Polpete

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 25 pieces, you will need:

• 1 3 slices bread
• 2 1 glass milk
• 3 300 g minced beef
• 4 ½ onion
• 5 parsley
• 6 50 g Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano)
• 7 2 eggs
• 8 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 9 1 shallot
• 10 2 bayleaves
• 11 1 sprig thyme
• 12 1 garlic clove
• 13 300 g peeled and chopped tomatoes
• 14 salt
• 15 pepper
• Total weight: 1,160 grams

Times:

Preparation	Resting	Cooking	Start to finish
30 min.	1 hour	21 min.	1 hour 51 min.

Step by step recipe

• 1:

  Making the meat balls

  Remove the crust from 3 slices bread (use it in another recipe), put the crumb only in a bowl and sprinkle it with 1 glass milk.
  Let it soak in.
• 2: In the meantime, in a salad bowl, pour 300 g minced beef, ½ onion finely chopped and parsley also chopped.
  Salt and pepper.
• 3: Add the milk-soaked bread, squeezed between your hands, grated 50 g Parmesan (Parmigiano Reggiano) and 2 eggs.
• 4: Mix thoroughly.
  You can do it with a mixer, or simply by hand...
• 5: ...until you get...
• 6: ...a homogeneous mixture.
  Let rest 1 hour in the refrigerator if possible.
• 7: Shape them into balls and place them on a baking sheet, possibly protected by a sheet of baking paper.
  If you don't use them right away, you can freeze them at this stage: put the baking sheet in the freezer, and when the balls are frozen, transfer them to a closed plastic freezer bag.
• 8:

  Cooking

  In a large frying pan over medium heat, pour in 4 tablespoons olive oil and when it is hot add the dumplings, just brown them on each "face".
  Put on hold in a plate
• 9: In the same pan, add a little olive oil, then chopped 1 shallot, 2 bayleaves, 1 sprig thyme, 1 garlic clove, salt and pepper.
  Cook for 1 minute, without browning.
• 10: Pour in 300 g peeled and chopped tomatoes, add more salt and pepper, and let thicken gently for about 10 minutes.
• 11: Add the previously set aside meatballs, sprinkle with tomatoes and let them warm up slowly.
• 12: Just before serving, remove and discard thyme, garlic clove and bay leaves.
  Check seasoning.
• 13: Serve the polpete with the side dish of your choice, in this case white rice, and a generous helping of tomato puree.

Remarks

In principle, popete is beef, but you can also put several meats together: beef + pork for example, or beef + veal.
Pecorino instead, or with it, Parmesan is also a very good option.

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