Meatballs - a popular and ... mysterious dish.
Different sources differently describe their difference from meatballs, and the recipes themselves have a lot of confusion.
They agree perhaps only that “minced meat balls”, smaller than a walnut in size - these are meatballs, everything that is larger belongs to meatballs.
Another, perhaps, the difference is that meatballs are often used to increase the satiety of soups.
In our selection of recipes - meatballs, as separate meat and fish dishes.
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce - General Cooking Principles
• Meatballs are made from minced meat or fish mince, you can buy it ready-made in the store, or you can grind it yourself with a meat grinder. Of course, it is faster to cook from mincemeat, but the taste of the dish is significantly different.
• If meatballs are cooked only from minced meat, they will turn out too dense and dry. Therefore, regardless of the type of meat or fish, in order to give juiciness and friability, sautéed or raw, twisted onions, cheese, boiled rice, breadcrumbs or mashed white bread soaked in milk are added to the mince.
• Slightly moistened hands with water make up small, usually no larger than a walnut, balls, and then prepare them according to the recipe.
• Tomato sauce is prepared on the basis of tomato puree, fresh tomatoes or tomato juice. In meatball sauces, you can add mushrooms, ground nuts in flour.
• Sauces and minced meat are slightly salted and slightly perched. Also add, pre-chopped, greens, or sprinkle her dish on readiness, before letting it brew.
• You can cook meatballs in tomato sauce in a frying pan, in a saucepan, bake in pots or form, tightly covered with a sheet of foil.
Fish Meatballs in Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
• 400 grams of silver hake;
• half the head of bitter onions;
• 30 grams of creamy butter sandwich;
• flour - 2 tbsp. spoons, no slides;
• salt, freshly ground pepper (black).
For tomato sauce:
• carrots - 1 pc .;
• white bitter onion - 1 head; • half a small parsley root;
• 50 ml “Rkatsiteli”, “Aligote”, or another dry white wine;
• leaf of laurel;
• 30 gr. tomato puree.
Cooking Method:
1. Peel the parsley root and carrot, grate with a large grater and fry in vegetable oil, until lightly browning. Pour in tomato puree, wine diluted in a hundred milliliters of hot water, season with spices and simmer for three minutes.
2. Through the fine grate in the meat grinder, twist the skin-cleaned and bone-separated fish fillet twice. The second time, add the onion, shredded and browned until transparent.
3. Mince the fish mince, salt a little, put the softened sandwich butter, mix and knead the meat for the meatballs well.
4. Make small meatballs from mincemeat, roll them in flour and fry a little in heated sunflower oil.
5. Transfer to a deep frying pan, cover with tomato sauce cooked earlier and simmer under the lid for six minutes.
Meatballs in Beef Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
• 500 grams of beef pulp;
• medium sized onion;
• a glass (200 gram) breadcrumbs, white;
• flour;
• two chicken eggs;
• a quarter cup of chopped parsley.
For the sauce:
• 500 ml of tomato thick;
• half a glass of chopped basil;
• two full art. spoons of pure, refined (can be olive) oils;
• 250 grams of tomatoes;
• garlic - 3 slices.
Cooking Method:
1. In a large saucepan, always with a thick bottom, heat the oil “up to the smoke” well. Add finely chopped garlic with a knife and fry it no more than a minute, until softened.
2. Pour in tomato puree, add tomatoes, cut into small cubes. Bring the tomato mass to a boil, reduce heat and cook for 30 minutes.
3. Season with spices selected to your taste, salt and, after cooling slightly, beat the sauce until smooth with a blender or rub on a sieve.
4. Beef, thoroughly wash and dry a whole piece. Cut off excess films, veins and cut the meat into small pieces, which can be easily removed in a meat grinder.
5. Peel the onion, cut it into slices and twist together with the beef slices through the fine grid in the meat grinder once. 6. Mix the minced meat with white breadcrumbs, dark ones are not suitable, they give the meatballs a specific taste and smell. Enter the eggs slightly flared up with a fork and, adding parsley chopped with a knife, knead well. Do not forget to slightly add minced meat.
7. Hooking up the minced meat with a dessert spoon, form the meatballs and fry them in small batches until you get a soft golden brown crust. You need to fry quickly, on medium heat, pre-roll meat balls on all sides in flour.
8. In a frying pan, on which meatballs were roasted, pour the cooked tomato sauce and heat it well over low heat. Dip the meatballs and simmer for 15 minutes.
9. Finely chop the basil, sprinkle with greens evenly ready dish and, covered with a lid, set aside for 10 minutes to infuse.
Chicken meatballs in tomato sauce in pots
Ingredients:
• 450 grams of chicken minced meat or breast (filet);
• small onion;
• 120 grams of round grain rice.
