Garden Meatballs

I tried another recipe out of my new cookbook, Cooking Well for the Unwell. It is effectively a recipe for poached meatballs served in beef broth over noodles, rice or whatever tickles your fancy. I ordered some extra lean beef mince in my last order from Sainsburys to try it out.

As I only wanted to do half the recipe, I cut the quantities in half.

Here’s what I did -

½ pound of extra lean beef mince
1 egg
½ cup of breadcrumbs
1 carrot, shredded
A dash of salt and pepper and a bit of thyme (as the original recipe calls for seasoned bread crumbs, and I don't add anything to my homemade breadcrumbs)

Shredding carrots

 I mixed everything together in a bowl and formed them into meatballs.

A few too many breadcrumbs!

Loads of meatballs for 1/2 pound of meat!

Of course, I realised after I put everything in the bowl that I forgot to half the amount for the bread crumbs and used a whole cup, so I’ve ended up with rather “bready” meatballs!

The recipe suggests poaching them in 2 cups of beef broth. Beef broth is one thing that I won’t make from scratch as I really don’t like cleaning the pot up afterwards. So I used this store bought one - http://www.knorr.co.uk/product/detail/392262/beef-stock-pot

I brought the stock to boil and added the meatballs, then turned it down to a simmer for 15 minutes.

Many meatballs in the pot!

Turned out a bready by the end of cooking

I served them over rice noodles with a bit of steamed spinach.

They weren’t bad, but a bit “bready” and not overly flavourful. I think next time I will add some onion and garlic granules to the mix to give it more flavour. And I’ll try to remember not to put so many breadcrumbs in next time!

It made loads, so I have lots for the freezer. If I can find any room in there . . .