Polpette al sugo/ Meatballs in tomato sauce

Ingredients

• 500g tuscan sausages
• 500g minced beef or veal
• 75g grana padano
• 75g fresh breadcrumbs
• 1/2 wineglass full fat milk
• 1 wineglass red wine
• 1 litre passata
• 2 finely sliced gloves of garlic
• 1 handful of finely chopped parsley
• 1/2 a handful of chopped fresh basil
• a bayleaf
• olive oil for frying
• a grind of black pepper

Ingredients notes

1 The sausage I use is a fairly coarse pork sausage flavoured with garlic - Lucca style but without coriander.

2 I usually use beef in preference to veal because the sausage is quite strong and veal is expensive.

3 I use padano rather than reggiano because it's cheaper.

3 Only use wine you would be happy to drink.

4 A relatively fine passata gives a better result. My local upmarket supermarket does a great organic bottle but I regularly use cheaper brands with great results.

Directions

Remove the sausage meat from the casings and mix the sausage, minced meat, breadcrumbs, finely grated cheese and parsley thoroughly in a bowl.

With the dampened hands, make walnut size balls from the meat and sausage mixture.

Fry the meatballs in olive oil in small batches just until they have a good colour.

Once the meatballs are all done, pour enough of the fat from their frying in to your sauce pan to cover the bottom. On a low to medium heat fry the sliced garlic and when it is soft add the bay leaf. Don't let the garlic take colour.

Pour in the passata let it cook for a minute or two then add the wine. Cook until any harshness from the wine has gone out then reduce your pan to a gentle simmer and add the milk. As soon as the milk has amalgamated, put the meatballs into the sauce and let them cook until done. This will partly depend on how long they fried but I generally let them have about ten minutes simmering.

A minute before serving add the finely chopped basil leaves and a grind of pepper.

Serve

I serve these with pappardelle or tagliatelle and more grana.

bon appetit