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20th December 2016
12:18am GMT
The meatballs above look like something you'd get in a restaurant and pay a good €12-15 for, right?
Well you won't believe it but all you need are the seven ingredients below (well actually eight, because I was a stupid bastard and forgot to put the cheese into the pic). And better still, there's a very good chance you'll have four of them knocking around already anyway. This is cooking for the normal person who doesn't have their own herb garden or a huge stocked pantry.
What I will say, though, is play around with the recipes. Like with this one, you could lash in a few herbs or change up the pasta. Cooking should be fun and as you grow with these recipes you should experiment!
Chop the chilli up real fucking small. If you like it hot, leave the seeds in and chop them as well – or if you're a big sissy, take them out.
Chop the onion and the garlic up as small as you can. There are smart chef ways to do it but I'd just get it as small as you can humanly muster!
Take half the chilli, garlic and onion and lash it in to a bowl with the meat. Don't arse around with a spoon, get your hands in there instead and mix it all up. Unless you want to be off work getting sick for a week, wash your hands first.
Mix it all up so as it looks like this and everything is well spread.
Then you get to become a kid again and make little balls. They should be about the size of a golf ball.
Now get the other half of the onion, garlic and chilli and put it in a pan with some oil. Everything is going to be made in this pan so make sure it is kinda deep. Let the oil warm a little and slowly cook the onions, etc, for about two minutes. They should start smelling amazing.
When they have softened, fuck in the meatballs and start giving them some colour.
Keep them gently moving, and when they start to get brown lash in the tomatoes.
Smash the tomatoes up a little and spread them around.
Lash the chicken stock in to a jug and pout in some boiling water. Doesn't have to be exact but think about half a pint from the pubs worth.
Put the stock in with the meatballs.
Turn the heat down and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. This is where the magic happens. You don't have to do a fucking thing now and it will slowly turn into a rich succulent tomato sauce.
Don't be standing there like an arsehole stirring it all the time. Let it do the work itself. No need to panic. Put yourself to good use grating up a fuck load of parmesan cheese.
When the sauce is nearly ready lash in your pasta. I really don't need to explain to you how to cook pasta.
Thats it all done now and your sauce should look like this. There really isn't any magic to this cooking lark is there?
Pasta, meatballs and sauce on top and a shit load of grated cheese on serve it up. You've just learnt another 'go-to' dish that will be ready in 20 minutes, with fewer than seven ingredients! Epic.
