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Spanish Meatballs (Albondigas)

These rich, meaty, spicy little balls make a perfect tapas dish or even a great main meal. I've had these in Spain and always loved them so tried to recreate my own for a bit of a tapas feast. Since then we've had them a couple of times as a main meal. I use the classic bravas sauce with them so chuck in some diced roast potatoes smother everything with the sauce and you have a lovely warming dish for a cold winter evening.

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Goes fab with a nice glass of Rioja

Ingredients

Serves 2 as a main, 4-6 as a tapas

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For the meatballs

  • 1/2 onion

  • 250g pork mince

  • 4 rashers smoked streaky bacon

  • 2 cloves garlic

  • 2 tsp smoked paprika

  • 15g breadcrumbs

  • 50ml port (red wine will also work)

  • salt and pepper

  • 1 sweet pointed red pepper

  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil

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For the sauce

  • 1/2 onion (the other half)

  • 1 400g tin plum tomatoes (or chopped)

  • 100ml water

  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar

  • 1/2 tsp ground chilli

  • 10 drops of tobasco sauce

Method

Ok you can do this in two ways. I've done the meatballs and sauce at the same time but doesn't give you much leeway once the meatballs go in the oven. The other way would be to make the sauce whilst the meatballs are chilling in the fridge then reheat it on the hob when the balls are nearly ready to come out the oven. Neither way is better and just down to how confident you are and how much time you have.

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Meatballs

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So for the meatballs dice up very finely the half an onion as small as you can, then again with the garlic. Now chop the bacon until it resembles a coarse mince. Add these to a large bowl with the pork mince, paprika, breadcrumbs and port.

 

Season with a good pinch of salt and pepper then mash together with your hands until the mixture has the consistency of sausage meat and the breadcrumbs have soaked up all the port. That's the only reason we use breadcrumbs here as they help keep the flavour of the port in the meatballs rather than it just running out.

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Now cover the mixture and leave in the fridge for an hour or so just to let those flavours all mingle. The mixture will also be easier to shape when cold.

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After its rested you need to heat an oven to 180c (360f) and you can pull the meat out of the fridge and shape the mixture into golf ball sized meatballs (go a bit smaller if doing for tapas so they stretch to more mouths). Drop the balls into a roasting dish then slice the pepper into rings and scatter them amongst the balls. Drizzle over 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil just to get things roasting nicely then put in the oven for 30 mins, turning every so often.

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If you put some 1 inch diced par boiled potatoes in the oven at the same time you also will end up with some lovely patatas bravas cooked at the same time. There you go, two for one on tapas.

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Sauce

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Whilst that is going you can put together the sauce. Start by dicing and sweating the other half of the onion in a tablespoon of oil for 8-10 minutes until soft then add the tomatoes, vinegar and water. At the same time we will add in the chilli powder and tobasco but it's worth saying here I like my sauce to have a bit of a kick so if you want to lighten it up I suggest omitting the ground chilli and a few drops of the tobasco. You can always add more tobasco later if want to pep it up.

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Now bring to a simmer with the lid on and cook for 15 mins. Once that's done you need to transfer to a blender (or use a stick blender but I find you won't get quite as smooth a sauce) and whizz up until very smooth. Now return the sauce to the pan and with the lid off gently simmer to reduce the consistency until it sticks nicely to the back of a spoon.

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By this point the meatballs should be done and you can lift them and the peppers out of the roasting dish with a slotted spoon into bowls, as they will have leaked out quite a bit of fat. Drizzle with the bravas sauce and dig in.

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