Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs and all things spherical

You can't beat a meatball- or a meatless ball- for a quick supper, a cheap filler, a crowd pleaser, a party favourite or even a sophisticated starter.

Whether you use pork, beef, turkey, lamb, chickpeas, sweet potatoes, rice or cheese- these little round parcels of tastiness hit the spot. They crop up in every cuisine- Asian, North African, Middle Eastern and Western- and everyone has their own version and favourites.




So, this week I've been cooking meatballs for supper- but also looking back at other dishes which are all-round pleasers.

Mozzarella stuffed Meatballs

Ingredients:

350g beef mince
1 cup soft breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 tablespoon chopped herbs eg. thyme, parsley or chives
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 ball mozzarella

1. Begin by mixing the beef mince, egg, breadcrumbs, herbs and a generous pich of salt and pepper together using wet hands until you have a homogenous mixture.
2. Wet your hands again and roll the mixture into 12 meatballs and place in the fridge to chill for 15-20 mins or more.

3. Slice the mozzarella into twelve little pieces.
4. Make a dent in the centre of the meatball with your thumb and place the mozzarella in the hollow.

5. Close the meatball back up again around the cheese (wet hands help to make it sticky)
6. Fry gently in a hot frying pan with a spritz of oil.

Tomato butter sauce:

1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 small onion diced finely
1 clove of garlic minced finely
1 teaspoon each of balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
10 g of butter

1. Gently fry the onion and garlic together until translucent.
2. Add all the other ingredients except the butter and bubble away for a while until beginning to thicken
3. Mix in the butter and adjust seasoning to taste.

I served the vegetables with roasted vegetable couscous and the tomato butter sauce.

Roasted vegetable couscous

When you're cooking for a crowd, I turn to pasta to help me out- and a meatball pasta bake can feed a dozen without stretching the purse strings at all:

Meatball Pasta bake
http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/pasta%20bake

And if you are cooking for a children's party, meatballs make a good bite-sized treat. Season lightly to suit younger palates- but provide some tasty dipping sauces to jazz them up. My 'Angry Birds' in a noodle nest will go down well. You can make them look cuter of course- but mine turned out more Freddie Krueger than Orville:

Magpie meatballs in a noodle nest

https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/534e74c8e4b0f610fb4d4784

Loads of lovely meatballs from lots of other clever bloggers on that link above.

This tasty meat mixture was actually the first recipe I posted on the blog more than 2 years ago- in the form of a burger sitting in a garlic mushroom cup. You could say it was the mothership of all my ideas since:

Burger in a garlic mushroom cup

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/so-here-goes.html

As I said at the start, all cuisines seem to feature meatballs- be they falafel, kofta, kebabs or burgers. I've played around with spicy pork parcels:

Asian pork parcels

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/week-13-lucky-for-some.html

And with lamb patties and flatbreads:

Lamb patties with home made pitta bread


http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/week-47-healthy-new-year-recipes.html

And some vegetarian options like falafel :

Falafel

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/week-36-midweek-meze.html

And it's squished down sister- the sweet potato burger:

Sweet potato and carrot falafel-burger

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/week-36-midweek-meze.html

And for a more sophisticated spherical look, what about arancini ( leftover risotto fried into balls):

Arancini with dipping sauce

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/week-40-crunchy.html

And finally, if we're talking trendy, what about cake pops? They're round, and- if they're savoury- they're very now. Here's mine:

Brie cake pops with cranberry relish

http://lizsleftovers.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/week-51-nearly-there.html

So, we've gone around the world in 10 different, well, round things. What's your favourite meat or non-meat ball?

Let me know.

We can have a reader's round-up.

Week 51- Nearly There!

Nearly at the summit!

Just one more week of the challenge to go- and the summit is just in sight!

I mustn't run out of steam yet- but my hopes of inspiration from an evening cooking class were dashed when it was cancelled due to lack of numbers.

So, I had to search elsewhere for ideas to tide me over the week.





Looking through my cupboard, I spotted one of those silicone cake-pop moulds which I bought in the January sales- and decided to give it a try using my savoury cake/muffin mix which readers on the blog seem to like. I also had a delicious slow roasted pork belly with a ginger beer gravy at my local pub and decided to recreate that as the main.

