These are the juiciest and fragrantly delicious meatballs you’ll ever taste thanks to the roasted garlic and rosemary.
This recipe is all about flavour. We will be using both beef mince and pork mince, and luckily, these two go spectacularly well together! But before you do anything, it’s time to roast the garlic.
Leave the garlic still in its bulb, as this will help to keep the cloves intact and reduces the risk of burning. As the garlic roasts in the oven, it becomes soft and sweet until a delicious garlicky paste can be squeezed out of the skin of each clove. This paste is then added to the rest of the meatball mixture for that intense and tasty pop of flavour.
How to keep the meatballs from becoming dry?
A great trick to remember with meatballs (or even hamburger patties) is to add filler ingredients such as bread crumbs. The bread crumbs absorb the juices from the meat as it cooks, thus trapping it within the meatball. This process will also help to keep the round shape.
The added egg also helps to bind all the ingredients together and to ensure that it won’t lose its shape.
Chef’s tip
If you want all your meatballs to be the same size, use a spoon to measure out each one. An ice cream scoop also works really well.
Roasted Garlic, Rosemary Baked Meatballs
Ingredients
- 500 g beef mince
- 500 g pork mince
- 1 large egg
- ½ cup plain bread crumbs
- ½ medium onion finely minced or grated
- 1 medium bulb of roasted garlic
- 1 spring of fresh rosemary, chopped finely
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- salt & black pepper
- 6 fresh rosemary springs
- 6 raw garlic cloves
- 1 – 2 tbsp olive oil to add to the baking dish
Instructions
- Very important, roast the garlic, otherwise the fresh garlic will be too powerful.
To roast garlic:
- Take loose skin off the garlic bulb and cut off the tip of the garlic cloves, still in the bulb. Rub a garlic bulb with a little bit of olive oil and wrap it in aluminum foil. Preheat the oven to 400 F / 204 C, place wrapped garlic on a baking sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes, depending on the size of the garlic bulb. (This can be made the day before and you can just refrigerate roasted garlic until ready to use.)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C and rub the casserole dish with some olive oil.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine ground beef, ground pork, egg, bread crumbs, minced onion, minced rosemary, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Carefully peel roasted garlic and take out the roasted garlic cloves. Add them to the bowl. Mix very well, until all ingredients are completely incorporated.
- Roll about 1.5 inch meatballs and place them snugly in the casserole dish. Very easy way to make equal sized meat balls, is to add mince to the palm of your hand, press down like a patty, then roll.
- Stick individual, raw garlic cloves in between meatballs and add rosemary springs on top.
- Cover the casserole dish with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes.
- Take off the foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Remove from the oven and check if the mince is cooked.
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