Rick Stein Secret France Meatballs

I was bought the cookbook to accompany this series the first time around but have never got around to making anything from the book until watching it again on TV. It's a lovely series, I do get a bit miffed with himself banging on about how ' you'd never get that in the UK ' and not understanding why more people are cheffing ( terrible wages...long hours....) but - all in all I like Rick's recipes.

There are actually lots of things that I want to have a go at this time so this meatball recipe looked good plus I made the Bullfighter Stew from another book.

Ingredients

400g Minced beef

400g Minced pork

2 Onions finely chopped

1 Egg

3 Cloves Garlic finely chopped

Handful flat leaf parsley roughly chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon piment d’Espelette (page 306 of Rick Stein's Secret France) or pimentón

2 Tablespoon plain flour

3 Tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper

For the sauce

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1 Onion finely chopped

100g Smoked lardons ( or streaky bacon )

1 Teaspoon piment d’Espelette (page 306 of Rick Stein's Secret France) or pimentón

1/2 Teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 Tablespoon tomato paste

150g pitted green olives

1 400g tin haricot beans ( I used cannellini ) 

In a large bowl, mix the minced pork and beef, egg, garlic, parsley, cinnamon, sweet paprika and two tablespoons of plain flour. Season with the salt and pepper and blend well. Using your hands, shape the mixture into golfball-sized balls, adding another tablespoon of flour if the mixture feels too wet to form into balls. Roll the balls in flour to lightly cover. Heat the oil in a large, preferably shallow, flameproof casserole dish, and brown the meatballs all over. Set them aside.

For the sauce, heat the tablespoon of olive oil in the same casserole dish and fry the onion and the lardons or ham until the onions are softened. Add the sweet paprika and cinnamon and cook for a minute, then add the chopped tomatoes ( or in my case a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes ) , tomato paste and 250ml of water. Season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Turn the heat down, cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes. 

Add the olives, haricot beans and browned meatballs to the sauce, together with any juices they have released.

Cover the pan and cook over a low heat for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and simmer for 10–15 minutes. Check a couple of times during cooking and add a little more water if the sauce looks as if it is getting too thick. Serve as a tapas or as a lunch or supper dish with pilaf rice.

Now this was delicious but I did change a couple of things, I added a tin of tomatoes where the original recipe called for fresh tomatoes, I added sweet paprika rather than Rick's spice mixture. Next time I'll add a teaspoon of chilli powder as I feel that this recipe needs a kick!