17Jan '10
Meatballs and herby dumplings
One of my Christmas presents was a Le Creuset casserole dish and I have been using it as much as possible.
I decided to cook some meatballs in a herb and tomato sauce.
At first I was going to add potatoes but then I remembered I had some vegetable suet left over from making mince pies so I made dumplings instead. The amounts here serve four people.
Ingredients:
- 1 and 1/2 onions, chopped
- 1 carrot, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon hot paprika
- garlic salt or some fresh garlic and salt crushed together
- pepper
- olive oil
- 2 tins of tomatoes
- 1 glass of red wine
- 1 beef stock cube
- 1 red pepper cut into strips
- 1 teaspoon dried sage
- 2 sprigs of fresh rosemary and a similar quantity of fresh dill
- 24 meatballs (I bought mine ready rolled but you can make them with 500g of ground beef and some seasoning)
For the dumplings
- 2 oz vegetable suet
- 4 oz self raising flour
- A pinch of salt
- pine nuts
- Half of the fresh rosemary and dill
Method:
- Heat some olive oil in a frying pan or large casserole dish.
- Fry the onions for about 5 minutes, then add the carrot with the dried herbs and spices including the pepper and garlic salt.
- After another five minutes add the red wine, tinned tomatoes and stock cube.
- Transfer the mixture to a casserole dish, or if you’re using the casserole dish already, prepare another frying pan with olive oil.
- Fry the meatballs until the start to brown, then add them to the sauce along with the red pepper strips and half the fresh chopped herbs.
- Put the lid on the casserole dish and put it into the oven at 200 degrees C for ten minutes.
- In a bowl mix the ingredients for the dumplings and add 2 or 3 tablespoons of cold water. Mix the water into the flour and fat and add more water slowly until it binds into a dough.
- Divide the dough into 8 pieces and roll into balls. When the casserole has been in the oven for ten minutes put the dumplings on top of the meatballs and put the lid back on.
- Set the timer to cook for another 20 minutes.
This dish goes well with roast potatoes, garlic bread or rice – or a combination of these!
