Spaghetti with Chicken Meatballs in Tomato Cream Sauce

How to make the meat mixture

1. A quick dinner dish can be made with any meat, including pork and beef. But chicken makes the cooking simpler and does not take much time. Chicken breast fillet, the white meat of the bird, is ideal for meatballs, though you can also use chicken thigh. If the chicken is frozen, move it from the freezer to the fridge ahead of time so that it does not leak when it thaws.

2. Grind the chicken fillet: thoroughly trim it of membranes, bones and cartilage.

   

   Grind the chicken fillet in a meat grinder and transfer the ground meat to a bowl.

3. Season the meat: add salt and a pinch each of coarsely ground hot pepper and a dried mix of aromatic herbs typical of Mediterranean cuisines: oregano, savory, parsley and so on. Pick all the leaves off the parsley sprigs and discard the stems. Chop the herbs very finely with a knife and add them to the meat.

   

   Mix thoroughly so the spices are evenly distributed. It is convenient to do this with an ordinary fork, mashing and rubbing the pieces of chicken with the spices.

4. Bring the mixture to the right consistency: add 1 tbsp of milk or cream and mix thoroughly again until completely smooth.

   

   Next, depending on the consistency of the meat, add dry bread crumbs or breadcrumbs. It is best to grate a piece of dry French baguette on a fine grater and sift the crumbs through a sieve or mesh colander. You need only a little, 1 tbsp at most. The meat for the balls should not stick to your hands.

   

How to fry the meatballs

1. With wet hands, roll the meatballs, pinching off pieces of the mixture about 1 tsp in volume. The meatballs should be about the size of a small walnut or a large cherry. This is not critical. What matters is that there are plenty of meatballs in the dish. Place the shaped meatballs on a plate moistened with water.

   

2. Heat the olive oil: set a frying pan over high heat and warm the oil for 1-2 mins so that its smell disappears. Optionally, you can fry a peeled and flattened clove of garlic in the oil, which flavors the olive oil.

3. Fry the meatballs: coat them in flour, place them all into the hot oil at the same time and reduce the heat to medium.

   

   Without covering the pan, fry the meatballs for 3-4 mins until they just start to turn golden. While frying, you can turn the meatballs with a spatula, as you would fried potatoes.

   

   The fried meatballs can already be served with the pasta, for example with the spaghetti sprinkled with cheese. In that case, fry them until no pink remains inside.

How to simmer the meatballs in sauce

1. You can get a much better result by simmering the meatballs in sauce as well. True, the dish will then be closer to beef meatballs in sauce, but I assure you it will be very tasty. You can make the sauce however you like. I recommend a tomato-based sauce with cream and spices.

2. Pour the sauce over the meatballs: add 1/2 cup each of homemade tomato juice (100 ml) and cream (or milk) and 1/2 cup of water (100 ml) to the fried meatballs. Salt the sauce lightly and add a pinch of the same spices used for the meat. And, to make the sauce mild and delicate in taste, add 1/2 tsp of sugar (2 g).

   

3. Simmer the meatballs in the sauce: stir gently and bring to a boil. Cover the pan and simmer over low heat for 10 mins. Then remove the lid and, raising the heat slightly, bring the tomato cream sauce to the desired thickness. Do not make the sauce too thin, or the spaghetti will look like soup. It is enough for the sauce to be about as thick as store-bought sour cream.

   

How to boil the spaghetti

1. The pasta is boiled while the sauce is cooking: it is convenient to put the water on once the meatballs have started to simmer.

2. Boil the spaghetti: bring 2 l of water to a boil in a pot over high heat and add 14 g of salt (7 g per 1 l of water). Lower the spaghetti into the boiling water and cook for the time indicated on the package. In that time, pasta manufacturers guarantee that the spaghetti will be al dente. Drain the spaghetti in a colander to let the water run off.

   

Serving

1. Usually the pasta is mixed with the sauce and then divided among plates. But since the meatballs are fairly large, it is better to do it differently.

2. Divide the dish among plates: put down the boiled spaghetti, place the meatballs on top and pour the thick sauce over them. Garnish with parsley leaves, add 1-2 pieces of sun-dried tomato and some capers.

   

   Spaghetti with meatballs, or, if you like, spaghetti with tefteli, is a quick, remarkably tasty and filling dish that we sometimes make for breakfast. First, cooking does not take much time or effort. Second, all the ingredients are easy to find.