Mini Meatball Pasta

Mini Meatballs with Tagliatelle

On Saturday Nia had meatballs for the first time, although I have made beef kebabs for her before and fed her pasta on many occassions, I never really got around to do the balls & pasta thing for her, so here you go:

Ingredients:

• 200gm lean steak minced ( I TRY not to use the minced meat as they may not be all meat, you know what I mean?)
• some herbs & spices (I used oregano, thyme, ginger powder, garlic powder, cinnamon powder and bit of paprika for the colour!)
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 2-3 ripe tomatoes
• 1 small carrot cut into thin strips
• 1 clove garlic, chopped fine
• 1 small onion/shallot chopped fine
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter

Method:

In a bowl, mix the mince with the herbs and cornstarch, shape into little balls and set aside. Heat half of the butter in a pan, put the mini balls in and cook them through, You may want to roll them at intervals so that they will be browned evenly on all sides.

Skin the tomatoes by first cutting a small "X" at the bottom of the tomatoes, dip them into boiling water for about 30 seconds, run them under cold water and you can see where the "X" is the skin will be peeling off. Chop the peeled ones coarsely, set aside. Easiest way to cut carrot into thin strips is to use a vegetable peeler then chop them into smaller pieces.

Heat butter in pan, add garlic & onions, saute for a minute, add in the carrots & chopped tomatoes and cover. Reduce heat and let it simmer to a sauce consistency, add in the mini balls let simmer for a couple of minutes more.

Serve this with any type of pasta that is slightly overcooked so that your baby can actually "chew" them. I used Tagliatelle which cooks in 7 minutes and is soft enough for babies.

*Notice the sauce is orangy in colour, if you want it red, add 1 tsp of tomato puree.