another Pinch of Nom recipe from their Everyday Light recipe book.

Ever since making meatballs from scratch a few years ago, I've never bought them in since. So when I came across this meatballs recipe, I knew I wanted to give it a try.

This recipe can be found in the Quick Meals section.

Let's get cooking!

Ingredients:

Meatballs:

500g 5%-fat pork mince

1 courgette, peeled and grated

1 carrot, peeled and grated

4 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

1 medium egg, beaten

1 tbsp garlic granules

1 tsp onion granules

1/2 tsp Chinese 5-spice

1 pork stock cube

sunflower oil

4 tbsp soy sauce

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp lime juice

sea salt& ground black pepper

Char Siu Ketchup:

250g passata

1 tbsp tomato puree

2 tbsp dark soy sauce

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp lime juice

1 tsp garlic granules

1 tsp granulated sweetener

1/2 tsp Chinese 5-spice

Start by pre-heating the oven to 220C/200C Fan/Gas Mark 7.

Put the pork mince, courgette, carrot and spring onions into a large bowl.

Add the egg, garlic granules, onion granules and Chinese 5-spice and crumble in the pork stock cube.

Mix well with clean hands until combined, then shape the pork mix into meatballs. The mixture will make about 16-20 x 2cm balls.

Add a little oil to a large frying pan and place over a medium heat. Cook the meatballs in batches. Once heated, carefully place half of the meatballs in the frying pan. Fry for 5 minutes before gently turning them and frying for a further 5 minutes..

Try not to touch the meatballs for the first 5 minutes of cooking as they will be fragile and will break apart.

When both batches are cooked place them into a roasting dish and pour over the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce and lime juice an season with a little salt and pepper.

Place the roasting dish in the oven and cook for a further 10 minutes.

While the meatballs cook in the oven, add passata, tomato puree, dark soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, garlic granules, granulated sweetener and Chinese 5-spice to a small saucepan. Season with salt and pepper and simmer over a medium-low heat for 10 miunutes.

Once everything is cooked, you can serve it all together or have the Char Siu ketchup as a dip with either a mixed side salad, spaghetti or an Asian twist with egg noodles.

You can also make it all in advance, allow to cool and freeze both the ketchup and meatballs separately.

This recipe serves 4, so it was perfect for me an Skye to have as a meal, while leaving me some extra to have for lunch at work.

The flavours were amazing, definitely had an Asian kick.

They were really easy to make and I'd happily make them again, even Skye seemed to be a fan of this dish.

If you're interested in any of Pinch of Nom's recipe's then you can buy the recipe books in all major supermarkets as well as online retailers Waterstones and Amazon.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye

Meatballs

Hello

안녕하세요

(Annyeonghaseyo)

こんにちは

(Konnichiwa)

你好

(Ni Hao)

I've made lasagne and bolognaise in the past from scratch and we have had meatballs before, but I've never actually made them myself from scratch. So a couple of weeks ago, I decided to try making my own.

Let's get cooking!

Ingredients:

Meatballs:

1 lightly packed cup of diced white sandwich bread.

1 small onion

400g beef mince

100g pork mince

1 egg

1.5 tbsp dried parsley

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

Sauce:

2.5 tbsp olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 cup onion, diced

700g tomato passata

1/2 cup water

1 tsp red pepper flakes

3 tsp Italian herb mix

1 tsp salt

Black pepper

Grate the onion for the meatballs until you have 1/2 a cup and pop it into a bowl, along with the juices.

Add bread to the onions and mix together so the juice soaks the bread and disintegrates. Once done pop it to one side.

Next add all the remaining meatball ingredients and use your hands to mix together.

Measure out a heaped tablespoon and roll it lightly to form a ball and repeat with the remaining mixture. I used an ice cream scoop to make sure they were all a similar size.

Heat 1.5 tbsp olive oil in a large non stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the meatballs and brown all over - around 3-4 minutes. Once browned, but not cooked through set them to one side. I cooked mine in batches.

Now onto the sauce. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil into a large non-stick pan. Then add the onion and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes.

Add the remaining sauce ingredients and bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down to medium low.

Carefully transfer the meatballs and any juices to the pan and cook for 8-10 minutes. Make sure to turn and stir occasionally.

While to meatballs cook, cook your pasta of choice.

Serve the meatballs and sauce on the pasta.

This recipe was really easy to follow, I was expecting it to be really messy and time consuming, which it wasn't.

This has become a favourite of ours, the flavours are perfect and I personally think that they're better than shop bought meatballs. The hint of cheese in the meatballs is perfect and they're really juicy. I didn't have any red pepper flakes, so I used chilli flakes, which gave the sauce a nice kick.

I'm cooking this recipe again this week and I can't wait to get tucked in to it again.

If you've never made meatballs from scratch before, then I really recommend this recipe. If you would like to follow the original recipe, then head over to recipetineats Italian Meatballs recipe page.

See you soon!

안녕

(Annyeong)

さようなら

(Sayonara)

再见

(ZaiJian)

Bye