Early December, I got an email from a famous food editor by saying that she is giving some book away. I should come and see her. Who does not want free book and specially if it’s cook book.
I saw her and we spoke about indian food and recipes. She asked me what sort of food I am interested to learn and cook. Without any doubt I said – Italian and French. I don’t know much about those two types. She said to come next day.
I went to see her and see gave me two books one on Italian Cooking and another is art of french pastry. Italian food is not only pasta, pizza or biscotti’s. It is way more than that – I started to read this fat book and finished end up making some biscotti’s.
This week, I got bored of curry – so i decided to cook some italian for us. First thing that popped in my mind is meatballs. I googled and found some interesting recipe from Pioneer woman.
We don’t eat pork and I wanted to make meatballs less calorie. So I opted for turkey.
Recipe for Turkey Meatball dipped in homemade tomato sauce
Meatball
- Ground Turkey – I used Trader Joe’s ground turkey pack. It was 1.38 lbs
- Eggs – 2
- BreadCrumb – 3/4 cup
- Salt – As you need
- Black Pepper – As much you need
- Red Chili flakes – As much you need
- Fresh Parseley – Few Strands – Finely chopped
- Cheese mix – i used 1/2 cup cheese mix(i got low calorie parmesan, cheddar and mozzarella mix in a bag)
- Garlic – 3 cloves chopped very finely
- Basil – I used dried basil. But chop some fresh basil.
- Olive Oil
Sauce
- Crushed Tomato – 1 can 28 ounce
- tomato paste – i dont like very tangy, so i used only 2 tbsp tomato paste
- green pepper – chop very finely
- shallot – 2, fine chopped
- garlic – 5 cloves, very finely chopped
- Dried wine – 1/2 cup
- Salt
- pepper
- fresh parseley – chopped
- fresh/ground basil – chopped
- Butter – 1 tbsp
- oregano – 2 tsp
- In a bowl, I mixed together meat, eggs, bread crumb, salt, pepper, chopped parsley and basil, red chili flakes, garlic and cheese mixture. I kneaded them well with my hands a few minutes.(This is bit tiring I must say!)
- When my mixture was done – I had some oil in a bowl and greased my hand. I learnt this trick – if you grease your hand with oil/butter you can make perfect meatball. And they won’t break.
- Pre-heat the oven at 375F.
- I made 25 meatballs from the above mixture – lined them on a cookie sheet. Then I brushed them little bit olive oil.
- When pre-heating is done – these sexies were ready to be baked.
- I baked them until they are golden.
- When these were getting done – I thought of making tomato sauce.
- I added some butter in a pan. When butter was heated, I threw some shallots. When shallots turned to change their color I added green pepper. When green pepper was close to done (PLEASE DON’T BURN ANYTHING – ITALIANS HATE ANY SORT OF BURNT PIECE IN THEIR FOOD) I added crushed tomato and tomato paste and closed the lid.
- Cooked it for 10 minutes. Then added the dry wine, salt, black pepper, oregano, chili flakes and boiled for 20 more minutes with lid closed.
- Note -**PLEASE COOK AT VERY LOW FLAME – DON’T BURN THE SAUCE “
- after 30 minutes check the done-ness. If its not done, put for 10 minutes more. 30-40 minutes should be fine. When it’s done, added the chopped parsley and basil leaves and close the lid. Don’t cook after adding herbs.
- I used half of this for meatballs and kept the half for storage.
- Dunk the meatball in tomato sauce.
- Put the spaghetti in plate, pour some meatball in tomato sauce and enjoy with wine. We enjoyed our candlelight dinner with white jinfandel
Dear Dolphia
Congrats !! Very nice dish and your page too ..So it will be a great source for great recipes .
I like the sauce , will try it out …but will use lamb or beef or pork as I dont eat birds generally
Have a great week ahead
Surely, do try and let me know how is it 🙂