{"id":1524,"date":"2010-10-10T23:24:31","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T20:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.all-things-me.net\/blog\/?p=1524"},"modified":"2010-11-16T20:35:43","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T18:35:43","slug":"italian-meatball-soup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.all-things-me.net\/blog\/2010\/10\/10\/italian-meatball-soup","title":{"rendered":"Italian meatball soup"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend I cooked some Italian meatball soup — a recipe I found in “the Essential Soup Cookbook” (an Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook I bought from Australia, where else).<\/p>\n

First you should make the meatballs because they need to sit for 30 minutes in the fridge. I realised this after I’d got everything ready and was already starting to make the soup. I blame the layout of the recipe… (the meatball recipe was at the end of the whole soup recipe)<\/p>\n

You get 500 grams (a little over a pound) of minced beef. I used 10% minced beef which turned out to be a little too lean. (Or, maybe I cooked it for too long because the pasta water was so slow to boil.) You mix it with 2 teaspoons of fresh oregano. I used dried; I don’t want to buy a whole oregano plant for just 2 teaspoons! Next time I’m going to season the meat better because it was a bit too bland. I’ll add salt at least and probably some pepper. The recipe said to make meatballs the size of a level tablespoon. I used our tablespoon size which is 15ml (resulted in 31 meatballs) but afterwards I read the Australian one is 20ml so maybe I made them too small. Need to correct that one the next time, too. You put the meatballs on a tray, cover, and put in the fridge for half an hour.<\/p>\n

While you wait, you should get the soup ready. Chop 2 brown onions (300g\/0.7lb) and 2kg (4.4lb) tomatoes. I cut the tomatoes in 8 pieces and it turned out to be a good size (not too big, which I was a little afraid of). The recipe called for 3 garlic cloves quartered but the garlic I had was so small I couldn’t imagine it quartered so I cut it in half — and used about 5 cloves. Four red Thai chillies (whatever they are), seeded and chopped finely, was also on the ingredients list but I left them out because I don’t have any experience with chillies and didn’t know what kind we had at the store. I used some sort of chilli spice mix instead.<\/p>\n

To make the soup, you heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan and cook the onion and garlic until onion softens. Then you add the tomato pieces, 3 cups of vegetable stock (I made it with cubes), chilli (although I didn’t add the spice mix just yet), and 2 tablespoons of tomato paste. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes (uncovered, stirring occasionally). The soup got frothy and the tomato a bit mushy.<\/p>\n

Then you blend it. I used a stick mixer (love it) and decided to skip the step where you push the soup through a sieve or a food mill. Too messy and I don’t need my soup to be “velvety smooth.” The mixer made it smooth enough (what an amazing gadget it is!).<\/p>\n

At this point I threw some of the chilli mix in and also some sugar since tomatoes are supposed to love sugar. I kept tasting the soup and it kept being quite bland so I added more chilli until I could taste it, and the sugar did make the tomatoes a little tastier (they weren’t as ripe as I would’ve liked). Have I ever mentioned I’m bad at seasoning? Well, I am.<\/p>\n

Next you put the pan back on the stove, bring the soup to a boil, and add the meatballs. Let it simmer uncovered for about 10 minutes. I know meatballs can be cooked in water but still it looked a bit like magic when they actually turned brown and cooked through in the bubbling soup. <\/p>\n

While the meatballs are cooking, you boil the pasta. I should’ve put the pasta to boil before the meatballs because it took ages for the water to start boiling — and it was a 9-minute pasta. In any case, you cook 250g (0.6lb) of some sort of short pasta (fusilli was mentioned in the recipe with farfalle and penne as alternatives; I used cute curly tube pasta. Wikipedia<\/a> lets me know it was “cellentani”). I put salt in the water even though it wasn’t mentioned in the recipe.<\/p>\n

When the meatballs are cooked, you stir in the cooked pasta (drain it first) and some basil. Again, the recipe called for fresh stuff: 8 basil leaves shredded. My basil plant was looking sad on the countertop and I hadn’t bought more so I used dried stuff again. My cupboards are full of dried herbs and spices so I might as well use them…<\/p>\n

Once it’s all nicely mixed, the soup’s ready to eat!<\/p>\n

\"Italian

Soup-boop-be-doop<\/p><\/div>\n

In my opinion the soup definitely needs more seasoning than what was listed in the recipe. Or maybe the vegetable stock they used is so flavourful that it’s enough — my stock from cubes surely wasn’t. Also, the meatballs need more spice than just the oregano (again, maybe the fresh stuff would make a difference) and as I mentioned, next time I’m going to try some less lean meat (17% instead of 10%). Nevertheless, it’s was a nice soup (pasta and meatballs, how novel!) and I’ll be eating it again. Not just because I have 4 litres of it in the freezer.<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meatballs<\/em><\/p>\n