Jamie Magazine - Issue 17: Spaghetti and Meatballs.

I found some mince! Whoooraaah!! So I've been craving spicy meatballs for a few days now and since our noodle date was cancelled it meant that my meal plan for this week was messed up so I scavenged and found!

Not having access to my normal expanding bookshelf at the moment (we're house and dog sitting) I feel lost.... I looked in all the books I had copies of here and then in a couple of others that weren't mine and all the meatball recipes had a combination of meats and or had a fancy ingredient I didn't have or weren't the right meatballs I wanted. I wanted Spaghetti and meatballs tonight. Plain and simple... but do you think I could find a recipe with what was in my fridge and store cupboard easily... I suppose I could have improvised but that defeats the purpose of this blog and trying new things.

I looked online knowing I had all the Jamie Magazines at home and found a recipe for Spaghetti and meatballs. Since Jamie is one of my biggest food inspirations, I love young Jamie in 'the naked chef'!! I'm doing another Jamie Oliver recipe. This recipe is in his Jamie Magazine but by a woman called Georgia Levy and not by Mr Oliver himself. I read through it and yes it was another recipe which called for two types of mince. I decided to settle that the best meatballs are probably made with two types of mince and I am just going to have to suck it up and make it with the beef mince I had. It also wasn't spicy but that was easy enough to fix with a teaspoon of crushed dried chilli's.

There was one thing... I had always had an aversion to making meatballs with soggy bread in them, why? I'm not really sure. Just didn't like the idea of soaking bread and letting it get all squidgy and mushy. Why not just put those dried breadcrumbs you buy in the supermarket in them like my mother does? Her spaghetti and meatballs taste delicious so why change it? But as I am venturing into new undiscovered recipe land I decided to give up my aversion of soaking stale bread and did as the recipe said. It wasn't bad at all! I had expected to hate making them because of the texture when rolling them and squeezing the liquid out of the bread but it proved for some really tasty, soft meatballs.

Hmm... these photo's... I definitely have room to improve with props, styling and photography. Anyone got any tips??

Spaghetti and Meatballs by Georgia Levy in Jamie Magazine, Issue 17.
Serves 4
(Recipe adapted)

2 Garlic cloves (one crushed and one thinly sliced)
Olive oil
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
500g Beef mince
1 egg
1 small handful of toasted pine nuts
2 tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
3 tbs grated parmesan
30g (approx.) of stale bread
400g spaghetti
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste

- First soak your stale bread in some warm water for a couple of minutes. (If you have an aversion to this like I did, come join me and be a convert!)

- In a medium pot add the sliced garlic, dried chilli and some oil oil and cook till garlic is tender but not coloured. Add the canned chopped tomatoes and simmer on low.

- Squeeze the excess water out from your soaking bread and combine it with the crushed garlic clove, beef mince, egg, pine nuts, parsley, some salt and pepper. Mix it all up with your hands well and start shaping them into the size of a pingpong balls.

- Set a frying pan on medium heat with some olive oil and once the pan is hot add your meatballs and fry them until browned all over (do this in batches if you need to so you don't squash them too much).

- Once the meatballs are browned add them to the simmering sauce along with the sugar and cook for 10min.

- Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water till al dente.

- Taste the sauce and see if you need to salt and pepper it then serve piping hot meatballs and tomato sauce over your spaghetti and top with some extra parmesan cheese and freshly cracked pepper. mmmm yum!