No story behind this dish.....wanted to have Spaghetti after I watched Eat pray love......Julia Robert enjoying her spaghetti all alone in Italy.... OK ....I guess that's a short story.
Ingredients
For Chicken Meatballs
- 3 medium Chicken Breasts,minced
- 1/2 cup Breadcrumbs
- 5 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 tsp chilli flakes
- 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
- Salt to taste
- 3tbsp Olive oil
For Sauce
- 6 medium Tomatoes , ripe
- 1/2 cup tomato puree
- 5 cloves Garlic, minced
- 2tsp Red chilli flakes
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 tsp or as required freshly ground pepper
- 1tsp sugar
- Salt to taste
- 250g spaghetti
Method
- Make tomato concasse -Boil 3 cups of water, while the water is coming to boil, make a small 'X' on the tomatoes (as shown below). Drop all the tomatoes into boiling water for few seconds(blanching). Remove from hot water as soon as the skin around the 'X' curls up or loosens. Dip the hot tomatoes into cold water to stop the tomatoes from cooking further. Peel the skin of all the tomatoes and keep aside. Cut the tomatoes and remove the pulp and seeds(keep this aside) and chop up the rest of the tomato and blend to a puree in a processor/blender/mixie. I went a step further and passed the pulp and seeds through a sieve to get little more sauce, you can skip this step and discard the pulp and the seeds. The whole idea of tomato concasse is to avoid the seeds and the skin of the tomato.
- In a bowl mix minced chicken,breadcrumbs,garlic,salt,red chilli flakes and pepper. Shape the mixture into small balls (if its not holding shape or is too sticky add more breadcrumbs).Place the uncooked meatballs on an aluminium foil or wax paper.
- Place a large non stick pan on medium flame,add olive oil and fry the chicken meatballs till they turn brown on all sides.Remove from oil and place on a kitchen towel.
- Remove excess olive oil from the pan and reserve 3tsp, add garlic and bay leaf, stir for a minute and add the tomato concasse and tomato puree and red chilli flakes, pepper, salt and sugar(adjust according to your taste) cook for few minutes ,toss in the meat ball and add little water or stock if the sauce is very thick(since I used the pulp my sauce was of the right consistency). Let the sauce reduce little and the meatballs cook through..Now prepare spaghetti.
- Cook the spaghetti-Bring 6 cups of water to a boil, add generous amount of salt. Drop in the spaghetti and stir once and let it cook for 8 to 9 minutes or till al dente (firm but not hard). Drain the water.
- Toss the spaghetti into the prepared meatball sauce and heat through.Serve with bread,
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