Amazing meatballs

So I mentioned at the end of last week that I was going to try out this recipe for Chicken Meatballs with Peperonata, but tweak it a little. The main tweak being, of course, that I wasn't going to use chicken, but rather turkey, since it's more readily available in ground/minced form.

Long story short: I loved it. I'm not normally a big fan of meatballs - never gone for that ol' classic spaghetti and meatballs - but these were great. Ground turkey, a little bit of bread soaked in milk, egg, onion, garlic, and thyme, basted with tomato paste/puree and baked. So simple, right?

But the accompanying peperonata nearly stole the show too - roasted peppers, dressed with capers and vinegar and hot chilli flakes. So summery, so deep, so sweet.

I decided our green veg for this dish should be wilted spinach to tackle the other sweeter flavours in the dish. I think it worked really well, but other green vegetables such as runner beans (though we're nearly the end of the season) or broccoli would be fab too.

As always, I recommend cuts to the amount of oil used. Here's my version of the ingredients...

Turkey Meatballs with Peperonata - my version

(serves 2)

For peperonata:

2 red peppers

1 tsp oil

30 g capers

1 tsp vinegar

chilli flakes

For meatballs:

2 pieces of white bread, torn into pieces

200 ml skimmed milk

100 g onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

2 tsp oil, divided in half

1 medium egg

300 g turkey mince (tip here: it comes in 500 g, so freeze the other 200 g for another time - it adds up)

chopped fresh thyme (though use whatever herb you fancy - recipe called for parsley)

50 g tomato puree

To make the peperonata: roast the peppers in a 200 C preheated oven in 1 tsp oil in the lower 1/3 of the oven. While that's cooking, combine the capers, vinegar and red pepper flakes and sit to the side.

For the meatballs, you can follow the recipe pretty closely:

Soak the bread pieces in milk for a few minutes.

Saute the onion and garlic in 1 tsp oil with salt and pepper until the onion is softened. Allow it to cool.

Beat an egg with a fork, then add to the turkey, onion/garlic, thyme and bread (squeeze the milk from the bread first and discard milk). This will make 9 meatballs - form them into balls and place onto a small, lightly greased casserole dish.

Take the last tsp of oil and combine with the tomato puree. Use a brush to baste the tops of the meatballs. Cook for 20-25 minutes in the top third of the oven. If the peppers finish early, remove them, add them to the vinegar mixture and cover with cling film until the meatballs finish.

Calories: 2 equal sized servings - 540 calories each. (I had a smaller portion though - 1/3 of the overall amount, so three meatballs, which was plenty. A small serving is 360 calories (plus green veg) and a large serving is 720, which was plenty filling for my husband, who really enjoyed them.

As a side note, turkey meatballs are sweeping the nation! (Okay, not really, my close family and friends. Two people have mentioned they're making it this week, so I impatiently await their opinions...)