Beef and Pork meatballs with rich Tomato sauce Ragu

I've been making meatballs for years, similar initial recipe to my burgers but with a half and half mixture of pork and beef.

There are several tricks to getting the meatballs to be light, flavoursome and maintaining their shape without using binding agents. This is also a dish that tastes much better after resting for a good twelve hours. This recipe made 22 meatballs and half a stock pot of Ragu.

Meatballs

Ingredients

• 500g of good quality minced beef, or mince down a mixture of skirt and rump
• 500 g or good quality pork mince, I prefer to use the belly with a lot a fat trimmed. Don't use loin or something with little fat as you need this for the flavour and to help the meatball to keep its share
• 3 Banana shallots, I prefer their sweatier taste, but still has a kick
• 3 cloves of minced garlic
• Tyme, sage salt and pepper
• 125 g of good quality bread crumbs.

Direction

1. In a large bowl mix together the minced pork and beef
2. add 25g of salt, this is a lot but helps to break down the proteins in the meat
3. Mix in the salt with a wooden spoon making sure that it's well combined
4. put in the fridge for 2 hours to settle
5. in a frying pan, add some rapeseed oil and add the finely diced shallots and minced garlic.
6. Cook until soft on a medium heat, do not allow to burn or brown.
7. add in about 2 tsp of Tyme and sage in the last couple of minutes
8. set aside and allow to cool
9. take the meat out of the fridge and allow to come to room temp, about 30 minutes
10. Mix in the breadcrumbs, cooled shallot mix and pepper to taste.
11. shape into small balls about the size of a golf ball.
12. in a frying pan, heat some rapeseed oil to a fairly hot temp. Brown the outside of the meatballs, a few at a time.
13. remove from frying pan when the outside has some nice colour and place on a baking tray
14. cook in the oven, 180 20-25 minutes

Ragu

Ingredients

• 2ltr of good passata, or 4kg of tomatoes sieved
• Couple of handful. of green olives
• 6 anchovy fillets
• 1sweet pepper
• 1 handful of sundries tomatoes
• Handful of basil and Tyme
• 2 stalks of clearly
• 1 Bulb of Garlic
• 3 Red onions
• 2 red chillies
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Cook off the finely diced clearly, dice onions and garlic with some olive oil
2. when softened add the anchovy fillets, olives, sundries tomatoes, diced sweet pepper and chillies
3. cook for about ten minutes and then add the passata and herbs
4. bring to a boil then simmer on low heat for 1 hour
5. take off the heat the blend out to a smooth sauce

Set aside both the meatballs and sauce the combine when ready to reheat, this should take about 30 minutes. Serve with a nice spaghetti or even better in a bowl with some bread