Soutzoukakia Food

GREEK SOUZOUKAKLIA

Steps:

• Preheat grill for high heat.
• In a large bowl, mix together ground beef, onion, raisins, and parsley. Season with cayenne pepper, cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, sugar, salt, and pepper, and mix well. Form into 6 flat sausages around skewers. Lightly brush sausages with oil; this prevents sticking to the grill.
• Arrange skewers on hot grill grate. Cook for approximately 15 minutes, turning occasionally to brown evenly, until well done.

SOUTZOUKAKIA (GREEK MEATBALLS IN A TOMATO SAUCE)

Steps:

• Soak the bread in the wine for about 5 minutes, or until thoroughly softened.
• Then, squeeze out and reserve the excess wine.
• In a large bowl, combine the ground meat with the wine soaked bread, onion, garlic, egg, parsley, grated cheese, cumin, and salt and pepper to taste.
• Mix the ingredients until thoroughly blended.
• Cover and chill for 1 to 2 hours.
• Dampen your hands, pinch off small portions of meat mixture, about the quantity of a teaspoon or just over, and shape into approximately 20 oval rolls (looks sort of like an elongated, slightly flattened, meatball).
• Dredge them in flour.
• Heat olive oil in a large frying pan.
• Add the meatballs and fry until browned all over, turning occasionally and allowing time for the meat to cook thoroughly. (alternatively, if you want a 'lighter' recipe, you could just brown in a non-stick pan or bake them in the oven - not as flavourful, but still good).
• Remove from the pan using a slotted spoon and set aside.
• Strain the oil you fried the meatballs in through a fine sieve into a cooking pan.
• Add all the sauce ingredients, and the reserved wine.
• Bring to a boil and simmer until the sauce is thick.
• Drop in the meatballs, stir to cover all over with the sauce, and simmer covered for 15 minutes.
• Serve hot with rice, french fries, or mashed potatoes.

GREEK BAKED MEATBALLS: SOUTZOUKAKIA

Steps:

• In a small bowl, place the toasted bread and cover with milk (or water) to soak. When bread is soft and well-soaked, squeeze the liquid out completely and discard remaining milk if any.
• Transfer the bread to a large mixing bowl. Add round beef and remaining meatball ingredients. Knead well until well-combined. Cover the meat mixture and rest in the fridge for now.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• While oven is heating, prepare the sauce. In a sauce pan or large skillet, heat 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil over medium heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add onions and cook for 3 minutes or so. Add garlic and cook for another minute, stirring regularly. Now add red wine and cook to reduce by about 1/2, then add tomato sauce, bay leaf and remaining sauce ingredients. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
• Prepare a large baking dish and lightly oil the bottom with extra virgin olive oil.
• Take the meat mixture out of the fridge. Wet your hands and scoop portions of about 2 1/2 tbsp of the meat mixture and form into large elongated meatballs (football-shaped.) You should have 15 to 16 meatballs or so. Arrange meatballs in the papered baking dish and top with the sauce (be sure to have removed the bay leaf from the sauce.)
• Place the baking dish on the middle rack of your heated oven. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until the meatballs are well cooked through (check part-way through to make sure sauce is not dry, and if needed, add a little bit of water to the bottom of the baking dish.)
• Remove from oven and add another drizzle of EVOO. Garnish with parsley and serve over rice or orzo.

SOUTZOUKAKIA

Steps:

• Mix the meat, egg, onion, garlic, breadcrumbs and cumin together. Add salt and pepper.
• Use the flour to form the meatballs with your hands ( not too small, not too big ).
• Deep fry the meatballs in vegetable oil in a low heat. Do not overcook them.
• Remove them from the pan and throw away the oil, apart from a few teaspoons.
• Shallow fry the tomato and peppercorns. Season.
• Add the tomato paste, the red wine and the stock diluted in water ( dont add too much water or the sauce will become runny ).
• Add a pinch of sugar and a few drops of lemon juice.
• Add the meatballs back to the pan and simmer in a very low heat for approximately 10 minutes, until the sauce is nice and thick.
• Serve with rice.

