Baked Pork Meatballs with Rice in Tomato Sauce Recipe

Step-by-step recipe

1. Homemade baked meatballs are best made from not-too-fatty meat. Pork shoulder is excellent, as is the pork often sold cut into small pieces, as for pörkölt. We use rice as the filler. For the mix I prefer the fragrant, soft basmati variety. And to make the meatballs with rice spicy, I suggest adding a small red chili pod, or half a pod if you like.
   
2. Peel the large onion and chop it finely. Melt 1 tbsp of real butter in a saucepan, reduce the heat and slowly fry the onion until soft and lightly golden. Take care not to overcook the onion, as it affects the taste of the meatballs. Let the fried onion cool.
   
3. Wash the pork and remove any bones and membranes. Grind the pork in a meat grinder and put the ground pork in a bowl. The bowl should have high sides so it is easy to mix. The meat for meatballs with rice should be uniform. And to distribute the larger pieces of vegetables and the rice evenly, mixing the meat is quite laborious.
   
4. Rinse the basmati rice and cover with 1 l of cold water. Add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. You can of course cook plain fluffy rice, but unfortunately it is easy to get the proportion of water to rice wrong and end up with undercooked rice or rice porridge. Boiling rice in plenty of water guarantees it cooks through and does not stick together. Basmati usually cooks in 14-16 mins. As soon as the grains are done, drain the rice in a colander right away. Do not rinse it.
5. Remove the seeds and inner white membranes from the chili pod, since they hold most of the heat. Finely chop the chili and garlic and add them to the ground pork. Add the fried onion and half of the finely chopped dill and parsley, leaves only. Add salt and pepper and 1/2 tsp of ground coriander.
   
6. Mix the ground pork very thoroughly with the vegetables and spices. It is important that all the ingredients are combined evenly. Mixing also dissolves the salt. To make the pork meatballs softer, you can add a little cream to the mixture, just 1-2 tbsp. But as a rule this isn't necessary.
   
7. Add all the previously cooked rice to the meat mixture and mix thoroughly again. You can also check the mixture for salt and spices. You don't need to swallow it, just touch it with your tongue. Add any spices that go with meat, to taste. Someone once told me they add khmeli-suneli to the mix.
   
8. To bake meatballs with rice in tomato sauce, you need a ceramic or any other heatproof dish. We will make the baked meatballs the size of a medium chicken egg. Estimate how many meatballs the mixture will make and choose a dish of a suitable size with high sides. The meatballs with rice should fit snugly in the dish. Lightly grease the walls and bottom of the dish with a little butter.
9. With wet hands, shape the meatballs with rice and place them in the prepared dish. If there are gaps, you can press the meatballs down a little so that they spread slightly and touch each other and the sides of the dish.
   
10. Put all the remaining butter in a cup and melt it in the microwave. It should not be too hot. Brush all the pork meatballs with the melted butter.
    
11. Preheat the oven to 200-210°C and put in the dish with the meatballs. About 45 mins of baking will cook the meatballs through. You can check doneness with a thermometer, or by cutting into one meatball from the side.
    
12. Next, pour tomato juice over the meatballs, add a little salt and pepper, a pinch of sugar and a pinch of Mediterranean herbs. Bring the tomato to a boil and simmer the sauce on low heat until its volume is reduced by half. Pour the tomato sauce over the meatballs and return to the oven for 10-15 mins.
    
13. The meatballs in tomato sauce are ready when the sauce on top of the dish has thickened enough that it practically stops running. During baking, the meatballs with rice release quite a lot of liquid, which mixes with the tomato, so you end up with meatballs with rice in a thick sauce.
    
14. Cut the baked meatballs with rice in tomato sauce into separate balls with a knife. Spoon them onto plates and pour over the sauce they were baked in. If you like, add a side of rice or mashed potatoes.
    
15. But to my taste, it is enough to add some sliced fresh vegetables, sprinkle the meatballs with finely chopped parsley and dill, and serve fresh bread and pickled sweet pepper, which I love. Serve the baked meatballs hot.