Fiorella is an Italian living in London and she prepared this vegetarian version of meatballs for us, using the classic Italian Borlotti bean. We’ve sown a lot of these, so fagioli meatballs (fagioli is Italian for ‘beans’) will definitely be on the menu when we do our shared cooking sessions in October.
With a background in finance, Fiorella has turned to community cooking, fostering food skills at Myatt’s Fields Park where she runs Food Heroes sessions, and has done similar work at the Baytree Centre in Brixton Road, a women’s and girls educational setting. She has level 3 Food Hygiene & Safety for catering which means our cooking sessions will be ultra safe and well supervised! Phew!
Fiorella joined us at the seed sowing event on 6.5.13. With your big smile and food know-how we are definitely looking forward to working on you with the FEASTING part of the growing year, Fiorella!
Fagioli meatballs recipe
Beansballs beans for 4 people
Preparation and cooking time: 30 min approx.
Ingredients
- 200 grams of Borlotti beans (80g dried beans soaked overnight, boiled hard for 12 minutes and then cooked for 2 hours. We’ll be adding more information on how to cook beans soon)
- 2 egg yolks
- Salt
- 50 grams of parmesan cheese
- 40 grams of whole wheat flour
- 40 g breadcrumbs
- Paprika to taste
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes or passata tomatoes
- 1 clove of garlic
- Depending on taste Rosemary or Oregano
- 2 eggs
- Breadcrumbs to taste
- Oil
- 2-3 tablespoons of frozen peas
Method
Mash the beans with the egg yolks and a little salt.
Add Parmesan cheese, flour, bread crumbs and paprika.
Transfer to a bowl and mix by hand.
Prepare the sauce with chopped tomatoes, garlic, rosemary or oregano and salt.
Shape the meatballs then put in the egg and breadcrumbs
Brown the meatballs with a bit of oil.
Meanwhile, add the peas to the sauce.
Let cook the meatballs in the pan with the sauce for a few more minutes
Buon appettito!