Italian baked meatballs with buffalo mozzarella

Serves 4- you can use 750g mince and serve 6

Ingredients

500g pork and veal mince

2 browns onions finely chopped

5 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 carrot, ½ cm dice

1 stalk of celery ½ cm dice

1 cup of tomato passata

1 cup of beef or chicken broth

2 tsp dried basil- if you have fresh basil and oregano you can use that, just use a small handful of each and chop- or as much as you would like to use.

2 tsp dried oregano

250g tub of buffalo mozzarella, sliced thinly- you can find this in this nice cheese section at the supermarket, it’s a fresh mozzarella and is white in colour, will be in brine or most likely oil. If you can’t find it you can use normal mozzarella which is yellow and firmer or you can use grated mozzarella.

Method

Preheat your oven to 200c or 180 c fan forced.

Season the mince really well with salt and pepper, knead together until sticky and form tbsp sized balls and set aside. In a large pan heat some olive oil and fry off your meatballs for 1-2 minutes until browned. Then put in your onion, garlic, carrot, dried herbs and celery, passata and broth- simmer, stirring a further 1-2 minutes until the broth is hot. Transfer to an oven proof dish and bake for 30 minutes, uncovered.

When done-If you are using fresh buffalo mozzarella just slice and put on top of your meatballs and bake a further 5 minutes or until melted. This doesn’t take long.

If you are using the normal mozzarella which is more yellow in colour and firmer put under a hot grill on and cook for 5-8 minutes until melted and golden brown. This takes a little longer to melt than the fresh mozzarella.

Serve this with some nice crusty Italian ciabatta bread to mop up the juices, or some zoodles (zucchini/vegetable noodles) some thick cut pappardelle pasta, or pasta of your choice, or no pasta, you could even have with some creamy polenta. Also have with extra steamed vegetables or a nice big salad.