Meatballs with red sauce (Soutzoukakia from Smyrna

MEATBALLS WITH RED SAUCE

(Soutzoukakia from Smyrna)

Ingredients

1 kilo ground beef or 700g beef and 300 g of minced pork

3 large dry onions

4 cloves garlic

Salt, pepper, oregano, savory

1/2 tsp cumin

50 g. breadcrumbs

40 g. olive oil,

1 medium potato

1 medium ripe tomato

Instruction

Peel the onions and garlic.

Put them in the blender and chop them.

Put some salt on the minced meat and knead well with your hands.

Put the chopped onions and garlic in the mince.

Knead the onions and minced meat to mix well.

Put oil in the minced and knead again.

Add the ground pepper, oregano, savory, and cumin and knead.

Put the potato in the blender and mash it. Put the mashed potato in the mince and knead again.

Put the tomato in the blender and puree it. Pour the tomato puree ina the mince and knead again.

Add the breadcrumbs to mince.

Knead well all ingredients together.

Put the meat in the refrigerator for at least two hours, in order to mingle the flavors.

You can prepare the meat for meatballs overnight.

The next morning take a piece of meat as big as a moderate mandarin.

In your palms, give into the mince oblong shape.

Put in plate 60 g oil.

Dip the meat balls into the oil and turn it around to get smeared with it.

Place the meatballs on a greased pan next to each other.

Place the pan in the oven on the first rack on top, just under the grill.

Bake at 180 C degrees for about 15 minutes.

Remove the pan with the meatballs from the oven when they get a light brown color on top.

Sauce

Ingredients

5 large ripe tomatoes

2 medium dry onions

5 cloves garlic

50 g olive oil

Salt to taste

Very little red hot chili pepper (as a kernel of watermelon)

Instructions

Mash the tomatoes in a blender.

Peel the onions and the garlic.

Put oil in a saucepan and place it over medium heat.

Mince the onions and garlic and pour them into the saucepan. Stir occasionally.

Let them sauté until soft.

Add the grated tomatoes, salt and the hot chili pepper.

Stir occasionally.

Boil the sauce 10 minutes.

Assembling the food

Meatballs in the oven

Spread the sauce over the meatballs which are in the pan in which they were baked

Put the pan with the meatballs and sauce in the oven again in the middle rack.

 Bake at 180 degrees for 15 minutes.

Meatballs in the pot

Prepare the meatballs and put them one by one into a pot with the sauce.

Cook the meatballs over low heat for 10-15 minutes and then turn off the heat.

Meatballs fried

Shape the mince into meatballs.

Put flour in a dish.

Roll the meatballs in the flour.

In a nonstick pan put half cup of olive oil and 60 g. corn oil.

Place the pan over medium heat.

As the oil warms up, place the meatballs into the skillet.

When browned on one side turn them at the other.

Spread napkin on a plate to absorb excess oil

Put the meatballs into the dish over the napkin and wait until the oil is absorbed.

Fried meatballs are appetizers.

The meatballs that are cooked in a pot or in the oven can be offered as appetizer and as a main dish.

After kneading the mince you can divide it into parts.

You can make meatballs for frying with the first part.

You can make soutzoukakia with red sauce with the second part.

You can garnish the meatballs with rice pilaf, mashed potatoes or French fries.
In the picture above there are three dishes.

In the dish with the cucumber the meatballs are fried.
In the dish with the rice the meatballs are cooked in a pot. 

In the third dish the meatballs are cooked in the oven.