Polpette di tonno

Ever since he tried them last summer at my mom’s, La Chauve-souris fell in love with polpette di tonno (tuna meatballs) and he begs me to cook them for him approximately once every week. Because of the looooong preparation, I usually prepare a lot of mixture and shape all of it into meatballs, then steam them all and fully cook only half (I freeze the other half, so I always have some at hand): this means that you might want to decrease the quantities in the recipe below, or you’ll have to eat tuna meatballs for a whole week!

Tuna meatballs (quantities for 16 golf ball-sized meatballs):

4 x 160 gr can tuna in water

3 slices stale bread

2 eggs

4 Tbsp breadcrumbs

2 cloves garlic, minced

15 leaves basil, torn with your hands

2 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp salt

For the tomato sauce*:

250 gr. cherry tomatoes

1 can chopped tomatoes

3 whole, unpeeled cloves garlic (aglio in camicia)

4 Tbsp XV olive oil

1/2 tsp crushed red chilli

fresh basil

salt to taste

To prepare the mixture, place the tuna in a colander and leave it to drain as much as possible (you can squash it a bit with a fork, this will also help you to break it into smaller pieces). Meanwhile, crumble the stale bread in a large bowl, and add the 2 minced garlic cloves, dried oregano, chopped basil leaves, and salt. Mix, and then add the drained tuna. Break the eggs into the bowl, mix well, and then add the breadcrumbs so that the mixture won’t be too soft. Knead well with your hands and, when the mixture is smooth, shape it into meatballs.

Steam the meatballs for a few minutes and then leave them to cool. At this point you can choose if you want to freeze the meatballs by individually wrapping them in cling film, or cook them in a simple tomato sauce.

For the tomato sauce, heat the unpeeled cloves of garlic and crushed red chili in XV olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the halved or quartered cherry tomatoes and lower the flame. When the tomatoes start to release their juice, add the can of chopped tomatoes, and cover the saucepan. Cook for about 10/15 minutes, then add the tuna meatballs and leave to boil. Add a pinch of salt and a few basil leaves, and finish cooking uncovered until the tomato sauce thickens, stirring often to coat the meatballs well. Remove the garlic cloves before serving with a lot of crusty bread to make scarpetta (literally “little shoe”, it means “to soak up the sauce using a piece of bread in a semicircular motion”).

* My tip for a richer tomato sauce: whenever I use sundried tomatoes (the plain kind, not the ones preserved in oil), I freeze the water where I have left them to soak, and then add the tomato-flavoured ice cube to my tomato sauce.