Meatball stew with peppers and potatoes

Recipe for turkey meatballs with peppers and potatoes

Preparation and cooking

• - Begin preparing bell peppers and potatoes.
  Clean and wash peppers.
  Cut them into large strips.
  Peel and cube potatoes.
  Chop the onions finely.
• - Put onions together with olive oil and bay leaf in a large non-stick frying pan.
  Fry slightly on very low heat, stirring now and then.
  At this point add puréed tomatoes and tomato paste.
  Stir and pour in wine.
  Let these ingredients flavor, a couple of minutes.
  Then add potatoes and bell peppers.
  Season to taste with salt and cook over a medium heat, half-covered, stirring now and then.
  Add some warm water, only if necessary.
  Continue cooking until all vegetables are tender.
• - Meanwhile ...
  ... prepare turkey meatballs.
  Chop stale bread in order to have not too little crumbs.
  Chop young onions.
  Beat the egg slightly.
  Put minced meat, egg, chopped stale bread, aromatic herbs and a pinch of salt in a large bowl.
  Begin adding plain dried breadcrumbs little by little.
  Mix all these ingredients with your hands and continue adding breadcrumbs until your mixture reaches the right consistency.
  It must be soft.
  Generally my breadcrumb dose is enough.
  Give the right shape to your meatballs with your wet hands and put them in a non-stick frying pan with the olive oil.
  Fry slightly them on all sides and remove them with a skimming ladle.
  Put your meatballs apart on absorbent kitchen paper to absorb the fat in excess.
  You have to add them to bell peppers and potatoes in the last 5-10 minutes of cooking together with chopped basil,chives and parsley.

Just before serving

• - Serve hot or warm.

Note

Tips

• - You can also use minced veal or low fat beef instead of turkey breast.
• - If yoou have no time to wash and chop aromatic herbs use the dried ones.
• - If you want a healthier plate of meatball stew avoid sauteing. Just prepare the sweet peppers and potatoes by adding all the ingredients together, with the exception of olive oil and basil. You'll have to join them at the end, when the cooking is complete, exactly when you have finished cooking the meatballs too. The recipe is very tasty and you have a healthier dish in which the olive oil has preserved all its extraordinary nutritional properties.
  On the contrary we suggest you to saute the meatballs before adding them to the vegetables if you want to keep their shape and texture.

Loretta

What's the right wine ?

Our suggestion is Cirò Rosa (a rosé wine from Calabria) or a young red wine.