Spicy baked meatballs

Meatballs, often served with a sauce on a base of rice, are standard fare across Spain. Typically made from ground pork or beef, dipped in egg, then breadcrumbs, browned in oil and finished cooking in a sauce or gravy. This is a different take. It's quick and easy using spicy Italian sausage meat and then baked in the oven.

The idea here is for tapas & finger food, but could be used in any number of ways, with or without sauce or condiments. It can easily be made using ground pork, beef or chicken with whatever spices suit your fancy. Once made they can be frozen and reheated as needed.

Ingredients

• 500 grams (1 pound) spicy Italian sausage meat
• 1/2 onion, finely diced
• 1 cup shitake or other mushrooms, finely chopped
• 1 cup "filler" (see Note 1.)
• 2 eggs
• Olive oil, salt and (optional) spices
• Panko-style breadcrumbs

Preparation

• Preheat oven to 180ºC (350ºF)
• In a large frying pan sautee the onion & mushrooms until tender in a splash of olive oil (3-5 minutes)
• Add crumbled up sausage meat, break it up with a spatula and cook briefly (2 minutes)
• Put sausage mixture in a large bowl, add "filler", mix well and let it cool for few minutes.
• Add the eggs & mix well. If it's too juicy, add breadcrumbs to get the right texture to be able to form the meatballs.
• Take out a teaspoonful and cook in the frying pan for a minute or so, taste to check for seasoning, adjust as needed.
• Wet your hands and mold the mixture in golf ball sized spheres, lightly dust with the panko breadcrumbs and set on a sheet pan.
• Bake for 15 minutes and you're done. The ones in the photos were the size of a billiard ball, cooked in 20 minutes.

Note:
1. Filler: this recipe used cooked wheat berries (a personal favorite). Many Spanish recipes use breadcrumbs moistened with stock or milk, cooked rice is another possibility. There are many other alternatives...
2. Spices: the Italian sausage has plenty of spice, but you can adjust the heat with red pepper flakes, Tabasco, etc. Other ideas might be to use Chinese 5 spice & garlic with pork, chile powder & jalapeños with beef...the list goes on.
3. An idea I plan to try next time is to mold a cube of cheddar cheese in the center of each meatball.
4. Other possibilities: enrich the mixture with ricotta, cottage cheese or sour cream in lieu of one the eggs.

Download in PDF

Recipe List