Comfort Food: Slow Roasted Meatballs with green beans and Roasted Sweet Potato

So this is one of my favourite comfort food recipes. It is a variation on something I had when I worked in Amsterdam. It may not be the most refined dish but believe me, when it comes to comfort food, this is the shizzle!

I slow roast the meatballs but you can, of course, make them smaller and cook them quicker in the oven but I find, for the real gorgeous taste, slow roasting for an hour or two works best. I use green beans in this recipe but it is one of those great recipes where you can put almost any vegetable with it and it will still work.

Ingredients:

800g Mince Beef

2 Onions

2 Cloves Garlic

1 Egg

200g Green Beans

2/3 Sweet Potatoes

500ml Beef Stock (you can add more if you want more sauce)

1tsp Cornflour (or 2tsp regular Flour)

Flour

2 tbsp Butter

Salt & Pepper

Thyme

Method:

• Start by making the meatballs. Slice half an onion and garlic very finely. Add mince, salt & pepper, egg and flour and mix together. The amount of flour you use depends on how "wet" the mixture is. You want the meatballs to hold their shape but not be too sticky. 
• Preheat oven to 150°C.
• Take a handful of the meat and roll it into a ball, using more flour to help stop it sticking to your hands. Make sure the balls are tightly compact so they don't fall apart when cooking. 

• Next you want to brown the meatballs on the pan. I use a cast iron cassarole dish so I put that directly on the head, but you can just transfer then over after browning. Add butter and a bit of Olive Oil to the pan and heat. Add the meatballs and fry until brown on all sides. Place in a cassarole dish and add the rest of the onion, green beans and stock. Put in oven.
• For the Sweet Potato you can either add it to the dish before it goes in the oven, or roast it separately. If you want to roast separately, then cut the potato into large strips and place on a baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt, pepper and thyme. 
• The meatballs will take about 1hr 30mins - 2hrs to cook. The sweet potato will only take approx. 30-45mins. 
• When the meatballs are almost done, mix the cornflour with a bit of water and add it to the stock. Put it back in the oven for another while. This will thicken up the stock into a lovely sauce. 
• To serve, I place a layer of sweet potato on the bottom of the dish, then spoon 2 meatballs on top and place the green beans and sauce over it. 
• This recipe will serve 3-4 people or 2 really hungry people.
• Enjoy