Meatballs are small balls of minced meat or fish with fresh herbs, spices and finely chopped onions. The meatballs are boiled in boiling water or stewed in a sauce.
To prepare the meatballs, you will need the following ingredients: 600 g minced meat, 2 medium onions, 150 g loaves, 100 ml milk, 1 chicken egg, 2 tbsp. l. wheat flour, black pepper and salt to taste.
For making tomato sauce: 3 tbsp. l. tomato paste, 250 ml of water, 3 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp. l. sugar, 1 tbsp. l. chopped greens, 0.5 tsp. dried basil. For frying meatballs and making tomato sauce, you need 2-3 tbsp. l. vegetable oil.
First of all, you need to prepare the minced meat. Better to do it yourself. Beef and pork are taken in a 3: 2 ratio. The meat is cleaned from films and passed through a meat grinder twice. The loaf is cut into small pieces and poured over with milk. Then the milk is drained, the pulp of the loaf is squeezed out and added to the minced meat.
Onions can be finely chopped or minced together with meat. Mix the minced meat, onion and loaf, drive a chicken egg into the mass, add salt and ground black pepper, as well as spices to taste. Ready-made minced meat for meatballs is put into the refrigerator for half an hour so that it becomes juicier and soaked in seasonings.
It is necessary to knead the minced meat for at least 10 minutes to achieve a homogeneous mass. You can beat the minced meat on the surface of the cutting board.
Vegetable oil is poured into a saucepan and heated over high heat. The garlic cloves are peeled and rubbed on a fine grater. Garlic is sautéed in heated vegetable oil for 30 seconds. Tomato paste is added to the garlic. For 1 minute, the ingredients continue to fry, stirring constantly.
Instead of tomato paste, you can use fresh tomatoes to make the sauce. They are poured over with boiling water, peeled and cut into small pieces, which are fried and kneaded until puree.
Water is poured into a saucepan. As soon as the sauce boils, sugar, chopped herbs and dry basil are added to it. Reduce heat to low and cover the saucepan with a lid. Continue cooking the sauce for another 5 minutes.
Minced meat is used to form walnut-sized meatballs. Each meatball is gently doused in wheat flour. Minced meat turns out to be incredibly tender, so tiny cutlets can easily fall apart. Vegetable oil is poured into a frying pan and heated over high heat. Fry the meatballs for a couple of minutes, stirring gently so that the minced meat balls are browned on all sides.
You can not fry the meatballs, but boil them in salted boiling water or put them raw in tomato sauce. However, in this case, minced meat products may deform and lose their attractive appearance.
The meatballs are put into tomato sauce and the dish is stewed for 5-10 minutes. If the sauce is too thick, dilute it with a little water. The liquid sauce can be made thicker by adding a tablespoon of toasted flour. Serve meat balls with mashed potatoes, pasta, rice or vegetable garnish. Sprinkle generously with green onions.
