Old school meatballs in tomato sauce

Meatballs seem to be the comfort food of every nation.
Finnish people serve them in creamy brown sauce with mashed potatoes, Swedes prefer basic brown onion sauce or plain with cranberrys and boiled potates, but I think the most famous is the Italian version of spaghetti and meatballs in tomato sauce.
Here's my version of which I claim the whole credit (or blaime for that matter) since my mom never made them in tomato sauce but always the Finnish style.

SPAGHETTI & MEATBALLS IN TOMATO SAUCE

Meatballs

• 400g of grounded beef
• 2 slices of toast soaked in milk
• 1 big or 2 small onions chopped and fried until golden brown
• 1 egg
•  salt, pepper and tabasco for seasoning

Add the fried onions, egg and seasoning to the meat. Squeeze the slices of toast dry from the excess milk and add. Mix well together. Leave the meat to the fridge so the flavours have time to even out. Meanwhile prepare the tomato sauce.

Tomato sauce

• 2 cans (á 500g) of crushed tomatoes
• 2 cans (á 140g) tomato pyree
• 2 dl of cheap red wine (you can also use a mixture of tomatojuice and water 1/1)
• 1 small onion chopped and fried untilgolden brown
• 4 crushed gloves of garlic
• salt & pepper
• from the spices feel free to add or remove accrding to your preferences. Examples
• oregano
• thyme
• marjoram
• tarragon
• savory
• basil

I usually use my ready made mixture of  Herbes de Provence* which I bougth while travelling in Paris. :)

Chop and fry the onions

add tomato pyree and garlic and let it warm up on the pan but be carefull not to burn them since the flawour will be very tangy after that. Add canned tomatos and fluids and let it zimmer on medium heat while makin the meatballs

Pour some oil on your hands (this way the meat mixture won't get stuck on your fingers) and roll small balls from the mixture, place the balls in neat little circles arount the pan in the sauce. Lower the heat just a bit and cover the pan. 

Avoid mixing the sauce since you might end up with just meat sauce if the meatballs break.

Let the meatballs cook slowly untill done (this takes about 30-45 minutes depending on the size of the meatballs). If it looks like the sauce is running out you can add sme more water/ tomato juice/wine and mix carefully

Serve with spaghetti and parmesan cheese

* http://en.wikipedia.orgm wiki/Herbes_de_Provence

Fondue evening

When the weather gets more and more miserable, life can be made more bearable with good food so we decided to cook some fondue Bourguignonne a.k.a. meat fondue.
I prefer the cheese version (seen as the original fondue) but hubbie don't like it at all.. :(
Anyway this one is just as enjoyable and maybe more suited for two people since the leftovers can be refrigerated and re-used.

FONDUE BOURGUIGNONNE

Sunflower oil (the amount depends on the size of your fondue pot). Fill the pot a little less then half full.

about 200g of meat / person. Make sure that the meat is tender and fresh.

We had:

• tenderloin of beef au naturel & marinated
• tenderloin of lamb au naturel & marinated

Pork and chiken are not very good choises since they should be thurly cooked when you eat them and that migth take a while with the fondue pot. Also with raw chicken there is always the risk of salmonella.

With the veggies and sauces there'sno limit so feel free to use your imagination.

For dipping we had:

• sliced fresh button mushrooms
• cauliflower
• sweet potatoes 
• raw onions
• chorizos 

For the other condiments we had:

• aioli
• barbeque sauce spiced with some tabasco
• potatoes parisienne
• lettuce
• pickels
• cherry tomatoes
• baquette
• mushroom salad

Marinade for the beef

• olive oil
• 2 gloves of garlic
• 2 tbls fresh parsley
• 1 tbls fresh marjoram
• crushed black peppers
• 2 tbls f lemon juice

mix ingredients and cover the meat with the marinade. Allow to sit for about an hour.

Marinade for the lamb

• same as abowe but I changed the marjoram to fresh thyme and added one glove of garlic

Aioli -

I use the canned mayo for aioli since with the garlic and lemon you can barely taste the difference, but make sure it is the real deal and not one of those yoghurt minus 15% fat stuff  :)

• 1 cup of mayo
• 2-3 gloves of garlic chrushed and chpped to very fine
• 3 tbls of lemon juice

mix and let the flavours to even for 10-20 minutes.

Mushroom salad - 

This might be hard to prepare for those not living in Finland since the mushrooms need to be salted (and that's a whole other story)

• 5 dl of salted mushrooms
• 1 jar of heavy sour cream
• 1 small onion finely chopped

Let the mushrooms soak in water for couple of hours so that all the excess salt will wear off, rinse well.
Chop the onions and mushrooms and mix with sour cream. Allow to rest for an hour.

Enjoy in good company with full bodied red wine :)