Trying out my new recipe book

Do you remember that 'Chris Tarrant's funny or culturally-different TV adverts' (probably not real title ...) show from the 80s? In almost every episode the had the man who was meant to say 'mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball' in a cod Italian accent but, for some reason, got it wrong about 17 times.

Anyway, before Venice and Polpo, that was my main cultural reference for meatballs. That and some Italian New Yorker called Tony (Soprano, Manero, etc) saying 'nobody makes meatballs as good as you, ma' as they twirled spaghetti round their fork in a gangsterish way.

In the now-famous Venice bacari Alla Vedova they serve delicious dry meatballs, lightly covered in breadcrumbs, that you pick up with a napkin and nibble (or snarf down) standing at the bar. Do Mori serves smaller meatballs in sauce on toothpicks. In London's Polpo there's a selection of meatballs in sauce - with pasta, on their own with bread or 'smashed' in a bread wrap.

Armed with my new Polpo recipe book I set out to make the pork and fennel meatballs, expecting partial success paired with a new urge to visit the restaurant for the real thing. But I was very pleasantly surprised to find them easy to make and hearteningly similar to the restaurant version.















It's just an assembly job - pork mince, toasted fennel seeds (not too many), breadcrumbs, seasoning and egg, mixed together and divided into balls. Start cooking them in the oven for 10 minutes, then poach in tomato sauce for 10 minutes. The book does include a recipe for making tomato sauce, but I used good-quality shop-bought passata. And that's it - really, that's all. Serve 3 per person with some kind of bread and either a green salad or Polpo's lovely runner bean salad recipe.

Yum, eh?