Spanish Albondigas 15Mar09

I had some friends over for dinner the yesterday and I decided to do Spanish tapas. I started with a list of about 12 dishes and decided that might be too much for 4 people. I ended up with 6 dishes and this was one of them. I made them again today

Albondigas are Spanish meatballs. There’s a few different varieties, Mexican albondigas are usually cooked and served in a soup or stew with heaps of vegetables. They may or may not be in a tomato based soup either. Spanish albondigas are cooked in a thick tomato sauce. I made the Spanish kind since it was a Spanish tapas night!

Makes about 18-20 meatballs.
Takes about 30 minutes prep & 30 minutes cooking.

Meatball Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef or 500 g mince beef
1/2 lb ground pork or 250 g mince pork
1 green bell pepper – finely diced
1 yellow onion – finely diced
3/4 cup of fine bread crumbs
1/4 cup of finely chopped parsley
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

Sauce Ingredients:
1 can of whole peeled tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
handful of fresh oregano – finely chopped
pinch of red chili flakes
extra virgin olive oil
fresh ground pepper to taste

Step 1: Balls balls balls!
In a large mixing bowl put in the beef, pork, finely diced green pepper and onion. Use your hands and mix well. Now add the salt, nutmeg, bread crumbs and the eggs. User your hands to mix well again to make sure they’re all mixed through. Now roll a little bit of the meat mixture into about 2 inch balls and set aside on a plate.

Step 2: Cooking the meat!
In a large pan, heat a thin coat of extra virgin olive oil over medium low heat. Carefully place the meatballs in the pan. Cook meatballs on each side (as many sides you can roll it on, it was about 4 sides for me) for about 8 minutes or until brown. Use a spoon or spatula to make sure it’s not a all stuck to the pan and move them around to make sure they’re cooked evenly.

Step 3: The sauce!
Once the meatballs are nice and brown, we’re ready to add in the sauce! First drizzle in a little bit more olive oil, just a little will do. Now add the finely chopped garlic and let the flavors cook for about 2 -3 minutes. In a bowl, pour in the can of whole peeled tomatoes, including the juice it comes in. With your hands gently squish the tomatoes and make sure to get the pulp finely squished! Now slowly add in the smushed tomatoes, juice and all into the pan. And then toss in the finely chopped oregano.

Let that whole thing simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes until the sauce has thickened and meatballs are cooked through. Make sure you’re mixing and rolling the meatballs around to get the sauce in them. Check to see if your meatballs are done by opening one up, they’re done when there’s no more pink. When the meatballs are done, you’re good to go! Garnish with some chopped parsley and serve with some toasted bread or Spanish rice.

Albondigas go really well with red wine. I guess traditionally, the Spaniards would have had a Spanish wine, perhaps a Rioja. We had a 2007 McWilliam’s Hanwood Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. Not sure how it went with the meatballs but everyone seemed to love it!

Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: cooking, food, meat, recipe, recipes, Spanish, tapas

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 9:26 pm and is filed under food, mmmm, recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.