Euro 2016 Food Challenge: Albania: Mocarela Mbushur Qofte Mish Gengji

Mozzarella stuffed meatballs! Albanian food, where have you been hiding all my life??

Day two of the challenge, and I thought I'd get one of the trickier ones out of the way. I know nothing about Albanian cuisine, but a quick google search gave me lots of recipes to choose from, incorporating some classic Mediterranean flavours.

When I found a recipe for Mozzarella meatballs on myalbanianfood.com I had to give it a try.  Here's my SW take on it. The original recipe calls for lamb mince, but I used beef, as that's what I had in. It also uses shop bought pasta sauce, but I made my own.

Mine didn't quite work out, as I forgot to cover the dish before baking so it was a tad overcooked... The flavours were good though, I'll definitely be trying this again.

Albanian Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs 

350g lean beef / lamb mince (less than 5% fat)

1 egg

1 medium onion

2 garlic cloves

A handful of parsley

A handful of other fresh herbs (I used oregano and thyme)

1 ball of reduced fat mozzarella

800g chopped tomatoes / passata

Frylight 

1. Peel the onion and cut it in half. Peel the garlic cloves. 

2. Roughly chop half the onion, and put it in a food processor with one of the garlic cloves, a sprig of the parsley and a handful of other mixed herbs. Pulse until fairly finely chopped. 

3. Spray a frying pan with Frylight. Cook the onion mix over a low heat until the onions are softened but not browned. Add the chopped tomatoes and some salt and pepper. Stir together, heat through, and set aside while you make the meatballs.

4. Roughly chop the other half of the onion, and put it in the food processor with the other garlic clove and the rest of the parsley. Whizz it up until it's finely chopped. 

5.  Add the mince and egg to the food processor with some salt and pepper, and pulse until it's all mixed together. 

6. Divide your mozzarella ball into eight equal parts. Weigh them so you know how many syns will be in each meatball (I was using the mozzarella as my HEA, so made sure four meatballs-worth added up to 70g).

7. Tip the meatball mix out onto a chopping board and work it into a ball with your hands.  Split the meatball mix into eight equal parts and roll into balls. 

8. Take a meatball, and push a piece of mozzarella into it. Work the meat mixture around with your hands to completely enclose the cheese.

9. In a baking dish or slow cooker, tip some of the sauce into the bottom, and place the meatballs on top.  Cover the meatballs with the rest of the sauce.

10. If slow cooking, cook on high for 6 hours. If baking, cover the dish with foil, and cook in the oven for 2-3 hours at 180C / 160C fan.

Serve with whatever you fancy - we had our slightly-over-baked ones with linguine.