Messy Meatball Sandwiches
This one is a variation of one Jamie Oliver’s 5 ingredient dishes. It looked good so I converted the amounts for metric for 2 people to standard measurements for 5-6 people. Not constrained by the 5 ingredient mantra, I added a couple. Do not serve this dish on your best table cloth.
Ingredients:
1-1.5 lbs of lean ground beef
3 oz green pesto
1/2 tsp garlic power
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp pepper flakes
1 28 oz plum tomatoes
1 8 oz packaged ball of mozzarella, sliced
8 soft burger buns or ciabatta rolls if you like
Directions:
- Use your clean hands to scrunch the minced beef with half the pesto, pepper flakes, garlic powder, a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.
- Split into 16- 24 pieces and, with wet hands, roll into equal sized balls.
- Brown the balls all over in a large non-stick frying pan on a high heat with 1 Tbs of olive oil, shaking the pan regularly.
- Once the balls are golden and gnarly, add the tomatoes, oregano and juice from the can, breaking the tomatoes up with your hands. Pour in the whey from the Mozzarella into the can and swirl any remain bits of tomato in the pan.
- Bring the meatballs and sauce to boil, lay a bite sized peice of mozzarella over each ball, cover, reduce heat to simmer and allow sauce to thicken (~5 minutes).
- Meanwhile, warm your buns in a large dry non-stick frying pan or in the oven on a low heat.
- Split each bun and spread 1 heaped teaspoon of pesto inside. Divvy up the balls and mozzarella with a little sauce, serving the rest on the side for dunking.
Great with French Fries, coleslaw or some other fresh green salad.