Tagine of Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Tags

Comfort food, dawood basha, dinner meals, ground beef, Healthy meals, kids friendly, lunch meal, meatball stew, meatballs, middle eastern, Soups and Stews, tomato sauce, Turkish, vegetable meatbals

Adding vegetables to your meatballs to enhance the flavor and add a nutritional boost to your hearty comfort meal.

Getting your kids to eat their vegetable is a challengeable mission lots of moms have.
How many time I forced them to eat veggies?
How many hours spent lecturing on how veggies are good for their health and bodies?
I asked myself if there is a way to end this dilemma?
So why not to make tricks and think out of the box?

Sneaking some vegetable into their favourite food is a good way to start with.
Why not to add some cauliflower, or spinach to the meatballs! Some carrots is good too!

Tagine of Meatballs in Tomato Sauce – a well known dish called Dawood Basha, it has been told that it’s originally from turkey and where it took it’s name – is one of the classic comfort foods that enjoyed all over the levant countries. The basic recipe is only meatballs with pine nuts fried then simmered in the oven with tomato sauce.

Nothing Better Than a comfort hearty meal to enjoy in weekdays also to gather the whole family at weekends, baking the meatballs instead of frying make it light and fresh, adding the vegetable to the meatballs was a great idea to boost up more nutrient to the meal. Any vegetable available is very welcome, I tried to add spinach, cauliflower, and carrots. Make sure to shred or chop them very fine so they can mix in easily with the ground meat. The vegetable wasn’t noticeable though, it’s all blended in with the herbs and spices that added to make it more flavorful, tender, and juicy. For a bonus, I like to add potato to the stew, since the original recipe can be served along with mashed potato instead of the rice.

Serve with rice pilaf.

Tagine of Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

To make the meatballs:

1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup chopped spinach
1/4 cup chopped cauliflower
1/4 cup minced parsley
Salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon of each: dried coriander, cinnamon, all spice
1 tablespoon olive oil

For the tomato sauce:

4-5 ripened tomato
1/2 cup chopped onion
2-3 garlic Cloves
1/2 teaspoon allspice
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1 tablespoon tomato paste

To make the stew:

2-3 potato cut into medium cubes
Cooked rice pilaf to serve

Preheat the oven to 400 f.
In a bowl, mix the ground beef lump with the vegetable add the onion, parsley, spices and oil, and work with your hands, don’t over mix. Roll into a small ball the size of walnuts.
Arrange the meatball in an oven tray, bake for 15-20 min until little browned.

Meanwhile, cut the tomato, add onion, garlic and liquidate them in the blender. Add spiced, herbs, and tomato paste, blend in. Put the sauce in a pot on low heat to simmer and thicken.

Fry or bake the potato with a little oil, add to the simmering tomato sauce along with baked meatballs and don’t forgot to add the meat juices, it adds more flavor to the stew.