There is always great jubilation in my house when meatballs are on the menu, and with this recipe it is easy to rustle them up in minutes. Instead of making up a meatball mixture with ground meat or meats, Parmesan, garlic, parsley, and egg, I simply squeeze the stuffing out of about a pound of Italian sausages and roll it into cherry-tomato-sized balls. It’s not so much that the making process is simplified, it’s that this recipe is easier on the shopping and fridge-stocking front. I’m not sure that, now, my children don’t prefer this version.
Ingredients
- 1 lb hot or sweet Italian sausage
- 2 tbsp garlic-flavored oil
- 4 fat scallion, thinly sliced
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1/4 cup white wine or vermouth
- 2 can (14-ounce) diced tomato
- 2 bay leaf
- salt, to taste
- pepper, to taste
- fresh parsley, to serve (optional)
Directions
- Squeeze the sausage meat from the sausages and roll small cherry-tomato-sized meatballs out of it, putting them onto a plastic wrap–lined baking sheet as you go. Your final tally should be around 40.
- Heat the oil in a large, heavy pan or flameproof Dutch oven and add the meatballs, frying them until golden; as they become firmer, nudge them up in the pan to make room for the rest, if you can’t fit them all in at first.
- When all the meatballs are in the pan and browned, add the scallions and oregano and stir about gently.
- Add the wine or vermouth and diced tomatoes, then fill half of one of the empty cans with cold water and tip it into the other empty can, then into the pan. The can-to-can technique is just my way of making sure you rinse out as much of the tomato residue as possible.
- Put in the bay leaves and let the pan come to a fast simmer. Let cook like this, uncovered, for 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened slightly and the meatballs are cooked through. Check the sauce for seasoning, adding some salt and pepper, if you like.
- During this time you can cook whatever you fancy to go with the meatballs, whether it be pasta, rice, whatever.
- Once the meatballs are ready, you can eat them immediately or let them stand, off the heat but still on the stove, for 15 minutes. The sauce will thicken up a bit on standing. Should your diners be other than children who balk at green bits, sprinkle with parsley on serving.
