The poorest edition of the poor cuisine
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 2 € pp)
- salt
- 250 g stale bread crumbs
- 100 g milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 small onion
- 30 g parmigiano or grana padano cheese
- 4 slices pancetta or prosciutto
- Fresh mint or basil
- 150 g tomato passata
- One garlic clove
- Pepperoncino
Bread balls are a great proof of what I think. That we can prepare very tasty dishes with very cheap ingredients. Today we use the stale bread and we turn it into a very dignified dish.
We start with the onion. We mince it and we gently fry it in a pan with a little bit of oil till very tender. I repeat, till very tender. We remove the onions from the pan and we set them aside to cool.
In the same pan (which must not be very hot) we add some more oil, the pepperoncino and the garlic clove, crushed. We bring to heat and when the garlic turns golden we remove the solid parts and we add the passata and a pinch of salt. We continue cooking for some more minutes till the sauce becomes relatively dense. We keep aside
Meanwhile we soak the crumb in milk. The bread should be firm and country and not fluffy and white. Once the crumb has absorbed the major part of the milk, we strain it and we remove the excess milk.
We mix the crumb with the other ingredients. The onion, the beaten eggs, the cold cut in small pieces, the grated cheese and the chopped fresh mint or basil. We leave the mix about half an hour to rest.
ΑΤΤΕΝΤΙΟΝ: Do not overmix the ingredients because the final result will be gummy and not pleasant. The meatballs must be airy and crunchy, something that we can achieve only if we just stir the ingredients to form a dough.
We start forming medium size breadballs and we then fry them in batches in sunflower oil (about 180 degrees temperature) until they turn brown and become relatively crunchy. We drain them on paper to remove the excess oil.
We serve immediately along with the tomato sauce.
