Porcupines

Porcupines

I grew up with these being one of the variety of meatball dishes that we'd have at home on a regular basis. Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with mash, and sometimes as leftovers just on their own (well, with the sauce they were cooked in)

The simplest description of them is probably meatballs with rice spikes poking out of them, providing the name to the dish. The rice goes in raw and cooks with the meatball in the sauce.

Ingredients

^{Not really that many things in this basic and cheap version}

500 grams Mince
1 Onion, Grated
1/2 cup Rice
2 cloves Garlic, Crushed
1/4 cup Parsley, Chopped
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 jar Pasta Sauce

Method

• Mix all the ingredients (except the Pasta Sauce) together in a bowl.

^{Pretty sure you know how this goes. all these ingredients get mixed by hand until a consistent mixture exists}

• Roll 1 tablespoon at a time of the mixture into a ball, repeating until the mixture is all turned into balls

^{I probably could have stretched it a bit better to make 20. Some of these 19 turned out to be quite large in the end}

• Bring the Pasta Sauce to the boil in a large saucepan, before reducing to a simmer.

^{This is probably the blandest tomato sauce you can start with. It's pretty much just pureed tomatoes}

• Add the balls to the pasta sauce and simmer with a lid on for 40 minutes.

^{There seems to be quite a lot of sauce, but the balls will grow and the sauce will reduce}

• Stir gently about every 10 minutes to mix the balls around in the sauce and ensure they cook evenly

^{See what I mean. Much better sauce to ball ratio}

• Serve on spaghetti

^{Tasty bowl of pasta and meatballs}

Thoughts

I really like these, but I would make the balls smaller in future. I mentioned above that I could have spread it to make 20, but I really think 24 would have been better.
The sauce is something that is really good to modify. Add whatever herbs and spices you want to. You could even switch it out for a gravy if you preferred. Especially if you plan on having them with mashed potato.
I'm a fan of having them with pasta, but they work well in any way you'd have any other type of meatballs.

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