Pork Meatballs with Creamy Polenta

Ingredients

• 500g pork mince
• 1 egg, beaten
• 60g gluten-free breadcrumbs
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tbsp garlic-infused olive oil
• sea salt and black pepper, to season
• 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 200ml passata
• 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 150g coarse polenta
• 300ml lactose-free milk (plus 400ml water)
• 50g parmesan, finely grated
• Crusty ciabatta, to serve

Method

1. Mash the cooked red lentils briefly with a fork until broken down — you want them disappearing into the mix, not whole. Tip into a bowl with the pork mince, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, Dijon, oregano and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Mix with your hands until just combined — overworked mince goes tight and bouncy, so stop the moment it holds together.
2. Shape into 16 small meatballs, roughly walnut-sized. Heat the garlic-infused oil in a stainless or cast-iron frying pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Brown the meatballs in two batches — crowd the pan and the meat steams in its own water instead of building that deep caramelised crust. Turn every minute or so until burnished on all sides, about 5–6 minutes a batch. They don't need to be cooked through yet; you're after colour and the sticky brown bits left in the pan.
3. Pour the chopped tomatoes and passata into a wide saucepan with a splash of water — the liquid is what breaks the tomatoes down so they taste of fruit, not tin. Stir in the grated carrot (it melts in and quietly sweetens the sauce), season well with salt and pepper and bring to a low simmer.
4. Slip the browned meatballs into the sauce along with any sticky residue from the pan, cover and simmer gently for 12–15 minutes until cooked through and the sauce has reduced to something glossy and rich that coats the back of a spoon.
5. While the meatballs simmer, bring the milk and water to a gentle boil in a saucepan with a good pinch of salt — polenta needs seasoning from the start or it tastes flat no matter what you stir in later. Whisk in the polenta in a slow, steady stream to avoid lumps, then drop the heat low and cook for 6–8 minutes, stirring regularly, until thick, smooth and pulling away from the sides of the pan.
6. Off the heat, beat the grated parmesan through the polenta until silky and spoonable. Taste, season, taste again — it should hold a soft mound on the plate but slump gently under a ladle of sauce. Adjust now, not at the table.
7. Stir the chopped parsley through the tomato sauce just before serving and taste it one more time for salt — the parmesan in the polenta is salty, so the sauce can take a touch less.
8. Spoon the parmesan polenta into shallow bowls, nestle four meatballs on top of each, ladle over plenty of glossy tomato sauce, then scatter the extra parsley and finish with a final grating of parmesan over each plate.