For pudding, I thought about climbing to the top of the blog mountain- and decided to make a dessert which represented that thought: Baked Alaska!

So, that's the menu for this week: Brie cake pops with cranberry relish, slow roasted pork belly with a ginger beer gravy and Baked Lemon Meringue Alaska.

I'll make the main course first.

Pork belly is a wonderful cheap cut of meat, which is transformed by very slow cooking. I'm using the crockpot, but a low, slow oven will work well too.

Pork belly, ginger beer, 5 spice and salt..

First slash the skin on the meat with a sharp knife and rub in some sea salt and Chinese five spice if you have it, pepper if not.
Heat a spray of oil in a frying pan until smoking hot and sear the skin until dark brown.

Sear in a frying pan

Lay the belly pieces on top of some sliced carrots and leeks in the crockpot.

Lay the belly slices on the veg

Deglaze the frying pan with the ginger beer and pour around the meat.
Leave to cook for 6 hours or more if you can.

Lift out the meat when it is very tender, place on a wire rack on a baking tray and flash into a hot oven for 15 minutes or so to crisp up the skin.

Scoop out the veg and thicken the gravy if necessary or thin it with some stock if that is more appropriate. If you want to crisp up the skin on the pork, flash it under a hot grill for a few minutes before serving.

Hearty comfort food for a wet and windswept Britain tonight!

Pork belly with ginger beer gravy

For the cake-pops, I'm using up some leftover bits and pieces of cheese - some Brie and some Cheddar. (This a good way to avoid throwing away those little bits of cheese leftover in the fridge.)

In a jug, combine 100g self raising flour, 2 tsp of baking powder, 1 cup of natural yoghurt, 2 eggs, 100g cheese (grated Cheddar and Brie with the rind cut off and the cheese cut into small pieces), 1 cup olive oil, salt and pepper and a teaspoon of mustard.

Lightly grease the silicone moulds with a spray of vegetable oil.
Place a small piece of Brie in the bottom of each pop-hollow and pour the mixture into the half-mould.

Put a small piece of Brie in each mould

Put on the lid and bake for 15-20 minutes or so at 200 degrees.
Allow to cool before un-moulding and pranging with a lolly stick. (Wooden coffee stirrers make a good substitute if you don't have lolly sticks... I'll leave it to you to think how you might end up with a pocket full of those..)
Serve with cranberry sauce or chutney (I bet you have a jar left over from Christmas still as I do.)

Cheesy Brie cake pops with cranberry relish

Now for the pud.
I use a sponge flan base, but you can use any cake (chocolate, ginger, whatever) if you have some needing using up. First preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
Whilst it's heating up,  shape your ice cream (again any flavour - but I had lemon meringue pie flavour in the freezer) into a mountain shape with a base the diameter of your cake. The easiest way to do this is to lay a piece of cling film out over the cake base, shape the ice cream on the plastic film, wrap, push and prod until you are satisfied with its shape. Seal it up quickly in the cling film and put back into the freezer to get really firm again.

Wrap the ice cream in cling film to shape it

Separate 3 eggs (I used the yolks for scrambled eggs for lunch- deliciously yellow and creamy!) and put the whites in a clean bowl.
Whip with an electric mixer, adding spoons of caster sugar as you go until you have a very firm white meringue, with peaks that stand up and hold their shape.

Now- quickly- lay the sponge base on a baking tray, unwrap your frozen ice cream mountain, lay it on the base and then cover quickly with the meringue. Use a palette knife to spread it evenly all over in a thick layer, paying particular attention to where it meets the sponge base.
Be sure to cover every tiny hole, where the ice cream could leak out.

Pop it in the oven and watch closely through the glass door. In four minutes it should turn beautifully golden. Out it comes and voila! Hot meringue and cold ice cream in a scrumptious pudding.

Lemon Meringue Baked Alaska

So, three more recipes to tempt you and use up stuff in your cupboards and fridge.

I've added a survey to this week's blog so you can vote for your favourite recipes (you can choose more than one category and vote as many times as you like). It would be good to get your feedback on what you've enjoyed - or even tried out - so do cast your votes and ask other people/ family members/ friends to tell me what they think too.

I'll keep an eye on your responses during the week and report back next weekend - when we reach the final frontier!