You can’t beat a good meatball recipe. There’s something about the simplicity of meatballs in sauce that screams, eat me! Read on for the recipe, provided by Le Creuset!

Ingredients:

Meatballs

• 300g beef steak mince
• 1 egg
• 40g fresh breadcrumbs
• 1 small red onion finely chopped
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• Small bunch fresh parsley –chopped

To Sear

• 10ml vegetable oil

Tomato Sauce

• 10ml olive oil
• 1 medium onion finely chopped
• 1 clove garlic – chopped
• 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato puree
• 1 tablespoon tomato ketchup
• 100ml strong beef stock =1 stock cube dissolved in 100ml water

To finish

• 20g butter

Directions

1. Mix together all the meatball ingredients and form into small balls (Makes 20)
2. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan and in batches sear the meatballs well on all sides.
3. To make the sauce heat the olive oil in the saucepan and fry the onion and garlic till softened but not brown.
4. Add the remaining sauce ingredients and simmer for about 10 minutes until the consistency has thickened enough to coat a spoon.
5. Stir in the meatballs and cook with the lid on over a low heat for 20 minutes.
6. Stir in the butter and serve with the fresh basil leaves.
7. Serve with either spaghetti or rice.

Serving

Serves: 4

For more information

For more information on pots and pans to use for this recipe visit Le Creuset site at www.lecreuset.co.uk .