For the sauce:
• tomato paste - 75 grams (3 tbsp. L.);
• two medium carrots;
• a small bitter onion head;
• champignons, fresh - 300 grams;
• 2 tbsp. spoons of 20% sour cream.
Cooking Method:
1. From the rice, select the unshelled as well as the damaged grains and rinse the cereal in running water under the tap. Dip the rice in boiling, slightly salted, water and boil until half cooked over low heat. Rinse again, discarding the rice in a colander, and leaving it for a while, let all the water drain completely.
2. Connect the minced chicken with one onion and boiled rice, add ground pepper, a little salt and mix well. When using a fillet, it should be minced with a meat grinder twice, the second time also add onions.
3. Roll the meatballs, and immediately fry them in a frying pan in vegetable oil, lightly breaded the meat balls in flour before frying.
4. In a clean skillet, fry the second onion with carrots, lightly browned, and chopped into small slices until lightly browning. Add the mushrooms sliced in small plates and, putting the sour cream, stew for 20 minutes. Two minutes before cooking, add tomato paste, diluted in a quarter glass of water, stir and bring to readiness, season with salt and pepper. 5. Mushrooms fried in sour cream shift into pots, top with meatballs. Fill all with hot boiled water, you can take the broth, and put the filled containers in the oven. Cover the pots with lids and cook at 180 degrees 40 minutes.
Meatballs in tomato sauce in the oven
Ingredients:
• a pound of any ground meat;
• two fresh chicken eggs;
• a small piece, approximately 100 g, of starchy white bread, is better than a loaf;
• 100 ml of pasteurized milk;
• 120 gr. “Russian” cheese;
• a third cup of parsley leaves, chopped.
For the sauce:
• two small onions;
• three garlic cloves;
• 50 grams of tomato paste;
• one liter of tomato (thick) juice;
• four Art. l vegetable oil.
Cooking Method:
1. Cover the hard bread with milk and let it soften for ten minutes. Choose a crumb, squeeze out the milk, the bread should not be too wet, almost dry.
2. Add the crushed crumb, eggs, chopped parsley, table salt, a small pinch of pepper to the re-rolled minced meat. Scratch the cheese and mix everything well. It is possible for juiciness to add sliced onion spiced in vegetable oil or melted butter.
3. Shape balls from cooked minced meat, place them in a deep baking container and place in a preheated oven. Keep meatballs in the oven for seven minutes at 200 degrees.
4. In vegetable oil, until tender, fry the garlic cut into small pieces, add a little larger chopped onion and fry for five minutes all together.
5. In a small saucepan, boil tomato juice, add grill, fine salt, boil again and pour the sauce into lightly baked meatballs and cover with a sheet of foil.
6. Put the meatballs back into the oven and cook at 190 degrees for about fifty minutes.
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce with Nuts
Ingredients:
• fish or ground beef - 500 grams;
• 80 grams of stale white bread;
• one egg;
• a glass of milk;
• white salad onions - 1 head.
For the sauce:
• 200 grams of ketchup, variety at your discretion;
• a small clove of garlic; • one third cup of bread crumbs;
• A handful of walnut kernels.
Cooking Method:
1. Spread the nut kernels in a mortar or grind the grinder into flour. Be sure to pre-dry the nuts, you can even fry them in a dry frying pan or oven and cool well.
2. Mix the nut flour with breadcrumbs and fry until cream color in 2 tables. spoons of butter. Add ketchup, stir and warm slightly, no need to boil.
3. Finely chop the onion and fry until transparent and transfer, after cooling, to the minced meat. Add the soaked milk and a little pressed bread, a small pinch of pepper, salt. Pour in a little beaten egg, knead the mince, divide and form small balls - meatballs.
4. To a soft golden brown crust, fry the meatballs breaded in flour on vegetable oil and transfer them to the gravy.
5. Carefully, in order not to crush, mix the meatballs with the sauce and boil on a low heat for five minutes under the lid.
Meatballs in Tomato Sauce - cooking tricks and helpful tips
• Mince meat and ground meat should be ground with a manual meat grinder through a large grid installed on it.
• Tomato sauce is best to take fresh tomatoes, but if there are none, you can take canned in own juice or purchased tomato.
• When using fresh tomatoes or tomato paste, add at least half a teaspoon of granulated sugar to the sauce, it will be much tastier.
• Leave the finished dish for 15-20 minutes with the lid closed, infuse. The gravy will become thicker, and the meatballs will be better soaked with its taste and aroma.
• To get a thicker gravy, add a little flour when browning onions, mix well and only then add the liquid part.
