Presently enamoured by Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the
lighthouse’. There is a dinner party
scene where interactions amongst the guests are patently strained which include
a misanthrope who would rather be eating alone than engaged in ‘silly’ banter,
a painter who can not wait to the morning to paint a magnificent landscape
she’s creating in her head, a host visibly offended that a guest has helped
himself to a second bowl of soup, a hostess at her wits end trying to merge
these disparate parties to create a sense of bon homie. …But then the main
course, the Boef en Daube arrives and suddenly there is animation in the room,
the hostess feels revived and the guests are quietly enraptured. Well this is analogous to the reception this
dish received when served for dinner.
Prior there was bedlam at the dinner table with children bickering and a
harassed father trying to subdue them.
But tout a coup, once the meatballs and spaghetti were served there was
a collective hush. It was devoured
within minutes.
It’s very
nourishing, uncomplicated in flavour and guaranteed to please the fussiest eaters and tame
the wildest recalcitrant. This is from
Nigella’s How to Eat. Serves plenty.
For the meatballs
1 onion
2 tbs oil
4 slices stale white bread, crusts removed and broken into pieces
200ml milk
1 kg minced beef (or combination of veal and pork)
2 beaten eggs
4 tbs grated parmesan
1 heaped tbs chopped fresh parsley
Flour
For the sauce
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs butter
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 carrot
1 stick celery
1 tsp cinnamon
2 heaped tbs dried oregano
2 tbs red wine or apple juice
3 x 400g tins best quality tomatoes
3 bay leaves
200ml milk
….
Chop onion very finely and fry it in 1 tbs oil for about 10
mins, sprinkled with salt, till golden and soft. Place in a large bowl. Cover bread with meal in a dish and leave
till soaked (about 10 mins).
Now for the sauce.
Blitz onion, garlic, carrot and celery in a processor then fry in a
large saucepan in butter and oil. Once
soft and stew-like, add wine/apple juice with cinnamon, oregano, bay and 2.5
tins of the tomato. Push around saucepan
with wooden spoon till tomato disintegrates.
Season with salt and pepper. Cook
for about 20 mins add milk then another 10 mins by which time it will have
become a sweet tomatoey melody.
In the meantime, place minced meat in the bowl with cooked
onion. Add bread which has been squeezed
of excess milk. Then the beaten eggs, the parmesan, the cooked onion, the
parsley and salt and pepper. Mix well
with your hands.
Spread a large surface with flour and have 2 large plates
ready. Using your hands shape into
walnut-sized balls and roll about in the flour and place on the plates. Makes about 46 meatballs.
Heat about 1 tbs of oil in
a non-stick frying pan (you will indubitably need to add more oil as you
go along) and brown the meatballs in batches.
Spoon the browned ones into the large pot containing the sauce. When
you’ve done them all, throw the remaining ½ tin of tomatoes into the frypan in
which you’ve been browning the meatballs, then pour on top of the meatballs in
sauce. Cook in the sauce for about 20
-30 mins covered, till cooked through.
Remove bay leaves and toss through a huge bowl of cooked spaghetti. Or alternatively serve with cooked rice. And enjoy it’s sedating effect……
