African Style Meatballs in Sauce
This is an African/Caribbean fusion take on Italian style meatballs in tomato sauce. You can do a 50/50 mix of ground beef and pork, or use only beef or pork. That is up to you. Both turn out delicious. Although I made my meatballs larger and sautéed them, I’d recommend baking larger meatballs in the oven and sautéing smaller ones on the stove top. Sautéing larger ones are a little more difficult in handling and can potentially fall apart.The sauce uses more traditional African and Caribbean ingredients such as thyme, white pepper, Maggi, smoked paprika, and curry powder. It is also not garlic heavy unlike the Italian counterpart.Typically in Italy, meatballs are just served in sauce and not over pasta. But I still think it’s great over pasta. Eat them how you want. I plan on turning the leftovers into meatball sandwiches on a baguette with sautéed peppers and onions.
Ingredients
Meatballs
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 lb ground pork
- 4 slices of bread
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp chopped parsley
- 1/2 cup grated onion
- 1 tsbp minced garlic
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 large egg
Sauce
- 3 roma tomatoes diced
- 2 small cans of tomato paste
- 2 cups beef stock
- 1 medium onion chopped
- 6 garlic cloves minced
- 2 tsp thyme
- 2 tsp white pepper
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 4 tbsp parsley chopped
- 2 tsp maggi
- 1/2 tsp curry powder
- salt to taste
Instructions
Meatballs
- Soak the bread in the milk.
- Combine all of the meatballs ingredients together.
- Form into balls. The ones I made are fairly large. I yielded 18. You can make these half the size and get 40 out of the meatball mix.
- Heat up cooking oil in a large sauce pan or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Cook the meatballs in batches, browning on all sides for 8-10 minutes
- Set the meatballs aside. These don’t have to be completely cooked through since they will finish in the sauce. They should be browned well though.
- In the same pan or Dutch oven, sauté the onion, garlic, thyme, and chopped tomatoes for 3 minutes. Add the tomato paste, followed by the beef stock, parsley, curry powder, white pepper, smoked paprika, Maggie, and salt. Cover and simmer on medium heat for 20 minutes.
- Stir in the meatballs to the sauce. Cover and let simmer for another 15 minutes.
- These balls are saucy.
- Serve with your favorite pasta.
