Spanish Meatballs - New Year's Tapas

In my previous post, I spoke about how we started off the New Year with a Tapas meal for a few good friends. I promised that recipes would be provided soon and to start it off, this is the recipe for my Spanish Meatballs

The inspiration for this comes from a local Tapas restaurant that serves great meatballs in a tomato based sauce. I like my meatballs meaty and without that floury or artificial bite. For me, the bite from meatballs has to come from pure meat!




I used my tried and tested meatball recipe except that I added in a little chilli. For the sauce, I made a Tomato based sauce flavoured with a lot of Thai Basil. This is what I did.

Ingredients
For the Meatballs
500g Minced Beef
1 green chilli - chopped
1 onion - chopped
2 cloves garlic - chopped
2 Tbsp Tomato Sauce

For the Sauce
2 cloves garlic - chopped
1 Onion - chopped
4 bay leaves
1 Can Stewed Tomatoes
50g Fresh Thai Basil

Method
First, make the meatballs:
Mix all the ingredients together and leave to marinate for about 30 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Roll the mixture into small tight balls and place on a baking pan.
Bake for about 20 mins or until the meatballs are able to hold their shape.
While the meatballs are baking, start with the sauce.

Sautee the garlic and onion together with the bay leave till fragrant. Add in the can of stewed tomatoes and season with salt and pepper. Remove the Basil leaves from stalks and chop the large leaves roughly. Add the leaves into the sauce and allow to simmer.

Once meatballs are cooked, add the meatballs togehter with the drippings into the sauce. Allow to simmer and for the sauce to infuse into the meatballs for about 20 minutes.

Serve with bread.

The meatballs were lovely and firm and the sauce tasted just great eaten with bread. The Lovely Wife was quite surprised by how well it turned out as she had her doubts while I was making it. I keep wondering, after all these years together and all these blog posts, why she keeps doubting me. But I guess that is a wife's perogative! The kids enjoyed it too and I have to say that it really made quite a delicious Tapas. It kept well and was a great snack the next day too!

Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta

Last weekend, The Lovely Wife went for her old school reunion. One of her close friends organised the brunch meeting so she left early in the morning to help out. The kids and I started off our 'Mummy free day' by going to the supermarket to get some ingredients for their choice of lunch. No surprises that they wanted a pasta. I sometimes wonder why the kids love their pasta so much!

I had decided I was going to make a creamy tomato based pasta and there was some chicken in the fridge as well as some capsicum. So all we really needed to get was some mushrooms and a few other groceries.

I was also busy doing the Daring Baker's challenge for this month - but of course I cant tell you what it is yet! So in between doing this and that for the challenge, I made this pasta sauce.

Ingredients
4 cloves garlic
1 large onion
2 bay leaves
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
500g Chicken breast - cut into strips
200 g portobello mushrooms - cut into strips
3 yellow capsicum - cut into strips
1 can stewed tomatoes
1/2 cup cream
Salt
Pepper
Method
Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Set aside. Sautee garlic, onion, bay leaves and oregano till fragrant. Add in chicken and cook well. Add in mushrooms and mix well. continue cooking until juices are released. Add in can of tomatoes and allow to simmer. Add in capsicum, mixing well. Pour in the cream and mix well. Allow to simmer. Add a little corn flour mixed with water if needed to thicken the mixture.

I served this with Spaghetti although I contemplated using Penne. I think I made the right choice as the Spaghetti went really well with this sauce.

The dish turned out better than I expected and the kids really loved it. They said this was one of the best pasta's they had ever eaten but I take that with a pinch of salt simply because they were really hungry. We all know that food tastes better when you are really hungry!

The Lovely Wife came home later in the afternoon and she admitted she was a tad hungry as she had eaten brunch rather early and then had only had coffee after that. She proceeded to eat the pasta sauce with some bread and she too declared it a winner in her books.




Well, if everyone in my family loved it, that means it has got to be pretty darn good right?!

It's been a while since I contributed to Presto Pasta Nights the brainchild of my friend Ruth and hosted this week by Kait of Pots and Plots so this is my contribution this time around.

Mediterranean Rice Tartelettes - Royal Foodie Joust

It's Royal Foodie Joust time again!! The Royal Foodie Joust is hosted by HRH Jenn, The LeftOver Queen and if you still haven't heard about it or don't know what it is, all I can say is Get With It - this is probably one of the most awesome cyber cooking competitions!

This time around, the ingredients were chosen by the winner of the May Joust - my friend Nuria over at Spanish Recipes and they are:
Bacon
Rice
Tomatoes

Seems quite simple but the difficulty here really is that there are so many options available! My first thought was to make stuffed tomatoes but that would be too simple. Then I thought about a bacon based Briyani but decided that I had already gone along those lines for a previous joust.

What to make, what to make? Then it hit me as I was driving my car.




I remembered a picture I had seen once when I was browsing cookbooks in a bookstore of a tart made with rice. Then I thought of filling the tart with eggplant, mushrooms (gotta have mushrooms!) and bacon and topped off with tomatoes. The picture in my mind looked really good and even though I wasn't quite sure how I would make the tart, I let the picture in my minds eye lead me on!

This is what I did.

