Romanian Meatball Stew

Elena Butuc

I've wanted for so long to cook meatball stew. You can choose to make either a smoother sauce, or with some chuncks of tomatoes and onions in it, it's up to you. If you use tomato puree, the sauce will be smooth. I used canned chopped tomatoes and the sauce was denser.

show all description

Ingredients

Metric US

●

Grinded meat

1 kg

●

Bread crumbs

4 tbsp

●

Milk

1 cup

●

Egg

1 piece

●

Salt

2 tsp

for the meat and sauce, to taste

●

Fresh parsley

2 tbsp

+ other spices and herbs you like

●

Tomato puree

500 g

or chopped tomatoes, canned

●

Tomato paste

1 tbsp

I used sweet red pepper paste

●

Laurel leaves

2 pieces

●

Whole black pepper

5 pieces

I prefer it ground, you can also add 2-3 allspice berries

●

White onion

1 piece

●

Garlic cloves

4 pieces

2 for the meatballs and 2 for the sauce

●

Sugar

1 tsp

●

Sunflower oil

50 ml

Step by step

Step 1

We make the meatballs first:

In a small bowl, mix the breadcrumbs with milk and let swell for about ten minutes.

Step 2

Place the minced meat in a large deep bowl. I recommend grinding the meat at home.

To the meat, add the egg, the breadcrumbs, chopped parsley, salt, pepper to taste and two cloves of garlic, crushed.

Step 3

Mix thoroughly with your hands until the mixture is smooth.

Step 4

Wet your hands with water and shape into meatballs, about the size of a walnut.

Arrange them on a cutting board.

Step 5

Heat oil in a pan and cook the meatballs on all sides until brown.

I fried them in two batches. This depends on the size of the pan, the size of the meatballs and the amount of meat.

Step 6

When they are done, transfer to a plate.

Step 7

Now we prepare the sauce:

In the remaining oil in the pan, cook the finely chopped onions and garlic. Don't brown them too much, just let soften a little to release their flavour.

Step 8

Pour in the mashed tomatoes and the tomato paste.

Mix well and leave over heat until it starts to boil.

Step 9

If the tomato sauce is thicker, add some water to make it thinner. The water will evaporate anyway during the boiling, so it won't change the taste.

Optionally, after boiling it (for about 10 minutes over low heat) you can pass it through a sieve, for a most fine and smooth sauce. I didn't.

Step 10

When it's done, season with salt, add sugar, bay leaves, pepper and the other herbs / spices you want.

Step 11

Add the meatballs to the sauce, stir.

Note. Even if the sauce might initially seem a bit too sour and fragrant, once you add the meatballs and cook them together, it will completely change its taste, for the better.