Spiced Lamb Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

• 600 g lamb mince
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 5 garlic cloves, 2 minced for meatballs, 3 minced for sauce
• 40 g fresh breadcrumbs
• fresh flat-leaf parsley and flatbreads, to serve
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• salt and black pepper
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 onions, 1 grated for meatballs, 1 finely diced for sauce
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon, for the sauce
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 50 g pine nuts, lightly toasted and roughly chopped
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 0.5 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp dried mint
• 0.5 tsp ground allspice, for the sauce

Method

1. Tip the lamb mince, cooled red lentils, pine nuts, cumin, ground coriander, cinnamon, allspice, dried mint, beaten egg, breadcrumbs, grated onion and minced garlic into a large bowl. Season generously with salt and pepper — this is your one shot at seasoning the meatballs from the inside. Mix with clean hands until completely uniform, no streaks of mince or dry pockets of breadcrumb. Cover and refrigerate for 20 minutes so the breadcrumbs hydrate and the mix firms up enough to roll cleanly.
2. Roll into walnut-sized balls, around 35–40g each, pressing firmly between your palms so they hold their shape. You should get roughly 20. Loose meatballs fall apart in the sauce — compact ones stay whole.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a large wide stainless or cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Brown the meatballs in two batches, 3–4 minutes a batch, turning until burnished on all sides. Don't crowd the pan — all twenty at once and steam comes out, the meatballs grey, and you've lost the fond that builds the sauce. They don't need to be cooked through yet. Lift onto a plate.
4. Reduce the heat to medium and add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the same pan, with all those sticky brown bits still in it. Fry the diced onion for 7 minutes, stirring now and then, until soft and golden at the edges and starting to catch on the fond.
5. Add the garlic, cinnamon and allspice. Bloom for 30–60 seconds, stirring constantly, until everything smells warm and fragrant — the spices need oil and heat to taste of themselves rather than dust. Watch the garlic; pale gold is the target, anything darker turns the sauce bitter.
6. Stir in the tomato puree and the chopped roasted red pepper and cook for 2 minutes, letting the puree darken to a deeper rust — that's the raw tinny edge cooking out. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and the stock, scraping up the fond from the bottom. The liquid is what breaks the tomatoes down into a proper sauce; bare tinned tomatoes simmered briefly just taste of heated tin. Season, and simmer for 6 minutes until the sauce thickens and the oil pools at the edges.
7. Nestle the meatballs back into the sauce along with any resting juices. Reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer gently for 20 minutes until the meatballs are cooked through and the sauce is glossy and fragrant. Taste, season, taste again — adjust now, not at the table.
8. Bring the pan to the table. Drizzle the loosened tahini over the meatballs in lazy ribbons, scatter generously with torn mint and chopped parsley, and serve straight from the pan with warm flatbreads or steamed rice alongside to mop up the sauce.