Clemenza's Creations.....The 'Godfather' of all meatballs!

If you were to take a look in my shopping trolley you would find pretty much the same groceries week in, week out. I can hear you thinking.....is it not boring buying the same foods all the time? well it could be but I do have a reason behind this. Just like many other single parents and families out there, I am not in a position where I can enjoy an extensive or limitless budget when it comes to food shopping. I need to strictly budget myself weekly, and under such circumstances after a while you tend to learn who has the best quality products at a price to suit you and you tend to stick to that....this works well for me and my family so if it's not broke don't fix it I always say. As for buying the same things each week being boring? well no, it's not what you buy...it's what you do with it! So each week in my trolley you will find, among other things, minced pork, onions, garlic, cabbage, peppers and fresh chillies. I could make probably ten different dishes using these ingredients with the addition of the odd store cupboard staple, so not as boring as you might believe!

Another family favorite dish, using the above ingredients, are these huge meatballs inspired by Clemenza the Mafia character in one of my favorite movies 'The Godfather', who makes a 'deadly' meatball sauce! Meatballs are synonymous with Italians and Sicilians although the dish of meatballs and spaghetti didn't actually originate in Italy itself, it came into being when Italian / Sicilian's began immigrating to the USA in the late 1880's. Minced meat and canned tomatoes were cheap staples for these immigrants and as spaghetti was the only Italian food item available in the shops at that time, they began to eat the two together, and so spaghetti and meatballs as a dish was born.

These meatballs are tasty and moist. The vegetables and porridge give a soft texture and help retain moisture, and the smoked paprika blends well with the heat of chillies.

You will need.......

makes 6 meatballs  with 1 meatball per person
         
500 g lean minced pork
100 g rolled porridge oats
100 g green pepper
100 g red pepper
1 medium white onion
1 small red chilli
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 clove garlic
sea salt
fresh black pepper

500 mls Cheats Tomato Sauce.... see recipe HERE!

How to.......

You can use a food processor to finely chop the onion, red & green pepper other wise chop them as small as you can.

• remove the seeds from the chilli, or keep them in if you want meatballs with plenty of heat! chop the chilli finely
• place the minced pork in a deep bowl, add the porridge, onion, peppers and chilli
• mince the clove of garlic and add
• add the paprika and season with salt and pepper

• using your hands, mix everything together really well then form the meat into your 6 meatballs
• place on a tray and chill in the fridge for approx 15 minutes

• Heat the oven to 160 oC and bake your meat balls until they are nicely browned on the outside and cooked at the centre.....cook for about 40 - 50 minutes...depends on your oven of course!

I serve these with my Cheats Tomato Sauce which I spice up a little with some more smoked paprika and then add a little creme fraiche or coconut milk to give it a little creaminess. 

You can serve these with spaghetti or some other type of pasta if you wish, but here in Ireland if we serve pork of any kind we seem to be compelled to eat cabbage with it. I lightly steam some simple white cabbage which goes very well with these and is one of the cheapest vegetables around.......you can get a lot of cabbage for very little outlay!