AUTHENTIC SOUTZOUKAKIA SMYRNEIKA

Steps:

• Puree the onion together with 2 tbsp olive oil in a foodprocessor.
• Heat the remaining olive oil and sauté the onion for a few minutes and then add all the spices and stir to get out their fragrances. Add the tomatoes and water, bring to a boil, lower heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the sauce is thick.
• Meantime, soak the bread together with the wine, lemon juice and 2 tbsp olive oil.
• Squeeze the bread and use the fluid to puree the garlic in afood processor. Then add the bread in the food processor and mix.
• Put the ground meat in a bowl with all the spices and bread.Mix well and let it rest for about ½ to 1 hour in the refrigerator for the flavours to mix.
• Shape the meatballs into oblong small sausages, around 8 cm (3 inches) long. Heat about an inch of olive oil in a skillet and fry them just until lightly golden brown on both sides. Remove them directly into the sauce.
• Bring the sauce to boil, lower heat and simmer for aboutanother 20 minutes until sauce thickens.
• Soutzoukakia in the air fryer: I used the option for drumsticks. This function is for 20 minutes at 180oC / 350oF. I set the timer at 10 minutes in order to check how they were doing and at 10 minutes they were perfect. Check the post for more details.

MEATBALLS IN TOMATO SAUCE WITH CINNAMON AND CUMIN (SOUTZOUKAKIA)

Steps:

• To make the meatballs, put all the ingredients, except the olive oil, in a large bowl and mix. With wet hands, shape the mixture into 20 to 24 rugby-ball shapes.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan over a high heat and fry the meatballs until golden-brown on all sides, or grill on a griddle pan if you like grill lines on the patties.
• To make the tomato sauce, heat the oil in a lidded saucepan over medium heat. Sweat the onion and garlic with the cinnamon stick, cumin and sugar until soft, about 10 minutes. Add the red wine and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to medium. Add the tomato purée, passata, salt and pepper and cook until slightly thickened, about 20 minutes.
• Add the meatballs and simmer for 20-30 minutes covered until cooked through, adding a little water if the sauce is too thick. Serve with rice and green olives.

HOMEMADE SMYRNEIKA SOUTZOUKAKIA

Steps:

• Meatballs
• To prepare the Soutzoukakia meatballs start by chopping the onions finely.
• In a food processor add the French toast and the bread and process them until a near powder consistency is reached.
• In a bowl add the mince meat, egg, spices, onion, garlic along with the ground bread and French toast.
• Knead the meat long enough so that all the ingredients are incorporated.
• Shape the meatballs into cylindrical shapes, ie sausage shape.
• Set them aside; you can set them aside for as long as you wish. If you are in a rush you can let them rest for approximately 10 minutes. I prefer to make them early in the day and chill them in the fridge for a couple of hours. I find that the mince absorbs the rest of the ingredients better and thus tastes nicer.
• Heat oil in a pan and lightly fry them. Make sure you fry them on both sides.
• Do not add many meatballs in a pan as this will not allow them to fry easily.
• Set them aside in an oven dish.
• Tomato Sauce
• Add onions, garlic and the spices in a pan.
• Sautee them for approzimately 3 minutes on medium heat.
• Add tomato paste and stir for approximately 1 minute.
• Add the canned or fresh chopped tomato along with the pinch of sugar. Stir them for approximately 3 minutes.
• Add water, lower the heat and let the sauce simmer for 15-20 minutes until it thickens.
• Baking
• Preheat the oven to 180-200C or 356-392F.
• Add the sauce to oven dish, the one you had placed the meatballs and bake for 25 minutes.
• Alternative cooking option
• You can add the pan fried meatballs straight into the sause pan. Let them simmer for 10 minutes approximately with the tomato sauce.