Thursday is freezer night

Last night we had meatballs, one of my favourite suppers to cook in advance and freeze. It's so nice to come home, stick it in the oven, make some rice and eat a delicious meal without doing any work.

This recipe is one of my own inventions, and I use chicken mince because it is healthier and less fatty. I'm sure this would work with other meats but I think the strong flavours go very well with chicken.

Chicken Meatballs in Hot Pepper Sauce

(serves 4)

1lb chicken mince, as lean as possible
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 red peppers
2 red chillies
2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
1 egg
Paprika
Cajun spice
Soy Sauce
Cayenne Pepper
A little plain flour
Olive oil for cooking
Salt & pepper

Finely chop one of the onions and crush the garlic. In a large saucepan, fry these until translucent. While this is frying, finely chop the chillies and cut the peppers into pieces about 2cm squared. Add these to the saucepan, and fry for a few more minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, paprika, soy sauce, Cajun spice, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper if you like it quite spicy. Keep tasting to get the flavour just as you want it. Half fill each of the empty tomato tins with water (to get any remaining tomato out of each) and add this to the saucepan. Bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, finely chop the other onion and add to a bowl with the chicken mince and egg. Mix this together and then add some flour to thicken the mixture. You want it to be thick enough so that you can form it into balls but not too dense. Add all the spices, soy sauce and seasoning to this mixture as well.When the sauce is simmering and you are happy with the taste, cover it and turn down the heat. Heat a tablespoon or so of oil in a large frying pan, and start forming meatballs. It is easiest to do this if you wet your hand in cold water first. I also like to divide the mixture up with a spoon in the bowl first, so I have an idea how big I want each to be. Out of 1lb of mince, I like to make 4 portions, and I try to do 24 meatballs in total, so they are quite small. I fry this in 2 batches of 12 but do whatever works for you and your frying pan. Brown the meatballs on all sides and then remove with a slotted spoon and add to the sauce. When they are all cooked and in the sauce, put the saucepan in the oven on about 150° (or whatever is slightly lower than you would normally roast at in your oven). Leave for at least 30 minutes, and then serve with rice or pasta (or take it out of the oven and freeze in portions).