Italian Meatballs the Nigella Way!

I have to confess, I totally stole this concept from Nigella Lawson, so credit to her for the great idea! I saw it  on the Nigelissma show and to be honest I didn't take the whole recipe just the fact that she squeezed the meat out of Italian Sausages and turned them into meatballs - YUM!

So here is my recipe for Italian style meatballs with spaghetti.

Serves 6

You need:

1 pack of Italian pork sausages (500g-600g)
2 x glug olive oil
2 cloves of garlic - crushed or sliced
1 onion, diced
3-5 fresh basil leaves
2-3 stalks thyme
3-5 fresh oregano leaves
3 400g tins diced tomato
300g mozzarella cheese (approx.)
500g dry spaghetti

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
• Prepare a large deep baking dish with a glug of olive oil
• First you need to get the meat out of the sausages, this can be a little fiddly and to be honest gross - but persevere, it's worth it! Once you have a bowl of sausage meat, roll into small balls about this size of a walnut and place in your prepared baking dish. Put in the oven to brown
• Now put your water onto boil for the spaghetti.
• Gently heat another glug of oil in a large saucepan over a low heat and add your garlic, after the garlic has softened slightly add your chopped onion and fry gently until soft. Try not to colour them too much.
• As your onions are cooking, add in your herbs, chopped into medium pieces, and stir to spread the flavour.
• Add the spaghetti to the water when it is boiled.
• Once your onions and garlic are nice and soft add your 3 cans of tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes.
• By this time, your meatballs should be nicely browned. Take them out of the oven and pour your tomato sauce over them and sprinkle generously with mozzarella cheese.
• Put back in the oven for 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and golden.

Serve with spaghetti and garlic or herb bread. Molto delizioso!