A great family sharing dish which can be made with left over roast lamb too with a minor adjustment to cooking time. Perfect served with chips or just crusty bread and a green leaf salad. When using cooked meat to make keftedes, I use cold meat and sautee the onion and garlic before adding to the mix.
The tomato sauce is lent lots of flavour by the Great Taste Awarded Irini’s Greek Spice Paste which has no less than 13 different ingredients and hails from the island of Corfu where it is used in a Sunday classic called Pastitsada (cockerel cooked slowly in an aromatic tomato sauce to which Hilopites (the Greek equivalent of tagliatelle) are added towards the end of cooking time).
Ingredients (serves 6)
For the meatballs
- 500g lamb mince
- 1 large onion, finely chopped
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 150g fresh breadcrumbs
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
For the tomato sauce
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 1 tbsp Irini’s Greek Spice Paste
- 300ml passata
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 400g
- 1 tbsp soft brown sugar
Also,
- 200g Dodoni feta
- Extra virgin oil for frying
- A few basil leaves
Method
To make the tomato sauce, bring a sauteing pan to a medium heat and add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil. Sweat the chopped onions for 4-5 minutes until translucent. Add the spice paste and stir for a minute before adding the passata, tomato, brown sugar and thyme leaves. Stir, bring to the boil and reduce the heat immediately. Cover the pan and cook the sauce slowly for about 20 minutes, stirring from time to time, lifting the lid partially to protect yourself from the sauce splattering. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
While the tomato sauce is cooking, make the meatballs.
In a bowl, mix together the mince, the chopped onion and garlic, breadcrumbs, eggs, coriander and oregano. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Use your hands to make small balls. Bring a large frying pan to a medium heat and add a couple of centimetres of olive oil. When the oil starts smoking, add the balls (you may need to cook them in stages to avoid overcrowding the pan) reduce the heat to medium intensity and cook the meatballs for a few minutes ensuring that they are brown all over without burning. Drain on kitchen paper.
When both the sauce and the balls are cooked, transfer the sauce to a baking dish, spoon the meatballs over the sauce and break the feta all around them. Cook in a preheated oven at 180 0C for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with some fresh basil leaves and serve.