Recipe: Hello Fresh’s Beef Polpetti with Rustic Ratatouille

Every few months, we take pleasure in avoiding daily shopping trips to Waitrose and order a box of food to be delivered from Hello Fresh. It covers three meals (or five, if you choose), always with different illustrated recipes and the exact amount of each ingredient you need to make them.

One of the last ones included this recipe for Beef Polpetti with Rustic Ratatouille which turned out really tasty so I thought I’d share it with you here. I’d never had meatballs made with mashed potatoes before and they were delicious!

Ingredients: 

– 1 large potato
– Handful of spiced pork
– Handful of mince beef
– 2 tablespoons parmesan
– 1 teaspoon dry oregano
– Small bunch of fresh parsley
– 1 red pepper
– 1 large courgette
– 1 tin organic tomatoes
– 1/4 teaspoon sugar
– 2 cloves garlic
– 3 tablespoons breadcrumbs
– Salt
– Pepper

First, set a pan of water to boil and chop your potato into small chunks so it cooks faster. Boil it for about 10 minutes or until it’s soft enough to mash. Drain and mash away.

Keep your chopping board out.

Peel and crush the garlic. Dice it.

Next comes the pepper. Remove the core.

Cut into lengthwise strips.

Chop the bottom and top off of the courgette and slice lengthways twice before cutting it into small cubes.

Over medium heat, with a tablespoon of olive oil, stir fry the peppers and courgettes in batches until they are nicely browned. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.

Use the same pan to heat two teaspoons of olive oil on medium heat and add 1.5 cloves of garlic. Cook for a minute, then add the tinned tomatoes. Add a dash of salt and a dash of sugar. After a few minutes, add the cooked pepper and courgette to the mix. Simmer until it’s thick. Add salt and pepper to taste if needed.

Now it’s time to make the meatballs. Remove the sausage skin from the spiced pork and mix together with the remaining half clove of diced garlic and the beef mince. Add the oregano, mashed potato, a pinch of salt, the parmesan cheese and 1 1/2 tablespoons of chopped parsley.

Mix thoroughly and roll spoonfuls into meatballs a bit smaller than the size of a golf ball.

Roll the meatballs in breadcrumbs so they’re completely coated.

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C.

Put one tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat and add the meatballs. Brown them off on all sides for about 3 minutes and then transfer to a baking tray. Pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Serve the meatballs on top of the ratatouille with a bit of parsley sprinkled on top.

 

Enjoy!