Mediterranean Rice Tartelettes - makes 10 tartelettes
Ingredients
1 cup rice
2 eggs - beaten
Salt
8 rashers back bacon - chopped
1 large eggplant - cut into large pieces
3 tomatoes - sliced
2 tsp basil
200g button mushrooms - halved
2 tsp oregano

Method
Cook the rice and let cool. Add in the beaten eggs and mix well ensuring egg is incorporated. Season with salt. Set aside.
Degorge the eggplant by placing the cut pieces in a colander. Sprinkle with salt and let stand for about 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, fry bacon till cooked. Set aside
Fry basil and tomatoes together till slightly soft. Set aside
Fry oregano with mushrooms till cooked. Set aside.
Rinse eggplant and then pat dry. Fry till tender. Set aside.

Assembly.
Place rice into tart moulds and bake in a preheated 190C oven for about 15 mins. Place eggplant, then bacon, mushrooms and cover with a slice of tomato. Return to oven and raise temperature to 200C. Bake for another 20 mins. Allow to cool slightly before unmoulding. Garnish with some celery leaves if desired.

The picture I had in my mind had a mushroom half sitting on top of the tomato, but since there was enough mushroom to go into the tarts, I thought it best to keep the mushrooms under wraps!


I was kind of worried as to how to unmould the tartelettes but as they cooled, the tarts pulled in a little and whatever parts remained stuck to the sides were easily removed by sliding a sharp knife in between the mould and the rice. The tarts unmoulded very nicely and kept their shape.

The Lovely Wife had invited her parents over for lunch and so these tartelettes became the appetiser and I had more taste testers that usual. The first tartelette was tasted by The Lovely Wife and she declared it as very good. My son then had a proper tartelette and he enjoyed it immensely. My In-Laws really loved it too and were rather surprised that I had used rice for the tart shell.




I must say that the tartelettes were very delicious too! I think the mix of flavours of tomato, bacon, egpplant and mushrooms complemented each other really well and the rice tart shell gave it a lovely finish. Then again, as Nuria says, anything with Bacon in it is good and I just have to agree with that!



This is definitely something that I will make again although I might vary the fillings. This joust was a lot of fun so thanks once again to Nuria for choosing these great ingredients and of course to Jenn for hosting this great event!

Pollo ala Cacciatora

Ever noticed how food with a foreign name not only sounds more exotic but also seems more appealing? Chicken cooked in tomato sauce hardly holds any appeal. Chicken braised with tomatoes and mushrooms adds a bit more interest. Say Chicken Cacciatore and the whole dish takes on a whole new meaning. But call it Pollo ala Cacciatora and the eyes glass over, violins start to play in the background and you might even have to bring out a nice shirt and tie (or your little black dress for the ladies) for dinner!



I was introduced to this dish many years ago but always made it using the shortcut method. The shortcut involved a bottle of Pasta Sauce. Very quick, very easy and rather tasty.

Looking back, its strange that I used the shortcut method. I have never used bottled Pasta Sauce for my Pasta so I wonder why I decided it was okay for a chicken dish. Not sure I know the answer to my own question. I think it had something to do with someone explaining how they made their version of Chicken Cacciatore that included, of course, a bottle of Pasta Sauce.

Well, I don’t use bottled Pasta Sauce for my Chicken Cacciatore anymore. Uh-Uh. No more. Especially not when making Pollo alla Cacciatora. That would be absolutely disgraceful. No self respecting Pollo would allow itself to be Cacciatora-ed with a bottled Pasta Sauce. Just imaging the cluckings of protest!

Usually I sear my chicken pieces before letting them cook in the sauce but this, since I was a tad lazy, I just chucked the uncooked pieces into the sauce and let it stew for a while. However, I’ll give you my recipe the way its supposed to be made!

Ingredients
1 large chicken – cut into pieces
¼ inch ginger – ground
200 g Swiss Brown Mushrooms – sliced thinly
8 rashers back bacon - chopped
5 cloves garlic - chopped
1 large onion – chopped
1 stalk fresh rosemary
2 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
3 bay leaves
4 large tomatoes - quartered
1 can stewed tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste
3 red chilles or 1 capsicum – cut into pieces
2-3 splashes Worcestershire Sauce
2-3 splashes Tabasco Sauce
Black Pepper
Salt

Method
Clean and cut the chicken into pieces. Rub all over with the ground ginger. Season with a little salt and pepper.
Heat oil and fry the onions, garlic, basil, bay leaves, oregano and rosemary. Add in bacon and stir well until bacon is cooked. Add in mushrooms and continue cooking till juices are released. Add in fresh tomatoes with stewed tomatoes. Cover pan and allow tomatoes to disintegrate and form a paste.
Meanwhile, in a separate pan, heat a little oil and sear the chicken until lightly browned. Remove from pan and add into the sauce. Add a little water and cover tha pan. Allow simmer for about 30 minutes.
Add in Worcestershire sauceand Tabasco sauce and mix well. Add in chillies/capsicum and simmer uncovered for another 10 minutes until sauce is thick. If need be, add a little corn flour (mix with water first!)

I served this dish with Couscous and also with rice. We found some flavoured couscous at the local supermarket and decided to expose the kids to something new instead of the regular rice.


This kids didn't really take a liking to the couscous but at least they thought the “Tomatoey Chicken with lots of mushrooms” was really nice. See, that’s what’s so special about kids. You cant fool them with fancy names or ‘packaging’ as I like to call it. They tell you honestly whether they like something or not.

Maybe someday when they are all grown up and someone try’s to impress them with Pollo alla Cacciatora at some fancy restaurant, they will eat it and remember that their Daddy used to make them something similar…