This recipe for polpette con piselli (meatballs with peas) is another great classic from my mother-in-law, Bianca.  Friends of my husband who grew up eating these often at his parents’ place in Turin  have been bugging me to put up this recipe for a while, so here it is!  Polpette con piselli a wonderful “make in advance” dish that also freezes well, and so far, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like it (vegetarians excluded of course….please don’t make it for vegetarian friends).

The recipe I’ve given you makes quite a few polpette, but as it takes a little effort to make them, it’s better to make more than you think you will need and then freeze the leftovers (if there are any!).  They make a wonderful near-instant meal on one of those days that you don’t know what to make/can’t be bothered cooking and are too lazy even to get take-out.  You can just pull the polpette out of the freezer and heat them up!  I like eating them with mashed potato…I think that’s the Kiwi part of me coming through: “potato with everything!” should be some kind of slogan.  Maybe I should change the name of my blog…hmmmm……

In Italy, I’ve always had these as a second course after a first course of pasta……now pay attention to the bit that said “after a first course of pasta“.  Let it go on the record that I didn’t say “with” pasta (like, on the same plate).  They’d take my Italian passport away for that one! So, you do whatever you want with that, but just don’t tell me so that I can’t confess anything and get you into trouble with the Italian Food Police.

And, just a tip before I leave you with the recipe: I just discovered recently that the best way to chop herbs into small bits is to stick the leaves in a cup (as you can see in the photo above), and cut them in the cup with scissors.  It works amazingly well, and I can’t believe that I never thought of doing this.  Instead for years I’ve been laboriously mincing herbs on a chopping board with a knife, which takes me forever since I’m terribly impatient at doing that sort of thing.  Incredibly, I haven’t lost any fingers yet, but I have sometimes added extra protein to the meal that wasn’t supposed to be there.  😉

By Lisa Watson

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Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes minutes

Total Time 40 minutes minutes

Servings 6 people

Ingredients

• 500 g 1lb Beef mince (ground beef)
• 1/2 Chopped onion optional
• 50 g 2oz Ham (chopped)
• 20 g 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 Egg
• 5 - 10 g 1/4 cup: to your taste, really Parsley
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• to taste Pepper
• 1 sprig Rosemary
• 1 whole clove Garlic
• 400 ml 1 3/4 cups Tomato passata
• 1 Beef boullion cube
• 250 ml 1 cup Red wine
• 500 g 2 cups Peas

Instructions

• Mix the mince, finely chopped onion (if using), parmesan, parsley, ham, salt, pepper and egg together in a bowl. If the mixture is too "wet" and doesn't stick together, add some breadcrumbs: 2 Tbsp at a time until it becomes more firm.
• If you have time, place the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes.  This step is not strictly necessary, but it helps the balls stay together while they are being browned.
• Make balls about the size of a walnut with your hands.
• Heat olive oil in a frying pan (with high sides if possible) with a large sprig of rosemary and a whole clove of garlic.
• Brown the meatballs.  Do not crowd them together.  If the pan is too small, put them in a few at a time. Gently turn them until they are browned on all sides.
• Add the red wine and let it boil off.
• If you do not have a pan with high sides, transfer the meatballs to a larger pot.  Add the tomato passata, the boullion cube and the peas. Top up with a little water if the sauce is too thick.  Add salt to taste.
• Simmer gently for 15 -20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• If the sauce is too runny, turn the heat up briefly to let the sauce thicken.
• These are great to freeze!  Just make sure the sauce is quite runny and covers the meatballs entirely before putting them in the freezer.

What to do when you have too many sausages

On Easter Monday we had hoards of friends descending on our garden for an annual Easter Egg Hunt (with chocolate eggs, of course!  None of those namby-pamby decorated boiled eggs that have been sitting in the sun for an hour!) and pot-luck lunch.  As always, I was terrified that we wouldn’t have enough food so I bought enough sausages to throw on the bbq for about 100 people.  Our friends brought such delicious offerings, that we ended up grilling only half of the sausages.  Now, what to do with all the rest?  We had leek and sausage pasta sauce the next day, then sausage and borlotti bean risotto the day after.  At that point, the rest of the family mutinied and threatened to set me loose in a dinghy (is that a kiwi word?? It’s a tiny boat that gets pulled behind a bigger one) and cast me adrift to float to North Africa if I dared to serve them up sausages one more time. But, I knew how to win them over!  My mother-in-law’s irresistible recipe for sausages in tomato sauce or “salsicce con pomodoro”.  Frankly, the title sounds much better in Italian than in English, but it tastes fab in any language!

Every culture has food they cannot resist eating

I did manage to get my kids to eat sausages one more time using this trick, though my husband, who’s a bit more onto it than them, declined…..at least until tomorrow when I make polenta and serve them together….hehehe! You just can’t turn that down…..not if you’re really from Piemonte in Italy like he is.  That’d be like dissing marmite if you come from NZ, and we all know that that’s part of the Kiwi code of ethics drummed into you from birth……”I solemnly swear that I will never make a disparaging remark about marmite, or I will have my nationality stripped unceremoniously from me”.

This dish is wonderful with polenta or mashed potatoes: anything that will soak up all the more-ish gravy so that you don’t have to throw caution, and manners, to the wind and pick up your plate to lick it.

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Braised sausages in tomato puree

A delicious recipe for cooking sausages in a tomato sauce.  

Course Main Course

Cuisine Italian

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Total Time 35 minutes minutes

Servings 4 -6 people

Ingredients

• 3 - thickly sliced Onions
• 1 whole clove Garlic
• 12 good quality Sausages
• 250 ml 1 cup Red wine
• 400 g 1 1/2 cups Tomato puree
• 1 cube Beef bouillon
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

•  
• Heat olive oil in a medium-size pot.
• Saute the onions and whole clove of garlic (it will be taken out at the end), stirring occasionally, until the onions become translucent but not brown.
• Put in the whole sausages and brown them.  If you would like to reduce the amount of fat in the dish you can fry the sausages in a separate pan and add them to the onions once they are browned.
• Pour in the wine and let most of it boil off.
• Add the tomato, bouillon cube and salt and pepper.
• Top up with water so that the sausages are covered. Turn down the heat to medium-low and let the sausages simmer uncovered for 25 - 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Add a little water if they are getting dry.  At the end, turn up the heat to reduce the liquid until it reduces and becomes thicker.

Notes

This dish freezes well.